Page joined the stream of people trickling out of the lecture hall. This section in the syllabus was a little challenging, but he'd pull extra hours studying it during finals. Midterms weren't bad, so he'd have enough leeway to take it easy in the semester's final stretch. The professors were bound to give extra credit later on anyway.

He stalked across the hallway, shouldering his school bag. From the sea of undergrad and graduate students milling about, he was the only one who looked like a high school kid. Backpack, round, silver-rimmed glasses, and hair as thin and clumpy as paper on his forehead—it was the perfect combo. Some of his friends told him he walked like one too with his head forward and a carefree attitude about his grades, the outputs he needed to produce, and the tests he needed to study for.

Overall, studying wasn't hard for him. He made it a point to make the most of any educational institution he was slotted into, and that included, of course, studying. Most of his peers were here for other reasons—mostly to get connections, relationships, or the experience of lugging around binders and crying when receiving a bad mark. Not Page. He came here to learn, to dig deep into the minds of his favorite classic authors and maybe, hopefully, write his own novel someday.

His parents were against his choice of a program. His father's favorite line was, "Literature? Literature? You won't get fed with that unless you're freaking James Patterson!", with the name being the only author his father ever knew by name. None in his family were big readers, and most of them wouldn't even care to read an essay of his for 500 words. The most his sister read was a thousand-word children's book about a talking car.

If he was asked about how he turned out like this—someone able to read a five-hundred-page installment in four hours or less—he'd answer honestly: he wouldn't know. He picked up his first book at five and has never stopped since then. Words were his companions, and the worlds they described between themselves were enough to get him to forget about looming deadlines and the grimness of reality even if just for a few hours.

Classes ended for him this afternoon, and the way home was littered with all kinds of shops, each willing to bait particular types of people with their shiny wares. One particular shop caught and would always catch his eye whenever he made it in this part of town. Macy's Bookshop was a cozy nook in the middle of a busy city with bustling roads, crowds of flitting people, and the never-ending droll traffic and mindless commute. He discovered it when he was in highschool, desperately looking for his next read.

With a skipping heart, he punched through the glass door polished everyday by the same person manning the counter. A bell dinged as a signal of his entry, the high trill echoing to the death behind him as he tramped to where the cashier was. Behind the splintering wooden counter with peeling green paint, a woman with huge, red-rimmed glasses, bobbed apricot hair, and a lopsided smile looked from counting the coins in the registry. The eyes behind her lenses sparkled with recognition.

"Page! Nice of you to drop by," Iris, the shop's owner said. "Anything you're looking for today?"

He ducked his head at her, unslinging his back and resting it on the series of boxes lining the counter. They were unopened deliveries, each one bulkier than the last. The rest of the shop was in complete disarray, with stacks of books with the spines facing towards the average customer strewn about in dusty tables, moth-eaten couches, the sides of the creaky staircase, the alcove below the stairs, and even the mantle and firebox of the fireplace.

When he asked Iris about the piles, she chuckled and waved a dismissive hand in front of his face. Standing two heads shorter than him, she succeeded only in backhanding him on the chest. "I'll get to those when I can, dear lad," she said. That was five years ago. Page had known her for seven.

"Just asking if you have the latest installment for The Thorns of Fate series?" He studied Iris from behind the counter as she processed his answer. Dressed in her usual cardigan over a floral dress paired with socks tucked into a pair of buckled, leather boots, she looked to be in her fifties when she was twenty years younger. She had inherited this shop from her mother, the original Macy, when she was twelve, and has been running it ever since. Page only came into the picture when she was about twenty-three, making her only eight years older.

Iris blinked. "Thorns of Fate, you say?" She tapped her chin, whirling away from the register and into the room locked by the counter's semi-circle. That inaccessible room had always been Page's curiosity, but even though he and Iris went way back, she hasn't let him explore or even told him what was there. She either changed the topic or asked him to clarify his acquisition requests before punching out a receipt or a borrowing slip. "Let me check the back."

Page stood on his tiptoes, watching her throw the door open and fighting to have peek into Iris' own version of a forbidden room. There were probably more books there, ones that wouldn't even hit the shelves until next year or something. Advanced copies? Plausible. The door promptly shut in his face, shutting him out. From beyond the swinging wooden wall, Iris' faint hums could be heard. It was either a folk song Page wasn't familiar with or a new radio hit. It was almost impossible to tell with the woman.

After an eternity, the door flew open and spat out Iris bearing a hardbound. Even with Page's distance from the counter, he saw the thick layer of dust coating it and the binding twine hanging out from its tattered and detaching spine. Oh, that book has seen shit.

The dust billowed out in a musty cloud when Iris slammed the book on the counter. Page coughed and wafted the air when the particles attempted to assault his nose. "What the hell?" he demanded.

Iris gestured towards the book as if it was some sort of ancient treasure. "No Thorns of Fate, but let me recommend to you this gem hidden in my pile for so long," she said. "This is a classic tale, a fight between good and evil, and if you like Thunder & Lightning, you'll like this one."

"Does it have enemies to lovers?" Page asked. He had been drawn to the trope for quite sometime now. Otherwise, he wouldn't have picked up Thorns of Fate. The female lead in that series couldn't have been so daft about all things romance, and the male lead has done everything he could to show he loved her except, maybe...tell her. The slowburn was especially enraging, but that was part of the thrill. Plus, the overarching arc was interesting enough to wade through the miscommunication arc.

Iris pushed the book towards Page, daring him to snatch it off the counter. "It has all that and more," she said. "Just take it. I'll even give it to you for free. No borrowing fee. Not even an overdue fee. Read it for as long as you like!"

Which was a suspicious thing now that Page thought about it. Why was Iris adamant on pushing it onto him? He doubted this book even had what he looked for. Still, Iris had that hopeful look on her face that made him think, you know what? Why not? She was a sweet lady looking to recommend her favorites. Perhaps she didn't have any close associates she could talk to about it, so she had to make do with a random kid who frequented her shop. Readers could be solitary creatures. Sure.

That was how he ended up tucking the book underneath an arm and walking home with it. As soon as he was done with homework, he plopped onto bed and propped the book open. It was a story of a fairy who was battling creatures of the dark. Oh, Iris might be onto something. This was fire.

And so, Page began his journey in the land inside the book. A land filled with dust, magic, beautiful fairies.