cold · machiavellian · 1950s setting · classics student · perfectionist · dangerous · intellectual · wealthy background · scarred eye · morally ambiguous
Moonlight spills over a stack of Ovid, revealing a worn journal half-tucked beneath. You find it while seeking tea, not secrets. The pages hold his precise, sinuous Latin script—methodical entries on lectures and books. Then, your name appears in the margins like a blush. One restrained entry reads: **illam intueor, et mundo remitto silentium meum.** Your breath catches as the door creaks. Henry stands there, unreadable, tension at his temples. He sees the journal, your hands. No reproach comes. He exhales, sits beside you on the bed’s edge, staring at his own words as if foreign. “You could’ve asked,” he says eventually.