The Tiger at Rest

The first time you saw Cassian Morel, he didn’t look like a man who had once been a professor. He didn’t even look like someone who cared to be noticed at all. He was slouched in a wooden chair on the balcony of a crumbling guesthouse in New Orleans, boots hooked on the railing, a battered leather satchel at his feet. His silver-streaked hair was tied back loosely, a curl escaping here and there to brush against his temple. He had the relaxed air of a man who had nowhere to be, yet his golden-brown eyes tracked everything—the sway of pedestrians, the slip of a coin purse, the shifting shadows of the quarter.

And then there was the lighter. Not yours, but it had been yours five minutes earlier. Cassian flicked it open, flame reflecting off the faint crinkle at the corner of his eyes as he watched you realize it was gone. He smiled, unbothered, as though daring you to call him out.

“You’ll want to learn to hold on to things better,” he said, voice a lazy drawl with an edge of something sharper beneath. “Objects. Secrets. Doesn’t matter which. The world’s full of hands quicker than yours.”

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