Diggory Discount Books sat opposite the train station. The shop had been around in its current form for around thirty years, but the building it resided in predated that by a considerable margin. It had been built as the pack house of the Bronze Moon pack. Generations of wolves had grown up within its walls. 

The pack was long gone, and the other pack buildings had been torn down as Diggory became just another northeastern Corviston suburb in the 1980s. But it was still here, now incorporated rather incongruously into one corner of the Diggory Plaza in the centre of town. It smelled of damp in the winter, and the roof timbers creaked like an old ship with the strong winds that regularly blew across the plain.Brendan stood behind the counter, idly tapping on the flat surface, watching the few cars go by. 

It was not very busy at all. But then it had been a long time since this particular strip had seen its halcyon days. 

The summer after he had dropped out of Carleton he had been forced to look for a job. His parents were not too worried about forcing him to pay rent or anything but they weren't too keen on seeing him mooch around the house either, while he waited to start his Year 12 equivalency course at the local college. 

Several applications that went nowhere later, he had heard from a family friend that the bookstore was hiring. It was just outside Diggory station, a five-minute walk from his house. The pay wasn't brilliant, but it beat working at McDonalds. It was a no-brainer. 

 The beads hung across the doorway shimmied, followed by the familiar thump of someone's foot over the poorly fitted carpet at the front. Brendan had said nothing of the disastrous events of the day before to Floriana. That would remain between him, Wilbur and Adrian-

Speak of the devil. It was him. What the hell was he doing here, in jävla-kuk fucking Diggory? Before he'd had the chance to grab a second glimpse, he had disappeared into the shelves. He seemed to not have noticed who was behind the register. 

Brendan loosely kept an eye on the shelves while he unboxed some copies of Ruth Gray's diary that he was meant to shelf. There was also some of the latest romance by Elisha Collins, the pseudonym coined by a bunch of university students for their ever-popular self-parodying works. He looked up to see that the guy had done a lap of the store and was now perusing the Young Adult section, right next to the counter behind which he was standing. He was getting rather close to that counter. 

Brendan felt slightly self-conscious. 

He probably didn't even remember you, Brendan told himself, glancing up at the ceiling, with ornate carvings of the phases of the moon. You're probably the least important of many people he met yesterday. 

The guy - Adrian- was still browsing. He still hadn't realised how close he was to the cash register. 

"Uh, just be careful there," Brendan piped up, as Adrian's elbow almost touched the countertop. "This is a staff-only area." 

Adrian jolted upright. He was a full head taller than Brendan. He looked Brendan in the eye. 

"It does catch quite a few people out," Brendan continued. The eye contact was burning a hole in his resolve. 

"It's interesting threshold condition, how you've got the YA section so close to the cash register," he broke his silence. Brendan's ears perked up at the word threshold, which he'd encountered more than once in his internship. 

"There's almost no threshold at all. Why? Is there some kind of reason for it? Do people just come in, casually slip a copy of The Fault In Out Stars under their jackets, and run for it?"

"Well, no, not really," Brendan said. "Our most stolen book is actually The Book Thief." He felt quite proud of that. 

Adrian laughed at that one. His eyes laughed too. 

"Just joking," Brendan clarified. "It's actually that Elisha Collins book. The Alpha King's Omega Mate or whatever the hell it was called. People still can't get enough of it, even five years later. Romanticising the pack lifestyle. Never gets old." 

Adrian tutted and shook his head. "We fought a war to declare independence from those Greek-letter hillbillies and they're still dominating our culture."

"So how may I help you?" Brendan shifted the topic back to where it should have been, meeting the other's eyes directly for the first time. There was a flash of recognition in Adrian's eyes. "Are you looking for anything particular, or are you just having a look around?" 

"I'm looking for a linework book," Adrian said, recovering quickly.

"A what book?" 

"A linework book. It's like the opposite of a colouring-in book. They've already done the colours for you. All you need to do is fill in the lines." 

Brendan just looked at him quizzically for a brief moment. 

"It's a new thing," he looked apologetic. "Not many bookstores stock them. It's a gift for my cousin." 

"I don't think we have them," Brendan said, matter-of-factly. "Unless it bombed or it's a high school English syllabus book we probably don't stock it."

"Bombed?"

"You know how the publishing business works," Brendan explained. "They print how many books they think they're going to sell, and if they can't sell all of them they pulp the remainder. That's where we come in. We buy all the books that would otherwise get pulped and bring them here"- he gestured around him. 

"Ah." Adrian glanced at his watch. "I see. Well, thank you for your help."

"I'm on my lunch break in-" Brendan glanced at the clock on the wall "-in about three minutes. You wanna join me? How long have you got until you need to head back?" Brendan had in mind another question regarding the Jag, but put it aside.

"About twenty minutes." 

Brendan nodded. "That'll do." He realised he had no idea where the curious stranger named Adrian worked, but he had just assumed it was one of the numerous private schools that dotted the northwestern suburbs, one of which he had attended for five and a half fateful years...

"Have you had lunch at school?"

"You know, it's quite an institution over there, the teachers' lunch," Adrian expounded. So he did work at one of them. How interesting. "It's their big meal of the day. It's the main event of the day. It's where they share all the gossip and all the news. It's a bit crazy, if I'm honest. So I decided it would be a much better idea if I went out and ran a quick errand instead, and maybe picked up lunch along the way."

Brendan wasn't surprised that that was the case. Carleton had a similar situation with the teachers' lunch regime. Beidzner had always eaten lunch in his office because of how stifling he had found the atmosphere in the dining hall. Those schools really were cut from the same cloth.

 "Well, I've heard that that's kind of par for the course for private schools," Brendan said, heading out. Alli was in the storeroom. She would hear him leave and take over. There was no need to give her a yell. They had worked long enough together. "You'll get used to it, I guess." 

"Well, it's my first teaching job," Adrian said. "Before that, I was just a freelance artist. Got to set my own hours, but not a lot of money." He followed Brendan across the street. The noon traffic was light. "Where are you going?"

Brendan pointed at the red-fronted store across just down the road. "There." 

***

"This is inhuman," Adrian pronounced, staring at the mountain of shaved lamb and salad heaped between two thin halves of turkish bread. "This should not be legal." 

They were seated at a table opposite the bookstore, under a bright red awning. The other tables were full. Burly construction workers in hi-vis outfits. Old Middle Eastern men chatting up a storm with the owner. 

Brendan was already tucking in opposite him. "What do you mean? this is the greatest thing to ever exist."

"It's insane." 

"So, do you want me to help you?" Brendan looked over at his untouched parcel. "You wanna give me half of yours?" 

"Actually, no, I can handle it. It's just... not what I'm used to." 

"If I make you late for class, my apologies." 

"No need," Adrian said. "It should be worth it, by the looks of it." Brendan had already started eating. Adrian watched as he wolfed down the meal. He seemed used to it.

"And by the way, it's all on me," Brendan said. "As thanks for yesterday. You know, we were quite heavily outnumbered." 

Adrian looked back behind the counter, at the two vertical rotisseries - one lamb, one chicken, where the plate in front of him had come from. He bit in. The chewy bread, the oily lamb, the well dressed salad combined in his mouth. 

"It is an experience," Brendan said. Adrian could only nod in response, his mouth full. 

"So where exactly do you teach?" Brendan asked, a few minutes later, after they had both made some headway into their meals. 

"Uh, Carleton."

"Sorry, did you say-" Brendan nearly spat out his food. 

"Are you okay?" 

"I'm okay." Brendan wiped his mouth with a paper napkin. "Did you say what I think you said?" 

"Yes. Carleton," Adrian clarified, running his tongue behind his teeth, trying to dislodge a piece of gristle that was stuck. "That's where I work. I just started there a week ago." 

Brendan seemed to calm down. He seemed to be trying to work something out. Adrian, unsure of what exactly was going on, didn't know what to do, so he just said nothing and waited for Brendan to say something. 

"Of course," Brendan mumbled to himself. "They'd send in the new guy." 

"What?" Adrian was caught off-guard. "I don't know anything about that."

"Of course you don't, you've only been there a week. That's why they sent you." 

"Nobody sent me," Adrian said, somewhat naively. "I came here because I was at the train station and I needed to buy a book."

"And why were you at the train station?" Brendan asked, between bites of kebab. "I was supervising Beidzner's work experience students. They just happened to be at the train station." 

"Ah. The good old work experience." Brendan's mood seemed to lighten momentarily, and for a moment Adrian thought he was back in his good books. Then his face darkened once more. "Hang on. That means they replaced Beidzner with you. So they wanted you to-" 

"No no, I'm just chaperoning. I don't know anything about the, uh, you-know-what. He's on long service leave." 

"Yeah, that makes sense." Brendan seemed lost in his thoughts for a moment. "He deserves it."

 He took another bite. "But regardless of whether you know about it or not, they sent you here on purpose, you know that? They know where I live. They probably track my movements." 

"I gather that you went there?" Adrian was still not entirely sure what Brendan was on about."It's not a big secret," Brendan said. "Just look at any newspaper from five years ago. I was on their fucking ads. It was fucking insane. They were peddling me. Like I was a product." 

"So why would they want to spy on you?" 

"To check up on what I've been doing since I left," Brendan replied, as if it was the most natural thing in the world. 

"It's not anything like that-" Adrian started to say. "Then why are you following me around?" "I'm not following you around. It's just... coincidence." 

"So you just coincidentally happened to turn up to save me from a bunch of rabid twelvies. One fucking week after you started teaching at the-school-who-shall-not-be-named." Brendan shrugged. "And then you turned up at my workplace one day later, because of a Just a complete coincidence. And I'm meant to believe that, like I was born yesterday..." 

"I'm on your side," Adrian decided to change tack. He was on a mission, after all. "I'm trying to..." 

"Yeah right. What are you going to tell me next, you're actually an undercover cop working for the fucking magical crimes division and you're wearing a wire?" Brendan finished his meal and stood up. "I don't need this in my life. Okay? It's taken a lot of work for me to get where I am now. I don't need someone to come and undo all of that." 

"So-" 

"Just go. Go and don't come here ever again." Brendan pushed his chair in and made to leave. "I don't want to be reminded of that.. place. I worked hard to leave that all behind. I don't need it catching up with me now."