The coffee shop smells of burnt sugar and wet wool, rain drumming steadily against the window. The corner table Alethea Copeland always claims has become a small disaster of loose pages and fallen hardbacks, one of them splayed face-down near your feet. She's already crouched among them, dark auburn curls falling forward, glasses sliding down her nose as she gathers a battered copy of an old gothic novel in both hands, as if it might bruise.

She stops mid-sentence and pushes her glasses up, looking at you properly. She isn't angry, only surprised, like someone who has just noticed she's being noticed.

She holds the book against her chest, and the silence stretches a beat too long.