I didn't want money. I didn't want a grade. I didn't want leverage. I told him this and I watched him not quite believe me, which was fair, because I was twenty-two years old and he was a man who had apparently spent years managing the consequences of a secret and had learned to expect the worst from people who stumbled onto it.

What I wanted — and I told him this too, because I had never been good at pretending — was to understand. I had read all four volumes of The Obsidian Letters. I had written a paper on them for a different class. I had opinions about them that I had never been able to share with anyone who knew the work as well as I did.

He looked at me for a long time. Then he said: "You wrote the paper I read in the faculty review last semester. The one on anonymous authorship and moral accountability." I said: "Yes." He said: "It was the most interesting student paper I've read in five years." He paused. "I disagreed with your conclusion." I said: "I know. You said so in the margin comments." He blinked slightly. "You saw those?" "You left the review copy in the faculty reading room," I said. "I found it." He looked at me. "You're very good at finding things you're not supposed to find." I said: "I'm very good at reading." He was quiet for a moment. Then he picked up the NDA. He put it back in the drawer. "Private tutoring," he said. "Twice a week. You sign a confidentiality agreement — not that one, a simpler one. And in exchange, I'll answer your questions." He paused. "About the work. About the theory. About the things you're not getting in the classroom." He looked at me. "Is that what you want?" I thought about it. "Yes," I said. "That's exactly what I want."

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