Laila frowned but nodded. She understood the cost of shortcuts too well. The village’s internet was erratic, and the librarian, Mr. Arash—an older man with a limp and a fondness for dusty leather-bound tomes—had warned them against piracy. “Real stories,” he’d said, tracing the spine of The Kite Runner , “are protected so even faraway writers like Khaled Hosseini can keep telling them.”