Page 31 of The Words Beneath the Noise

Just to confirm it was his, I told myself. Just to see if there was a name.

The first page stopped me cold.

Handwriting I didn't recognise, looping and energetic:

For your clever thoughts and secret codes. — B.

A gift. Someone had made this with their own hands, saved ration coupons for the paper, stitched the cover with love. Someone who understood Art well enough to know what he needed.

I slipped the notebook into my pocket and continued my patrol, but my mind was elsewhere. Art would be looking for this by now. Would be tearing his room apart, retracing his steps, spiralling into the kind of panic I'd seen building in him for days.

I needed to find him.

The library was instinct. Art gravitated toward books and silence the way other men gravitated toward pubs and noise. If he was searching anywhere, he'd start with the places that felt safe.

The manor's library was a long room with tall windows and floor-to-ceiling shelves, mostly empty now. A single lamp burned on a table near the window, casting shadows across the worn carpet.

And there, moving between the shelves with jerky, desperate movements, was Art.

He looked wrecked.

Hair dishevelled from running his hands through it. Tie askew. Cardigan buttoned wrong so it hung crooked across his thin frame. His face was pale, almost grey, and even from acrossthe room I could see the fine tremor in his hands as he patted down his pockets.

Left jacket. Right jacket. Left cardigan. Right cardigan. Back to the jacket.

The same sequence, over and over. Compulsive. Anchoring. The kind of repetitive motion that happened when panic threatened to overwhelm completely.

He was talking to himself, voice too quiet to make out words, but I caught the cadence. Counting, maybe. Or reciting something memorised.

I cleared my throat.

He spun around so fast he nearly lost his balance, one hand shooting out to grip the shelf. His eyes were too wide, pupils blown, breathing rapid and shallow.

“I didn't mean to startle you,” I said, keeping my voice low and even.

“I'm not startled. I'm fine. I'm just looking for something.” His hands went back to his pockets. Pat, pat, pat. “It's small. Black. A notebook. Have you seen it? Did anyone turn something in? I need to find it. I have to find it.”

The words tumbled out too fast, syntax breaking down under stress. This was what happened when that brilliant mind got overloaded. Language stopped working properly.

“Art.” I took a step closer. “Breathe.”

“I am breathing. I'm fine.” But his voice cracked, and I watched his hands shake harder. “If Finch has it. Oh God, if Finch found it. He'd read it. He'd see everything. I can't. I need to.”

“Finch doesn't have it.”

He froze mid-pat. “What?”

“I have it.” I reached into my pocket and pulled out the notebook, holding it where he could see. “You dropped it on the bench. This what you're looking for?”

The sound he made was somewhere between a sob and a laugh. His knees buckled, and he sat down hard on the nearest chair, hands coming up to cover his face.

“You have it. You found it.” His voice was muffled by his palms. “I thought. I was so sure. If anyone had read it.”

I moved closer, crouching so I was at his eye level instead of looming over him. “I didn't read it.”

His hands slowly lowered. His eyes were wet, red-rimmed. “You didn't.”

“No.”