"History"
He'd ask for books on alchemy, but Riza always gave him histories. It made him laugh a little when his expectations and not his wishes were fulfilled – when he peeled back the tissue paper to reveal a narrative about the downfall of an empire, about some unlikely bit of humanity against the cruelty of a dispassionate mother-state.
She knew, even if he didn't, that he preferred it that way. He asked because alchemy was his duty, but duty was for the workplace; she wanted to feed his passion. And she knew that she was right in her choice, watching him as he found himself in Cassius, in Brutus – as he curled about the fierce crumbling of the Roman Empire as though it were his very soul.