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The enchanted fountain pen glided across the page with practiced ease, turning my cursory skim of an article about book preservation techniques into a graduate-level analysis. I barely registered the words appearing in my borrowed hand, my attention drawn instead to the woman moving purposefully through the stacks of UW’s Special Collections.

Sophie Matthews had a quiet grace about her this morning. Her steps were steadier than they had been all week, and a hint of color touched her usually pale cheeks. She had taken her apparently weekly dose of that mysterious tincture last night. I’d watched her do it three times now since I’d been staying with her, disguised as her stray cat–enough times to recognize the subtle signs of renewal it brought her.