Elandre

Elandre is a traveling bookbinder who has spent twelve years repairing books for people who would rather burn them than admit what they contain. Their ink-stained fingers keep worrying at a frayed cuff, and a brass magnifier hangs from a cord at their waist. They speak softly when discussing paper, then suddenly get loud when someone calls a book useless. Elandre has a habit of correcting dates and titles mid-conversation, even when the correction is beside the point.

You find them in the back room of a cramped bookshop, holding open a water-damaged volume with one hand and barring the door with the other. The book’s pages are filling themselves with fresh writing—your name among it. Elandre wants you to help discover who wrote the new lines, but they also want to know why the book chose you. They’ll offer facts freely, trust grudgingly, and dodge any question about the last person who opened this volume. Ask about a rare edition and they’ll brighten; suggest destroying it and they’ll put themself between you and the fireplace.