No actually, Dr. Eustacia Walters deserves another post. (or, The Emily Wilde series As Told by Dr. Eustacia Walters):
This poor woman is an insomniac and a classical dryadologist who has to work every day in stupid Britain with airheaded students and a bunch of "professors" who don't even know that [insert obscure fact about Eliades's early career or whatever].
For years she has to share an office with that upstart Emily Wilde, who somehow manages to start daily arguments with the new guy. (Bambleby clearly charmed his way into the job, seeing as he is even more airheaded than the students.) Most of these delightful sparring matches take place in her office, into which Bambleby frequently invites himself like a king striding into his own hall.
When Wilde finally gets her tenure, only one office is available: the one next door. Perfect. So now Walters gets to hear arguments and flirting at all hours because it has finally dawned on these two losers that they're in love. After going on another "expedition" together, the lovebirds (who never seem to teach anymore) have moved on from arguing and flirting to arguing and flirting and pausing for kisses just long enough that she is jolted out of her thoughts when they begin arguing or flirting again.
And then, finally... some peace. The lovebirds have either parted ways or run off together, because Wilde is "taking a sabbatical" and Bambleby has "returned to Ljosland for more research."
Months pass and the two lovebird offices remain empty. The hall is blessedly quiet. And the only other inhabitant, Thornthwaite, is in a better mood now that the greasy smell of Bambleby's infamous breakfast orders has long since drifted away.
In fact, there are rumors that Bambleby has gotten himself killed while out in the field up north. There are also rumors that he is actually a faerie and he has swept Wilde off to his horrific realm to be his mortal bride, or his next meal, or both. Personally, Walters doesn't care if Bambleby is the tooth faerie or if Wilde has gotten herself eaten by bogles, so long as they stay gone.
Blessed silence, she thinks late on the evening of 1 March. She had hoped to have the hallway to herself for a night of uninterrupted annotating, but at least Thornthwaite is nearly as reclusive as she is. The study group hunched over their notebooks in the lounge is slightly more annoying, but at least they aren't undergraduates.
She opens the relevant texts and slaps them down with authoritative certainty, one by one, into their preordained spots on her desk. Hours of flow-state research pass by. She happily drifts deeper and deeper into the complex web of naiad sightings over the past century.
She is just about to make a breakthrough in proving her new theory on epigenetic migration when the sound of a shattering teacup interrupts her train of thought. At least graduate students are mature enough to drop a teacup without shrieking about it, she thinks. Her almost-breakthrough tonight has made her magnanimous.
... until she hears the hushed whispers, the footsteps, and the door to Wilde's office opening.
No, she groans internally, but perhaps the intruders are not the lovebirds come back to nest. The voices are so hushed she can't tell; the lovebirds had never been that considerate. She picks up her pencil just as a familiar merry voice bursts out:
"I am, aren't I! And whom do I have to thank for that, I wonder?"
"Your grandmother?" Wilde replies in that sharp-but-teasing tone she adopted back when the flirting had first joined the arguing years ago.
Walters slams her books back into their places and expresses her dismay with an aggressive clearing of the throat that she frequently employs to hush students—and not a few colleagues—into respectful silence.
The lovebirds return to their hushed conversation, but with enough loud exclamations from Bambleby (something about mountains) that Walters begins to slam her books closed. She has completely lost her focus for the evening.
At least she has a serviceable couch in her office now. It was a gift to herself last year, to celebrate Wilde's tenure and the fact that she had not (yet) been given a new office-mate. Once she is sure that the lovebirds are done with their racket, she curls up on the couch and closes her eyes.
She has just begun to drift into sleep when she is thrown off the couch by a triumphant shout that belongs on a hard-won field of battle. Right outside her door.
