Inside, in neat Arabic handwriting, were not just the answers to her exam questions, but something far more precious: every subtitle she had seen, every invisible translation of every hidden heart in that building.

“You’re late, Farida. We’ve been waiting for you since page forty-two.”

Farida stumbled backward. A young man in a fez caught her arm. His subtitle flickered: “Zaki Bey el-Dessouki. Playboy. Poet. Heart as fragile as a pigeon’s wing.”

A boy ran past her, chased by a street vendor. The subtitle beside him read: “Son of the doorman. Will grow up to fix elevators and broken promises.”