“A friend,” she said.

A month later, grades posted. Lena had scored the highest in the class—a 94. The professor, Dr. Webb, pulled her aside after class. “Your essay on renal autoregulation was… unorthodox. You called the afferent arteriole a ‘nervous doorman who panics easily.’ But it was correct. And memorable. Where did you learn that?”

Lena hesitated. The PDF was technically a copyright violation. Brandis’s notes had never been formally published.