The booth they settled into was quiet—softly lit, sound-insulated, with just enough room for two people to work without bumping into each other. The tabletop was a dark matte surface with a built-in projection grid, idle and waiting.
Isabelle sat down across from him with her usual precision—back straight, motion smooth—and without a word, reached into her bag.
First came her tablet. Slim, black, and already open to a modular note app lined with tabs and color-coded bookmarks.
Then came the rest.
One after another, she pulled out a neat stack of handwritten notes—bound in thin folders, sorted by subject, and annotated in her meticulous script. Math. Social sciences. Diagrams, cue sheets, even two small, laminated flowcharts clipped to the inside of one folder. She laid them out across the table like components of a field operation.
Damien watched the whole performance unfold in silence, one eyebrow slowly climbing.
Then—
"Wow," he said finally, almost admiringly.
