19. Artemis #3
“Correcting them. Arguing with them. Crossing things out. Writing alternative endings. Adding commentary in the margins so aggressively that librarians started finding multiple conflicting versions of the same work circulating at once.” I gestured vaguely, because my hands had opinions too.
“The fear wasn’t loss, but contamination.
Someone else’s certainty overwriting the original. ”
The curiosity in his gaze sent a delicious shiver down my spine.
“So the books were restrained,” he said slowly, “because readers could not be trusted?”
“Because readers were too confident in the knowledge they possessed,” I corrected. “Which is objectively worse.”
He chuckled, but it was a sound of awe.
“There’s a reason marginalia makes archivists nervous,” I continued, because now I was caught up in it.
“It’s not damage. It’s evidence that a book mattered enough for someone to argue with it instead of just absorbing it.
Archivists are taught to preserve texts as fixed records.
Marginalia disrupts that. It shows a book was not just read but engaged with, altered, and argued against.”
I paused, then added, “Most of the most valuable reader notes we have only survived because someone ignored protocol and decided not to erase them.”
“That,” he said finally, “is an extraordinary fact.”
“Thank you,” I said, trying and failing to sound casual. “I warned you.”
He looked at me like he was seeing a familiar map in a new light. Like something had clicked into place that he had not realized was missing.
“And,” he added thoughtfully, “it explains why you were so careful about explaining the marginalia to me.”
“Yes,” I said.
He let the truth sit there between us, respected and intact.
“Thirty seconds,” I said eventually, because I needed the rules back before my emotions started free-range grazing. “Your turn again.”
Arthur did not hesitate this time. That alone told me something.
He shifted slightly on the bed, one shoulder angling toward me like he had decided to stay instead of retreating into courtesy. His gaze dropped, focused on the wine in his glass.
“There is a phenomenon in urban studies where people feel a sense of belonging to a place they have never lived, simply because it reflects their internal rhythms. It’s called place attachment without residence.”
I stilled.
“It occurs most often in cities built in layers,” he continued. “Places where history presses close. Edinburgh is one of the most cited examples.”
“That’s… very specific,” I said.
“Yes.”
“And you just happened to know that?”
He hesitated, then his eyes met mine, something unguarded passing across his face.
“I’ve never been here before, but I read about it when I was younger. I thought… if I were ever allowed to travel, this would be one of the places I would choose.”
Oh.
I cleared my throat, trying to tamp down the spark that had ignited low in my belly when he’d made eye contact. “Timer expired. You passed.”
Rounds blurred together, facts trading places between us like a language we both spoke instinctively.
He told me about pigments in medieval manuscripts that faded differently depending on the prayers they were bound with, iron gall ink biting deeper into vellum on devotional pages touched too often by reverent hands.
I countered with how librarians could date a book within a decade just by the pattern of foxing alone—the freckles of age clustering where humidity had once lingered too long.
He mentioned a study showing people trusted handwritten notes more than printed ones even when the content was identical, authority clinging to the illusion of a human hand.
I followed with how archives tracked panic eras by the sudden spike in cheaply printed pamphlets, fear spreading faster when paper was thin and plentiful.
We laughed easily. Somewhere along the way, I stopped counting rounds. When the wine was finished, we moved to water. His knee brushed mine and stayed there, the contact sizzling through me.
Then he brought up Jane Eyre, almost casually, mentioning that early critics called it dangerous because readers sympathized too much with a woman who wanted things.
I agreed that the outrage had never really been about the romance.
It was about autonomy. Rochester frightened people far less than Jane’s refusal to shrink.
I explained that villain came from villanus, meaning farm laborer, and only became synonymous with evil once the ruling class needed a word for poor people who refused to stay quiet. He went still at that, eyes narrowing slightly, like he was filing it somewhere important.
We spiraled outward from there. Binding errors that revealed censorship.
Marginal notes that survived because someone disobeyed protocol.
Cities designed to control bodies through narrow streets and sudden turns.
He offered facts that weren’t flashy but precise, the kind born of patience and care.
I offered the kind that came from obsession and pattern recognition and loving something long enough to see its fractures.
As we spoke, we laughed. I lost track of time somewhere between him mentioning how early maps exaggerated coastlines to protect trade routes and me explaining how archivists could date fear by ink shortages alone. All the while, his knee remained against mine like it had always belonged there.
Then Arthur paused.
I noticed immediately. I always noticed pauses.
His gaze went distant, thoughtful, like he’d reached the end of a familiar shelf and found it empty.
“I can’t think of one,” he said at last.
I smiled slowly. “That means you’re stuck.”
“Yes.”
I sat up a little straighter, my pulse kicking. “Which means…”
“I owe you a personal question.”
The room seemed to narrow around us, the air suddenly charged. The game had carried us closer without either of us quite acknowledging when.
“Yes,” I said. “You do.”
I held the question in my mouth longer than was comfortable.
I turned it over, tested the edges. Checked for sharpness.
I ran it through possible outcomes until my brain started to fuzz at the corners.
Asking questions had consequences. So did not asking them.
Usually, I chose silence, then blamed myself for the fallout.
I didn’t want to do that here.
Arthur waited without pushing. He did that a lot. Created space and trusted me to step into it. It was infuriatingly respectful.
“Okay,” I said finally, because the word was a small cliff I could jump from. “I have a personal question.”
“Yes,” he said, calm and attentive, like he had not already upended my internal filing system for the night.
I swallowed. “Why did you kiss me earlier?”
Arthur didn’t answer right away. He leaned back slightly, gaze dropping to his hands, fingers loosely laced together. Thinking. Actually thinking. That mattered to me more than whatever words were coming.
“I misjudged the moment,” he said slowly. “But I didn’t misjudge the impulse.”
That landed somewhere between my ribs and my stomach and stayed there.
He lifted his gaze back to mine. “You were kind to me. You were focused. You weren’t afraid. And that… That steadied me. I haven’t felt that way in some time.”
That made sense. It tracked. It fit the evidence.
“I didn’t intend to confuse you, or cross your boundaries,” he continued. “And I regret that I may have done so.”
“You didn’t,” I said automatically. “I mean, you did. But not in a malicious way.”
The corner of his mouth curved into an apologetic smile.
“I’m not always good at separating what I want from what I believe is prudent,” he said. “Kissing you was… what I wanted to do. But it wasn’t something I’d planned to act on.”
There it was.
Noncommittal. Careful. True, probably. Also maddeningly open to interpretation.
I sat with it, and let my brain run its diagnostics.
He’d wanted to kiss me, but he wasn’t promising anything beyond that moment. I could work with that. I could live with that. At least, I thought I could.
“Okay,” I said, because okay was my emotional duct tape. “Thank you for answering.”
He inclined his head slightly. “I think we should get some sleep.”
The words were reasonable. The timing was… unfortunate.
“Yes,” I said. “Sleep. Good plan.”
He shifted, planting his hands on the bed as if preparing to stand. “I’ll take the couch tonight.”
My chest did something unpleasant and tight.
“You don’t have to,” I said, then immediately wondered why I had said that.
He paused, glancing back at me. “I don't wish to impose.”
“You’re not imposing,” I said. “It’s a bed. You’re injured. I promise I will not interpret shared horizontal space as a legally binding romantic contract.”
That earned me a quiet huff of amusement.
Still, he stood. “I’d rest easier knowing you’re comfortable.”
So would I, but not for the same reasons.
I nodded, because pushing would turn this into something I wasn’t ready to untangle. “Okay.”
He hesitated, then took my hand and squeezed once. “Good night, Artemis.”
“Good night,” I replied.
He disappeared toward the living room, and the cottage settled around me, soft and quiet and full of unanswered questions.
I lay back against the pillows and stared at the ceiling, my thoughts looping but slower now, less sharp.
He hadn’t said he didn’t want me.
He also hadn’t said he did.
Somewhere in that gray space, my heart hovered, uncertain but still very much awake.
Which was, unfortunately, exactly where it had always been most dangerous to leave it.