The world, for Dr. Alistair Finch, was best viewed through a fine layer of dust. It softened the harsh edges of the present and smelled comfortingly of the past.
Dust motes danced like constellations in the single beam of afternoon sun that pierced the gloom of his university office, illuminating the precarious ziggurats of books threatening to avalanche from every surface.
His desk was a topographical map of his own mind: ridges of leather-bound tomes, valleys of scattered research papers, and a lone, fossilized mug from which the last dregs of tea had evaporated sometime during the fall of the Visigoths.
He was, at this moment, perfectly content. The silence was broken only by the gentle crinkle of parchment as he leaned closer to a facsimile of a 14th-century land grant, his fingers tracing the ghost of a wax seal.
The script was a beautiful, looping mess, a puzzle of Latin legalese that made his heart beat a little faster.
This was his language. Not the ambiguous minefield of small talk at faculty mixers, but the clear, unyielding text of history.
Here, things were certain. Here, he was fluent.
A sharp, authoritative rap on his office door shattered the tranquility. Alistair flinched, the sound as jarring as a fire alarm in a monastery.
He considered ignoring it. Most intrusions were from students with flimsy excuses or colleagues attempting to lure him into discussions about departmental funding, a topic he found uniquely soul-crushing.
The rap came again, louder this time. With a sigh that disturbed a decade of dust on a stack of journals, he pushed his chair back.
“Enter,” he called out, his voice raspy from disuse.
The door opened to reveal not a student, but a man in a suit so sharp it looked like it could cut paper.
He held a crisp, aggressively white envelope. “Dr. Alistair Finch?” the man asked, his tone brisk and impersonal.
“I am,” Alistair confirmed, squinting as if the man’s polished shoes were emitting their own light source.
“Delivery for you.” The man stepped forward, placed the envelope on the only clear four-inch square of Alistair’s desk, and retreated with the efficiency of a well-oiled machine.
The door clicked shut, leaving the silence to rush back in, now heavier and tinged with unease.
The envelope lay there like an artifact from another planet. It bore the embossed insignia of a prestigious law firm: “Pembroke, Hayes, & Associates.”
He recognized the name. They were his grandmother’s lawyers.
Matilda Finch did nothing by half-measures, and that included her choice of legal representation.
He picked it up. The cardstock was thick, formal, and cold.
With a growing sense of foreboding, he slid a letter opener—a miniature replica of a Roman gladius—under the flap and sliced it open.