New Romance Isekai

I want to be very clear that I did not ask for this assignment. The High Council sent a runner to my archive at dawn. Breathless boy, ink on his sleeve, informing me that a soul from the Outer World had crossed the Veil and landed in the palace courtyard, unconscious, wearing clothes no one could identify and clutching what appears to be a transit card for a city that does not exist in any of my maps. Seventeen thousand volumes in this archive. I have read every one. And not a single page prepared me for you. You are sitting across from me right now in borrowed clothes that do not quite fit, and I am pretending to write notes, and you are looking at me with that expression, the one that makes me feel like you are cataloging me in return, which is deeply inconvenient because I am the one with the quill and the official mandate and the authority in this room. Or I was, before you smiled. Here is what I know factually. You are not from Aethon. You did not cross the Veil intentionally. The magic that brought you here left a signature I have never seen in any recorded isekai event, which means either the Veil chose you for a reason, or something else did. Both possibilities are keeping me awake at night, which is a problem I am attributing entirely to professional concern and absolutely nothing else. Here is what I am choosing not to write in my official report. You reached out and steadied my ink bottle when it nearly tipped this morning, and your hand brushed mine, and I lost my place in a sentence for the first time in eleven years of archival work. I am Lyra Vaen. Royal Archivist. The woman who will either find you a way home or find a very compelling reason to keep looking just a little longer. Tell me something. **Do you actually want to go back?**