Over her first two days in John Webber’s apartment, Cassie cannot relax, expecting to be thrown out at any moment. Webber repeatedly makes Cassie retell her story and quizzes details, seeming unsure whether he disbelieves her or is testing its consistency.

On the second evening, Cassie’s admiration for Webber’s shelves of books sparks a warmer connection. They spend hours talking about what they have read and want to read, and Cassie cooks simple food and tea as they bond over the shared comfort of books.

On the third day, instead of sending her away, Webber asks how he can help Cassie get home. Cassie explains her original plan to find Drummond Fox but why it is impossible because Fox is hiding from the woman hunting the books; she insists she came to Webber because he is supposed to give her the Book of Doors, but Webber still does not have it. Webber proposes they search for the Book of Doors together, reasoning that Cassie’s arrival may be what leads him to obtain it in the first place, and Cassie embraces the idea as consistent with what she has heard about time travel.

The search stretches from days into weeks and months as Cassie falls into a stable routine in New York: morning walks to chase leads, shared lunches with Webber amid his books, afternoons reading or cleaning, and evenings eating together and talking or reading in companionable silence. Cassie’s body changes as she grows fitter, and her mind keeps drifting to the Fox Library and to Drummond Fox, hoping he is safe and that she will see him again.

Months become years, and Cassie and Webber quietly form an improvised family through holidays and shared habits. Cassie learns Webber’s past—his lonely childhood, his music career, and how composing simple TV theme tunes in the 1990s made him wealthy enough to buy his apartment and many books. As seasons cycle and the search yields only vague references to other “special books,” Cassie’s urgency slowly fades into comfort, and she admits she partly fears returning to danger; Webber urges Cassie to live in the moment and see the time as a gift rather than an agony.

After a discouraging night, Cassie has a jolting flashback to the apartment in the future, realizing the clothes in Webber’s wardrobe and books on the windowsill had been hers all along—proof she will remain here for years and that the Book of Doors will not be found quickly. Accepting that her only route home is simply letting time pass, Cassie stops searching and resigns herself to traveling to the future day by day.