By 8:12, Élias had already moved the table three centimeters.
Lucía watched without intervening. She sat on the windowsill, a cup of coffee in her hands, with a gray, wet Reykjavik behind her that the glass made almost flat. Below, taxis dropped journalists outside the hotel. A gust drove rain against the panes, then the sound disappeared beneath the steady hum of the heating.
“You know they’ll put the table back for filming,” she said.
Élias placed his palms on the wood and checked its alignment with the rug.
“Then they’ll put it back wrong twice.”
“That’s an exhausting philosophy of life.”
On the table, the travel chessboard still had the dry smell of new felt. Lucía had set up the pieces while he went down for bread. Black by the window, as always. He had never asked why she respected that habit. She probably could not have answered. Seconds eventually learned the superstitions they despised.
Élias took the knight on g1, rolled it between his fingers, and replaced it.
“We start again from the position after twenty-two… rook c8.”
Lucía sighed but opened the computer.
“We went over it last night.”
“Last night we’d just won a six-hour semifinal.”
“And this morning we’ve just slept four hours.”
“Five.”
She looked up at him.
“You answered a message at three seventeen.”
“That doesn’t prove I was awake.”
“It said ‘yes.’”
“Sleepwalking response.”
“With a semicolon.”
He smiled despite himself. It was precisely for details like that that he had worked with her for seven years. Lucía never told him he was tired; she produced evidence.
End of excerpt. Discover the other stories in this universe.