Arc 2: In Memoriam (Part 9)

I leave the flat the same way I got in—by the kitchen window, which I reinstall on my way out. Next, I use sorcery to obscure myself and run the entire way from Slough to Egham so I can break into the humanities department at Royal Holloway. I’m cutting the time a little close, since it’s already almost two o’clock, which leaves me about four hours to track down James Cantrell’s office, top up on blood, and return to Canus’s estate in Hackney.

The campus is much like any college campus, I imagine, all grey roads and red brick buildings. There’s an antique sort of feel to it, and I recognise the shapes of some of the buildings from the photos posted online over a year ago, when I was still a classics student named Aura attending university here.

I desperately want to read the letters from James Cantrell, but I’m also afraid. There’s a trepidation there, a sense of tragedy that feels a little like standing on a bridge made of glass. I resolve, as I walk through the darkened corridors