A Discovery of Witches - Deborah Harkness [29]
Chapter 6
The next morning was gray and much more typical of early autumn. All I wanted to do was cocoon myself in layers of sweaters and stay in my rooms.
One glance at the heavy weather convinced me not to return to the river. I set out for a run instead, waving at the night porter in the lodge, who gave me an incredulous look followed by an encouraging thumbs-up.
With each slap of my feet on the sidewalk, some stiffness left my body. By the time they reached the gravel paths of the University Parks, I was breathing deeply and felt relaxed and ready for a long day in the library—no matter how many creatures were gathered there.
When I got back, the porter stopped me. “Dr. Bishop?”
“Yes?”
“I’m sorry about turning your friend away last night, but it’s college policy. Next time you’re having guests, let us know and we’ll send them straight up.”
The clearheadedness from my run evaporated.
“Was it a man or a woman?” I asked sharply.
“A woman.”
My shoulders floated down from around my ears.
“She seemed perfectly nice, and I always like Australians. They’re friendly without being, you know . . . ” The porter trailed off, but his meaning was clear. Australians were like Americans—but not so pushy. “We did call up to your rooms.”
I frowned. I’d switched off the phone’s ringer, because Sarah never calculated the time difference between Madison and Oxford correctly and was always calling in the middle of the night. That explained it.
“Thank you for letting me know. I’ll be sure to tell you about any future visitors,” I promised.
Back in my rooms, I flipped on the bathroom light and saw that the past two days had taken a toll. The circles that had appeared under my eyes yesterday had now blossomed into something resembling bruises. I checked my arm for bruises, too, and was surprised not to find any. The vampire’s grip had been so strong that I was sure Clairmont had broken the blood vessels under the skin.
I showered and dressed in loose trousers and a turtleneck. Their unalleviated black accentuated my height and minimized my athletic build, but it also made me resemble a corpse, so I tied a soft periwinkle sweater around my shoulders. That made the circles under my eyes look bluer, but at least I no longer looked dead. My hair threatened to stand straight up from my head and crackled every time I moved. The only solution for it was to scrape it back into a messy knot at the nape of my neck.
Clairmont’s trolley had been stuffed with manuscripts, and I was resigned to seeing him in Duke Humfrey’s Reading Room. I approached the call desk with shoulders squared.
Once again the supervisor and both attendants were flapping around like nervous birds. This time their activity was focused on the triangle between the call desk, the manuscript card catalogs, and the supervisor’s office. They carried stacks of boxes and pushed carts loaded with manuscripts under the watchful eyes of the gargoyles and into the first three bays of ancient desks.
“Thank you, Sean.” Clairmont’s deep, courteous voice floated from their depths.
The good news was that I would no longer have to share a desk with a vampire.
The bad news was that I couldn’t enter or leave the library—or call a book or manuscript—without Clairmont’s tracking my every move. And today he had backup.
A diminutive girl was stacking up papers and file folders in the second alcove. She was dressed in a long, baggy brown sweater that reached almost to her knees. When she turned, I was startled to see a full-grown adult. Her eyes were amber and black, and as cold as frostbite.
Even without their touch, her luminous, pale skin and unnaturally thick, glossy hair gave her away as a vampire. Snaky waves of it undulated around her face and over her shoulders. She took a step toward me, making no effort to disguise the swift, sure movements, and gave me a withering glance. This was clearly not where she wanted to be, and she blamed me.
“Miriam,” Clairmont called softly, walking out into the center aisle. He stopped short, and a polite smile shaped his