"Your argument," she said, "is that memory is layered. That the past is not erased but bleeds through the present. That the Avenida de Mayo is both a parade ground for generals and a stage for democracy. You did not illustrate this idea. You performed it. On the cover. Before the first word."
She did not speak for a long time. Then she took off her glasses.
Miguel's throat went dry. "I… I can redo it. I have a plain version ready—"
She turned the portada toward him and traced her finger along the ghostly double exposure. "I impose them because most students use decoration as a crutch. A blurry clip art of a book. A drop shadow. A gradient. They do not understand that a cover is an argument. It is the first sentence of your thesis, spoken in the language of space and silence."
"You violated three of them."