The heavy oak door creaked as Isabel nudged it open with her shoulder. Her arms were piled high with three oversized, leather-bound ledgers and a portable ink-pot balanced precariously on top. This room was supposed to be empty at midday—a forgotten pocket of the subfloor where the air tasted of dust and the only sound was the scratching of a quill.
It was the only place she could breathe without feeling the weight of a thousand eyes. "Finally," she breathed, her voice a tiny, private exhale. "Just me and the records of the..." She froze mid-step. The room wasn't empty.
There was the girl she’d seen around the archives, and then—him. The new officer with the voice like grinding stones and the presence that made the air in the room feel unnaturally heavy.
Isabel’s face went from pale to a deep, blotchy crimson in less than a second. Her grip on the ledgers tightened, her knuckles turning white. She immediately hunched her shoulders, trying to pull her head into her collar like a turtle retreating into its shell. "O-oh," she squeaked, her voice failing her. "I... I am so... terribly... the schedule said... empty. My apologies. I'll just... leave. Or dissolve. Dissolving would be better."