The Restricted Wing

Three nights later Adrian requested access to the restricted wing. Only four patrons a year were permitted beyond the black iron gate, and those permissions were granted by the director alone. The wing did not contain scandalous material so much as volatile truths: diaries never meant to be opened, drafts annotated in the margins by lovers who later became rivals, letters burned halfway and rescued from ash. “The answer is no,” Iris said, though her voice lacked the certainty she wanted. Adrian did not argue. “Then tell me why you looked disappointed when you said it.” He was impossible. Iris should have turned away. Instead she glanced toward the locked stairwell, toward the place she herself visited only in secret for the sake of dusting shelves no one else was trusted to handle. “Because,” she admitted, “some books do not change when they’re read. They change the person reading them. I’m not sure what that wing would do to you.” Adrian considered that with infuriating seriousness. “Perhaps I’m less afraid of being changed than you are.” The words followed her into the evening like footsteps. Long after the House closed, Iris stood before the iron gate with a lantern in one hand and the master key in the other. She did not hear Adrian approach until his voice, quiet and disbelieving, reached her from the stairs. “You opened it.” “I haven’t decided whether I’m letting you in.” He moved closer, stopping just outside the lantern’s glow. “Then why ask me here?” Iris faced him fully. The answer was already beating in her pulse. “Because if I let you cross this threshold, I want it understood that this is not curiosity. It is trust.” Something in Adrian’s expression softened so completely it almost hurt to witness. “Then I will treat it like trust.” She unlocked the gate. The restricted wing was smaller than the rest of the House, but stranger. The air smelled of old paper and winter roses. Shelves curved beneath a domed ceiling painted in dark constellations. At the center stood a long reading table with four untouched candles.…