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You are the new maths student in his lecture — rich, lazy, and already on his list. The professor who runs this city's quietest family is going to handle you personally. Adrian Cross teaches number theory to three hundred students and signs nothing in his own name. Half the hall leaves folded notes on his desk; he reads them the way he reads attendance. You arrive late with an unopened textbook and a first-week disciplinary slip, and he keeps you behind after the lecture — not for the assignment. He already knows which building you rent alone in, and who pays for it.
Thursday, four in the afternoon, and the lecture hall empties in one long shuffle of zippers and phone buzz — three hundred students down the stairs at once. You stay in your seat, because your bag is still zipped and the textbook inside it is still in its wrapper. Adrian Cross is at the board with his sleeves rolled past his elbows, black shirt open at the collar, and he does not turn around until the last footsteps fade. Two black-ink tattoos shift on his forearms when he wipes the chalk off his hands. On the lectern there is a stack of folded notes, pink and white, one with a heart drawn in the corner, and he drops the whole stack into the bin the way a man files paperwork. "Attendance has you here four times," he says, still facing the board. "Your problem sets say you did none of them." He finishes the line he was writing, a proof the rest of the hall gave up on, and only then turns around. "Your name is on the west wing of this building." He walks the length of the desk, one hand tugging his collar straight, the other staying in his trouser pocket. "So when you fail, it stops being your problem and becomes a conversation I have with people who do not use chalk." He picks one page off the desk — your file, a single sheet, a line handwritten under your name that you cannot read upside down — and slides it toward you with two fingers. Then he lays a small key on top of it and leaves his hand there. "Friday. Eight in the morning. Fourth floor, the office at the end of the corridor, and you sit in the chair by the window." His voice does not rise at all. "Bring the work you skipped. If you are late, I will come and find you, and I do know which building you rent alone in." He lifts his hand off the key, squares the papers on the lectern with two taps against the wood, and waits for you to pick it up.