The city streets haven’t woken yet. Wisps of morning dew hang lightly above the ground, beading against every surface with a humid freshness, as the florid and familiar smells of damp cobble and blooming summer flora fill the air.

The moisture sticks to Caius’s face as he jogs. His breath comes in brief, steady inhales and exhales as his legs propel him down the sidewalk. After a few weeks, his wound is all but healed - the scar tissue stretches with a slight twinge as he runs, feeling the blood pump through his torso. Sweat slicks his brow, mixing with the damp around him.

He jogs up to the city square where Faust’s apartment is located. Something catches his eye - the bookshop at the far end of the plaza is opening. 

The proprietor, setting out the sign with a slight noise of wooden legs scraping against cobblestone is a man Caius hasn’t seen before. He’s tall and pale, dressed sharply in a crisp dress shirt with a black vest overlaid. His movements are graceful as he sets up the front of the store, but the most striking thing about him is the neatly side-parted shock of purely white hair that falls over the front of his face in a swoop of a bang and seems to glow in the early morning light He brushes it out of his eyes with one long-fingered hand as he leans back from the storefront to assess his work.

Caius realizes he’s slowed down, almost to walking. The sole of his sneaker scuffs against the ground under him - he almost trips and falls.

Maybe at the noise, or maybe realizing he’s being observed, the man’s gaze whips up. He looks directly at Caius. Caius misses a step in his jog with surprise - but the man smiles after a moment and waves to him, radiating friendliness. 

Taken in by curiosity, Caius jogs up to the bookstore.

“Good morning!” He says, drawing close. He stops in front of the folding sign. The letterboard that hangs above the store’s door reads Olivarius Books in gold letters.

“Good morning,” the owner replies. He has a gentle and affable air, sourced from a combination of his elegant bearing and the kind smile that adorns his handsome features. “It’s rare to see anyone else awake in this sleepy university square at this time of the morning.”

“I’m a morning person,” Caius says, instinctively smiling in return. Something about him puts one at ease. 

“It would seem so.” The owner says. His lips are a shade of nude between dark and light, a middling dry rose between crushed peony petals. “I’m Alban Mathes, owner of Olivarius Books. I’ve not seen you at this time before - are you new to the area?”

“Only to this street,” Caius says with a bashful grin, resisting the urge to scratch the back of his neck. He glances into the front window of the bookstore. “I’ve been a student at Gallus University for a while, but I’ve never stopped by your store. Do you have any books on history?”

Alban chuckles.

“A purveyor of history,” he says, gesturing towards the door, propped open with a rubber stopper. “Would you like to take a look for yourself?”

Caius steps into the bookstore. Alban follows him in, his steps all but silent on the floor of the hardwood floor of the shop. Caius takes care to avoid the occasional area rug - he feels like his training sneakers aren’t the cleanest of shoes - and looks around with wide eyes. 

It truly is a bookstore. There are shelves from floor to ceiling, tall enough that Caius would be afraid of them falling and crushing someone if they weren’t clearly such sturdy wood. The scent of the street and the outdoors falls away as soon as he steps over the threshold and the particular smell of used books, bindings and glue and sheafs of paper and knowledge, rushes up to take its place.

“Wow,” Caius says, taking in the space. The store is rather unassuming on the outside, but the interior forgoes modesty for space efficiency, and there are probably books within arm’s length of any spot in the store. There’s a curved wooden reception desk stuffed into the corner of the room like an afterthought. “This is amazing. I didn’t know there was a place like this so close to campus.”

“We do our best to serve our clients’ needs.” Alban says - his words are humble, but there’s a streak of pride in the quirk of his lips. He leads Caius to the back of the store and motions to one shelf. “This is our history section.”

“There’s so much…” Caius starts to say, but he trails off, his attention caught by something else - another, smaller shelf, all the way in the corner. It’s stacked with volumes like every other shelf. Caius isn’t sure what draws him to it. Is it the odd look of some of the books? Is it the half-hidden, almost forbidden aura of the shelf? Is it the fact that the section is unlabeled, while the rest of the areas in the store are meticulously categorized?

Alban catches the shift in his attention. His smile curls at the corners of his mouth.

“What shelf is that?” Caius asks, before he can stop himself.

“That’s the occult shelf.” Alban replies, with a crinkle at the corners of his eyes. 

Caius looks around at him, briefly surprised. He glances back to the shelf, then looks at Alban, a more serious gleam of intent fractured in his green eyes.

“Do you,” he asks, a tiny frown beginning to furrow his brow, an imperceptible pinch in the way he holds his bottom lip, “have any books on vampires?”