Sloane Lindquist's Arc

Chapter 3 of 4

Hours later, the library had emptied. Sloane stayed at the back table, pretending to read while he closed his portfolio and stacked his ledgers. "Micah," someone had called him earlier across the room, and she had filed the name away like a coin in her pocket. He stood to leave. She stood too. At the front doors, rain hammered the steps in sheets. The lamp outside threw warm light across the wet stone. Micah sighed and opened a black umbrella with a polished leather handle. Sloane kept her face calm, but inside she smiled. The weather had handed her a gift. "I forgot mine," she said, light and even. He gave her a flat look. "You should be more prepared." He held the umbrella higher. "Stay close. I'm not slowing down for you." They stepped out together. The umbrella was wide, but the rain blew sideways, and her uniform sleeve darkened along the shoulder. She didn't mention it. He noticed anyway. Without a word, he reached into his coat and pressed a folded handkerchief into her hand. Soft cloth. A small embroidered crest in the corner — his family's merchant mark. "Keep it," he said. "I don't want it back." She closed her fingers around it. He kept walking, eyes ahead, jaw tight, as if he had just spent something he could not get back. Sloane matched his pace under the umbrella and said nothing. She had not won the confession. But he had given her a piece of his name, his shelter, and his crest in one night — and she knew, finally, that his distance was costing him too.