Leo blinked. "The bookstore wants four hundred for these used."
The reply came an hour later: “Keep it. It’s part of the instructions. Your turn to add to the margins.”
The flyer was taped to the library's glass door, edges curled by the humidity. it screamed in blocky, desperate Sharpie. Underneath, a list of titles was scrawled, mostly Organic Chemistry and Advanced Calculus—the kind of books that usually end up as expensive paperweights or bonfire starters.
"The bookstore didn't survive what I did," Elias muttered. "Just take them. Consider it a scholarship."
