My name is Dr Nicola Bright, and I’m emeritus professor of theology at University College London.
Contact me if you want to know more about the Book of Living Fire.
Well that was … something. The Book of Living Fire was the best translation I’d managed to get for the title of a book that Hephaestion—the animated statue who as far as I could tell still worked for the Prince of Wands—had smuggled to me after his master destroyed my best friend. I’d never quite worked out why he’d done it other than lithological solidarity. Then again, maybe that was enough. I’d hoped the book would hold the key to saving Elise, but I’d not been able to make head or tail of it, and nor had any of Eve’s people, back when I’d still been talking to her instead of ducking her calls and drinking. I vaguely remembered her reaching out to the academic community for information, although I’d hoped that anybody who had information would come to Eve rather than to me.
Thinking about it, that raised an interesting point.
How did you find this number? I texted back. Not that it would have been that hard to get hold of—mine was the kind of business where clients needed to be able to get through to you outside office hours, so it was a work number as much as a personal one. But I was a bit surprised that a presumably busy academic had bothered to do the legwork to track it down. Then again, it did say emeritus professor, which I think meant she was off duty or something, so maybe she had a lot of time on her hands.
There was no reply, probably because emeritus professors didn’t get up as early as werewolves, but I still felt like I’d done something at least a bit productive. I snuck a guilty look at the bed. I could probably get away with another twenty minutes if I wanted to. After all, I’d still be getting up at what most people thought was a sensible time.
Except that wouldn’t be how it worked. I’d lie down, spend an hour beating myself over the head with how badly I’d fucked everything up, and then somehow lose track of wakefulness and it’d be three again. Probably eating something was a good idea. I fished the least crushed croissant from the mess of the sheets, pried the butter dish off the floor, and had what passed for breakfast.
I was coming quickly to the conclusion that I’d done all I could in Tara’s bedroom. At least, I’d done all I could alone in Tara’s bedroom, so I set off into the bowels of Safernoc Hall. I was never sure what the etiquette was at times like this—when I’d been a kid the polite thing to do would be to make sure I tracked down my hostess first and gave her a polite thank you for having me, but I didn’t think that had quite the same connotations in the current circumstances. And while I was at least a bit curious about what exactly had gone on, and whether Tuffy had got lost in some otherworldly labyrinth or if she’d been torn apart by a hell-beast from beyond oblivion, I suspected that the pack wouldn’t appreciate my intruding. “Hi, I’m fucking your alpha and have a history of getting her to make incredibly questionable decisions” isn’t a good opener.
In the end I left a note with a servant who probably had a weirdly specific title like deputy under-valet in charge of cutlery or something. I hesitated far too long about what to write and wound up with something like Going into work. Trying to be less of a fuckup. Thanks for kicking me out of bed.
Once I was in the grounds—Safernoc has serious grounds, like proper spooky haunted castle grounds—I began the long, slow walk back to somewhere I could get a bus. I’d almost entirely stopped driving because the car had been Elise’s thing. Plus staying strictly on public transport meant I could feel slightly less irresponsible about being pissed by lunchtime. Of course the downside of having a regular fuck date with the type of person who lives in a massive country estate, and giving up on using your own wheels, is that you’re stuck relying on the kinds of routes that run once an hour if you’re lucky. Waiting by a bus-stop in a quaint little village that was probably called Much Pissing on the