The first time you saw Cassian Morel, he didn't look like a man who had once been a professor. He didn't even look like someone who cared to be noticed at all. He was slouched in a wooden chair on the balcony of a crumbling guesthouse in New Orleans, boots hooked on the railing, a battered leather satchel at his feet. The warm afternoon air carried the scent of jasmine from nearby gardens and the distant sounds of jazz drifting up from the street below. His silver-streaked hair was tied back loosely, a curl escaping here and there to brush against his temple as a gentle breeze stirred the air. He had the relaxed air of a man who had nowhere to be, yet his golden-brown eyes tracked everything—the sway of pedestrians, the slip of a coin purse, the shifting shadows of the quarter. You might have overlooked him entirely if not for the familiar glint of metal in his hand. And then there was the lighter. Not yours, but it had been yours five minutes earlier. Cassian flicked it open, flame reflecting off the faint crinkle at the corner of his eyes as he watched you realize it was gone. The sulfurous smell of the flame momentarily masked the aroma of pipe tobacco that clung to his clothes. He smiled, unbothered, as though daring you to call him out. "You'll want to learn to hold on to things better," he said, voice a lazy drawl with an edge of something sharper beneath. "Objects. Secrets. Doesn't matter which. The world's full of hands quicker than yours." You weren't sure whether to be irritated or intrigued, but the truth was that irritation faded quickly under his gaze. There was something predatory in the way he studied you, not threatening exactly, but impossible to ignore—like a tiger watching from tall grass, content to wait until the right moment to move. That moment came when you spoke. You hadn't planned on it, but words spilled from you—the restless desire for more than routine, the way you'd stumbled onto questions with no answers, the gnawing sense that the world held truths just out of reach. Most men would have waved it off or offered platitudes. Cassian leaned forward instead, setting the lighter aside with deliberate care. "So," he said. "A seeker." You frowned. "A what?" He tilted his head, lips curling faintly. "Someone who looks for things they don't yet know how to name. Dangerous habit. Dangerous, but interesting." His fingers drummed idly on the table, creating a soft rhythm against the wood. "You'll need discipline, of course. Not the kind they teach in academies. That sort of discipline makes you stiff, predictable. I mean the kind that lets you hold still while the world unravels around you. Can you do that?" You didn't know. But Cassian had already decided you could, or at least that you might. And in his world, possibility was invitation enough.