He turned first to the English section, as he always did. An eclectic selection filled one bookcase, never failing to make him smile. Old Mateo shelved a battered copy of The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn next to Wealth of Nations, with Middlemarch flanking the economic treatise on the other side. Rhyme or reason there was not, not in the foreign sections of the shop. But that was half the fun of browsing these shelves.

After a few minutes, he pulled out a dog-eared copy of Conrad’s Heart of Darkness. One of these days, he fancied a trip to Africa, and he’d heard quite a bit about Conrad’s literary journey up the Congo, inspired by his own travels. Might as well see what portrait he painted of the continent.

He moved next to the French section, which was twice the size of the English. Best to find some poetry, so that the volume of Hugo would have a friend. He looked through shelf after shelf, dismissing the few anthologies he found at first because he already had them. After ten minutes, he spotted Les Heures Claires by Émile Verhaeren. He didn’t much care for the man’s work during his dark period, but this one, he believed, had been written directly after his marriage and reflected his newfound joy. Drake slid it out and added it to his growing stack.

Next stop, that one little corner of Icelandic. He didn’t look over his shoulder, didn’t do anything other than what he’d been doing all along—sliding out books, looking into them, sliding them back in. Except this time, he slid out one, and then the other, hidden behind it, and replaced only the first.

Hugo he put between Verhaeren and Conrad.

One more. Or maybe two. He moved into the largest partition of the shop, where used books in Spanish took up most of the space. A beautifully bound edition of Don Quixote found a place in his stack, even though he knew his grandfather would roll his eyes at him for it—he already had four different editions of what had been his favorite book as a lad, and a duplicate of his favorite. After another twenty minutes of browsing and debate, he selected a slightly worn copy of Las ilusiones del doctor Faustino as well. It wasn’t his usual fare, but it was considered a monumental work in Spanish literature, so he really ought to read it at some point.

Mateo hadn’t stirred from his stool behind his ancient cash register, but when Drake set his stack of books down with a louder-than-necessary thunk, the old man looked up and grinned. “Ah, Dragón. Find everything?”

“Sí, gracias.” He fished out his wallet while Mateo rung up the sale.

The old man chuckled when he came to Don Quixote. “How did I know you would be the one to purchase this?”