**BOOK 1 IN THE TALES FROM DROMISSE SERIES**
Silvia considers herself the luckiest woman in all Dromisse. Her soon-to-be fiancé, Duncan Ora, is a candidate for Light Within, the greatest gift that the Almighty Gale can bestow upon someone. Then a ra...
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Day 301, Year 1006
Ten years later
A new business goes up, another goes down. A lady's purse is snatched in broad daylight. An old man invents better binoculars for bird watching. A criminal named Hazel Shepherd is reported in a small west coast town. Someone is found stabbed in a back alley—still alive, but in poor condition. The news headlines are as tumultuous ocean waves, and too often they turn into a riptide that sucks Silvia down, down, down. She folds the paper on the table and brushes it aside.
The clock chimes six times, and a knock on the front door urges her to her feet. Evan stands outside, wearing pure white robes and a red sash. He gives a jovial, "Hello!" as he steps past her. He glances at the kitchen table, throwing a scoff over his shoulder. "It's not newspaper time, silly. Haven't you been following the itinerary?" He twirls around and places a kiss on her lips that warms her entire body. After pulling away he says, "Where's Emily?"
Silvia savors the balmy peck. "I know your schedule keeps you organized, but how helpful is it for you to know when I read the newspaper?" She tosses the paper onto a small stack by the garbage can. "Emily is at the library with Lucy. Would you like to come with me to pick her up? Or is that disrupting your perfectly segmented time?" She sighs internally; Evan's meticulousness is quirky at best, and flat-out irritating at worst. Punctuality is his life and law, and the anxiety he gets when she doesn't follow his schedule is staggering. She wonders when the trait will morph from charmingly eccentric into obnoxious.
Evan slides his jaw forward and glances at a clock. "You normally start dinner at six ..." He taps his hands together. "It's too dark to let you walk alone. Let me get changed. I came here right off work." He runs up the nearby stairs, trailing his robes behind him, a briefcase clutched in his hand. When he comes back, he wears a dapper dark suit with a tie, a fedora angled on his gelled hair. He sets the briefcase by the kitchen table and offers Silvia his arm. "Shall we?"
"We shall." Silvia beams rows of pearly teeth. She loops her arm around his, and they step out into the chilly air. Their breath sends out cloudy wisps, and she rests her head against his shoulder. He radiates heat like a handsome little fireplace. She melts into his form as they battle the wintry cold that blusters through the city.
Soon they make their way to an old but well-kept property a few blocks from the apartment, proudly declaring itself as Precipyre Library. Aged bricks stack up three stories tall, with stones forming arching doorways across the façade. Inside are rows of bookcases to the right, and a plethora of desks to the left. The second story is a looping pathway that snakes around the open room, and the third floor can be seen just beyond it. Lights dangle from the center of the ceiling on long cords, with a bulb strung every five feet along.
Silvia sweeps her eyes about, breathing in dust and old paper. "Emily?"
Emily's piercing giggle cuts the air. She and Lucy sit at a table with books stacked in a haphazard tower. Lucy is carefully removing a book from the middle, and the entire tower begins to topple. As it falls, a man with white eyebrows and a white goatee catches it.
