On a bright March day in 2014, Addie LaRue wanders New York and revels in how a city’s endless scale lets her keep discovering new places. She notices a half-hidden used bookstore she is sure she has never seen before: The Last Word.

Inside, the shop is a crowded maze of shelves and stacked books. Addie observes a few customers, including an older man browsing and a stylish young Black woman reading in a leather chair. As Addie passes the poetry section, the familiar dark presence brushes her senses, needling her with the same taunting lines she has heard before.

Addie stops at memoirs, lingering on the idea of remembered lives, and is approached by an elderly orange cat, which she pets. A young bookseller comments that the cat, named Book, rarely bothers with people. Addie momentarily thinks the man might be the darkness in human form, but he is not; he introduces himself only by offering help before disappearing into the stacks.

When Addie later sees the bookseller at the counter with a flirtatious blond customer, she uses the distraction to slip out with a copy of The Odyssey. Expecting the usual pattern—that she will be forgotten—Addie is startled when the bookseller follows her outside, grabs her shoulder, and insists she pay.

Unable to afford the book, Addie returns it, but the bookseller (now called Henry by the Black woman) questions why she would steal a battered Greek paperback. After a brief exchange, Henry decides to let Addie keep it, calling it an “honest mistake,” and returns to the shop while Addie clutches the book, unsettled by being noticed—and not immediately erased.