Chapter 34: Flesh and Fiction
Maria glanced between the two of them with concern—oblivious on the surface, but not entirely blind to the tension that hung in the air like static. Her brows furrowed slightly as she exhaled a soft sigh.
"You don't need to answer that," she said gently, offering a small, knowing smile. "I don't think you want to anyways."
She chuckled as she rose to her feet, gathering the pile of books into her arms. Her chair scraped softly against the polished marble floor, the sound echoing faintly in the quiet corner of the library.
"I'll give you two some alone time to... sort out whatever this is," she added playfully, her voice light and teasing—though tinged with an undertone of curiosity.
"I'll borrow these books in the meantime. The line's probably insane by now, especially with the rest of the classes just finishing up."
With a polite, practiced bow, she turned and began to walk off—her golden hair catching the library's amber light as she moved toward the center. There, nestled among shelves and soft arcane glows, sat a middle-aged professor at a small open office desk. Magical artifacts, scrolls, and weathered tomes were scattered around him like fragments of a carefully controlled storm. His expression was stern but not unkind, reading glasses perched on his nose with scholarly precision as he reviewed something with focused detachment.
Silas's gaze lingered on the man's face, his mind beginning to drift into idle analysis of the professor's features—how ordinary he looked amidst the mystical surroundings.
But before he could disappear into that thought, Victoria's voice sliced through his wandering attention like a blade, sharp and sudden.
"Come on! You're from Earth too, aren't you?!"