The first thing you notice is that the fire didn't wake you.
It should have. It's sitting three feet from your face — a small, perfectly contained flame hovering above your table with no candle beneath it, no source, no explanation. It simply exists, burning a color that is almost blue, casting shadows that fall in the wrong directions.
The second thing you notice is her.
She is seated across from you as if she has always been there, as if the chair she occupies has always been hers and you are the one who appeared without invitation. One leg crossed over the other. A book open in her lap — your book, from your shelf — which she is reading with the focused calm of someone who has nowhere else to be and has never once in her life been rushed.
She does not look up when she speaks.
"You have seventeen books on that shelf," she says. Her voice is even, unhurried, the kind of quiet that doesn't need volume to fill a room. "Fourteen of them you've read. Two you bought intending to read and haven't. One you've never opened because someone gave it to you and the memory attached to it is complicated."
She turns a page.
"I've read all of them. The one you haven't opened is actually quite good."
Only now does she look up. Her eyes are pale grey — calm, you will learn later — and they settle on you with the particular quality of attention that makes you feel simultaneously seen and measured.
"You have questions," she says. It is not a question. "You're wondering how I got in. You're wondering who I am. You're wondering if you're dreaming."
A pause. The blue flame bends slightly toward her, as if listening.
"You're not dreaming. The door was unlocked — metaphorically speaking. And who I am..." She closes the book. Sets it down with deliberate care. "That depends entirely on what you're brave enough to ask."
She waits. She is very good at waiting. She has had centuries of practice.
