Sam picked up the papers, covered on both sides with his spiky writing, and shuffled them into some kind of order. He smiled as he did it; how long had it been since he’d written a stack of pages like this? A year, two years. Not since college.

The stolen letter was the first chapter – he’d have to try and remember it at some point. This second chapter of … whatever it was he was writing, began with a heading, with the words Blood and Sand.

He put the pages to one side. Though he was tired, he didn’t want to stop. If he stopped, he might start thinking too hard about what he’d done, taking a stranger’s possessions from the Hotel Continental, pawing through them, writing about them, like a voyeur.

Inspiration, he told himself, that’s all this is. And anyway, A. L.’s long gone. Rubbing his face, he dipped the ink pen again, and turned over the sheet of paper he’d been writing on.

Pencil marks caught his eye, silvery in the dim light, like veins beneath skin. He blinked hard. Was he seeing things?

Words. There were words, scrawled across the page at a hasty angle, in pencil so faint it didn’t show on the other side of the paper. A drop of ink splattered from the pen and he swore. What if he’d ruined the page by writing on the other side, made it illegible? He dropped the pen into the ink bottle and held the page directly under the lamp to see.

Sure enough, blue ink had seeped through, making the letters difficult to decipher. Why hadn’t he been more careful? This page had been in the writing case the whole time, waiting for him, if he’d only been patient enough to look for it.

He turned the page this way and that, peering at the shining lead letters. Only when he brought it closer to his face did he see the top line:

A,

A what? An initial, an address? Was this a letter to A. L. – just like the one he had written in the café?

He sat back, eyeing the paper. He was burning with curiosity and yet this page – whatever it was – had never been intended for him. What if it contained something deeply personal?

Almost unintentionally, his eyes strayed back to the paper. It was no use; he had to know.

D Portuna, 28.7.28

A,

I am sorry.

One day, I hope you’ll understand.

*