I was still out of sorts from this morning. Orestes had disappeared in the crowd, leaving me confused but grateful.
My hand shook as I tucked my hair behind my ear. My mind was all over the place, and I wasn’t getting nearly as much work done as I needed to. My response to Pollux buzzed around my head, but I hadn’t been able to pull together all the things I wanted to say in order to return his email.
And I wasn’t sure if I should reply at all. Turning back to the map, I stared at the coastline again, my finger hovering over the spots I’d already considered and rejected.
“Self-made gods,” I whispered the phrase, feeling a zing, like static, move from the soles of my feet to my fingertips.
The lighthouse was important. I was drawn to it, again and again. It reminded me of how I’d felt when I found the first shard.
A knock sounded on my door. I didn’t have time to call out when it opened and Dr. St. John lumbered in like he had every right to. He studied my space, ignoring me.
“Hello.” I spoke first since he seemed content to lift the books from my desk—the ones I’d arranged in a specific way—and plop them back down haphazardly.
“You’ve been absent from the last three faculty cocktail hours.” He approached me, gaze on the maps, and my finger, which was still on one spot on the coast.
“I thought those were optional.” Oxford had a lot of customs I’d spent hours reading about when I accepted my position. They had things like Formal Hall, where a three course meal was served in what I could only compare to as Hogwarts-style, complete with ceremonial robes and antique, high-back chairs.
“It is.” He peered at me over his glasses, then at the map again. “But it’s also bad form to ignore your colleagues when you’ve only been here a month.”
“Has it already been a month?” Between my time in the library, the classroom, and writing, it seemed like less.
“Yes.” Crossing his arms, the older man faced me. “We expect you tonight.”
My plan was to go to the Bodleian again. There was a letter from the thirteen hundreds, when King Peter had sacked Alexandria that I wanted to examine…
“No excuses.”
Mirroring his position, I faced him. “I’m sure the college cares more about my research than if I join them for a drink.”
Dr. St. John huffed. “Do you know, we’ve had more guests at our cocktail hours since you arrived than… well, in as long as I remember, and I’m practically decrepit.”
Snorting, I rolled my eyes. My handful of interactions with Dr. St. John made me certain he wasn’t one to blow smoke up anyone’s ass. He’d attended most of my lectures, and almost always had something disparaging to say. Though, I was beginning to suspect he laid on the criticism especially thick just for me.
“Show your face tonight, or I’ll be ghastly at your next lecture.”
I studied him. His blue eyes twinkled under thick, bushy brows. He was dressed in the same way he always was: wool trousers and a button-down shirt under a blazer.
“Aren’t you hot?” I asked.
His eyebrows went to where his hairline might have been once—“My dear. How inappropriate.”
But the bastard was smiling.
“My wife drives me to and from the hall each day, and my office is quite cool. The weather is unexpected. You must have brought the tropical breeze with you from Boston.
Giggling, I forgot for a moment all the research I needed to do. All the little ideas I had, and hopes of a connection between my ideas and the evidence I needed to find. “Fine.” I’d go. “But I’m not staying long.”
“It’s cocktails, not Formal Hall.” He smiled. “Depending on who shows up, you might want to carve out a few hours away from the library. Meet some handsome, dark, academic types.”
My face heated. I was utterly at a loss for how to respond.
“Now.” Turning to face the maps again, he changed the subject. “Why are you studying a map of England from the fourteen hundreds?”
It took me a moment to shift gears from imagining a handsome, dark, academic to fifteenth century English cartography.
I cleared my throat, considering whether or not I wanted to tell him—really—what I was doing.
“Go on, Dr. Ophidia. I won’t steal your research. I’m much too old to care about glory and attention—or any of those things that are making you bite your tongue right now.”