“What’s your name?”The middle-aged man invited Ryan farther inside after the other guests had left.“Ryan Volde.”Ryan saw no reason to hide it now that he knew the man had once been part of Blackthorn.The man smiled.“My name is Edwin Harrow. I left Blackthorn several decades ago.”Ryan caught the wording.Not graduated.Left.But Edwin clearly had no intention of explaining further, so Ryan didn’t ask.“What year are you?”“Freshman.”This time, Edwin looked genuinely surprised.“You just enrolled?”“Yes.”“And a Blackthorn freshman is already wandering around Argenthold?”Ryan only smiled.Edwin didn’t pursue the question.That made Ryan feel a little more comfortable. If the man had lived in Asterra for decades, he probably understood that i

“I got most of them almost by accident. Some were given to me, some were abandoned, and some I bought for next to nothing decades ago.”Edwin patted the chest.“If you find anything useful, take it.”Ryan looked at the hundreds of notebooks inside.“All of them?”Edwin went silent too.“You want to take the entire chest?”Ryan cleared his throat.“I mean... I was just making sure.”Edwin burst out laughing.“No. Not all at once.”