#adow101

✔ When you’re googling someone’s name and he’s right behind you. ✘

Clairmont, seated diagonally across from me at the far end of the cluster of desks and seemingly oblivious to my approach, continued reading. I dumped my plastic bag and manuscripts onto the space marked A5, staking out the outer edges of my territory. He looked up, brows arching in apparent surprise. “Dr. Bishop. Good morning.” “Professor Clairmont.” It occurred to me that he’d overheard everything said about him at the reading room’s entrance, given that he had the hearing of a bat. I refused to meet his eyes and started pulling individual items out of my bag, building a small fortification of desk supplies between me and the vampire. Clairmont watched until I ran out of equipment, then lowered his eyebrows in concentration and returned to his reading. I took out the cord for my computer and disappeared under the desk to shove it into the power strip. When I righted myself, he was still reading but was also trying not to smile. “Surel you’d be more comfortable in the northern end,” I grumbled under my breath, rooting around for my list of manuscripts. Clairmont looked up, dilating pupils making his eyes suddenly dark. “Am I bothering you, Dr. Bishop?” “Of course not,” I said hastily, my throat closing at the sudden, sharp aroma of cloves that accompanied his words, “but I’m surprised you find a southern exposure comfortable.”  “You don’t believe everything you read, do you?” One of his thick, black eyebrows rose into the shape of a question mark.   “If you’re asking whether I think you’re going to burst into flames the moment the sunlight hits you, the answer is no.” Vampires didn’t burn at the touch of sunlight, nor did they have fangs. These were human myths.  “But I’ve never met . . . someone like you who liked to bask in its glow either.”   Clairmont’s body remained still, but I could have sworn he was repressing a laugh. “How much direct experience have you had, Dr. Bishop, with ‘someone like me’?”

Matthew Clairmont ⇢ S01E01

“Simple curiosity,” he said, baring his teeth. Sarah had not misled me— vampires don’t have fangs. “I hope you don’t expect me to believe that.” “I don’t care what you believe, Dr. Bishop. But you should be on your guard. These creatures are serious. And when they come to understand what an unusual witch you are?” Clairmont shook his head. “What do you mean?” All the blood drained from my head, leaving me dizzy. “It’s uncommon these days for a witch to have so much . . . potential.” Clairmont’s voice dropped to a purr that vibrated in the back of his throat. “Not everyone can see it—yet—but I can. You shimmer with it when you concentrate. When you’re angry, too. Surely the daemons in the library will sense it soon, if they haven’t already.” “I appreciate the warning. But I don’t need your help.” I prepared to stalk away, but his hand shot out and gripped my upper arm, stopping me in my tracks. “Don’t be too sure of that. Be careful. Please.” Clairmont hesitated, his face shaken out of its perfect lines as he wrestled with something. “Especially if you see that wizard again.” I stared fixedly at the hand on my arm. Clairmont released me. His lids dropped, shuttering his eyes. My row back to the boathouse was slow and steady, but the repetitive movements weren’t able to carry away my lingering confusion and unease. Every now and again, there was a gray blur on the towpath, but nothing else caught my attention except for people bicycling home from work and a very ordinary human walking her dog. After returning the equipment and locking the boathouse, I set off down the towpath at a measured jog. Matthew Clairmont was standing across the river in front of the University Boat House. I began to run, and when I looked back over my shoulder, he was gone.

I am a walking disaster on that front. My powers are so unpredictable. This morning, it happened by accident in public. I mean, no one saw, but they could have.