The strings were tightening around Diana as she struggled against them, trying to dislodge enough of them to fight her way free. But every time she writhed they seemed to tighten impossibly further … until she was fighting for breath.

Diana gasped as she woke with a start, struggling against the sheets pulled over her legs as the remnants of her dream slowly faded. She'd been having the same one since just before her parents had died, but it had been years since she'd last experienced it.

After spending twenty minutes trying and failing to get back to sleep, she gave up and decided to head over to the boathouse. She knew she'd be exhausted by the time her classes finished later that afternoon, but she was hoping the calmness of the river would help to clear her mind and let her focus until she could finally crash again.

A dreamless sleep came easily for her later that evening, and Diana was incredibly grateful for it.


It was almost a week later when she found herself on the way back to the Bodleian Library once more. Diana was a little ashamed to admit that she had been avoiding the place after what had happened in the courtyard the last time she'd visited.

But she could only stay away for so long.

With Gillian by her side, she made her way through the glass doors and up to the third floor, where the Duke Humphries reading room was located, without any more ghosts from her past crossing her path.

The two women took up a place either side of one of the long reading benches and pulled out their laptops, allowing the devices to load while they filled in the request slips for the books they would need that afternoon.

For the first hour or so they worked in silence, occasionally trading books when they found something that they thought the other should read, before going back to their own papers. It was easy and familiar, and Diana appreciated that. She'd always taken great comfort in spending time in the library back in Maine, and she was happy to see that what had happened the week before hadn't managed to ruin that for her in Oxford.

After finishing the paragraph she'd been working on, Gillian pulled the screen down on her laptop and whispered to her friend that she needed to call her mother, before making her escape from the building. Diana watched her go before turning her attention back to the book she'd been studying. She was so close to finishing the research needed for her essay, and if she could get it done that afternoon, she had promised to reward herself in the form of a night out with her friends.

"Ancient history?" a familiar voice asked softly.

Diana lifted her head to see an equally familiar face staring down at the discarded book by her left elbow.

"Professor …" she trailed off, realizing that she had no idea what the man's name was as she stared up at him. She hadn't noticed just how tall he was when she'd first ran into him. Nor had she realized just how handsome he was. His eyes flashed a unique shade of blue-grey when they caught the light streaming through the windows behind her, which only served to highlight the sharp angles of his jawline. His hair was dark and lush, the kind that made sane people wish they were stylists just so they'd have an excuse to run their fingers through it. And although he was dressed head-to-toe in black, Diana could sense the power underneath the fine wool and silk of his clothing. The kind of power that came from carefully defined muscles and years of training.

"Clairmont," he replied slowly, as a small smile tugged at the corners of his lips. "Professor Clairmont." He slipped long fingers into the breast pocket of his jacket before withdrawing a small business card that had his name and contact details printed onto it, along with a string of letters that told Diana the man had an impressive educational background.

"I'm sorry again about last week, Professor Clairmont. I was feeling a little unwell and wasn't quite myself."

"That okay," he assured her. "I just wanted to check that you were feeling better. You didn't seem terribly steady on your feet when you left here. I was half-tempted to follow you, just to make sure that you got back safely."

"I did, thanks. And it was nothing a good night of sleep and some time on the river couldn't fix."

"I'm glad to hear it." Professor Clairmont straightened up a little at the sound of a door opening in the distance, and quickly withdrew his hand from where his fingers had been tracing the golden letters of the title on the book closest to Diana's arm. "I'll leave you to your studies, Miss. Have a good day."

"Bishop," Diana called out, a little too loudly given her surroundings and the glares she got from fellow academics in the immediate area. "It's Bishop," she explained, when Clairmont turned back to look at her over his shoulder. "Diana Bishop."

An odd look seemed to cross his face but before Diana could ponder too much on the cause of it, his features even back out into a pleasant smile. "Enjoy ancient history, Diana Bishop," he said, turning once again to leave.

Professor Clairmont disappeared from her line of sight just as Gillian made her way back through the room to take her seat once more.

"I'm sorry about that," the redhead whispered, as she opened up her laptop and pulled out her notebooks again. "It's my mother's birthday today and I wanted to catch her before she left for work. But once she's on the phone, I can never get her off it. Is everything okay?"

Diana shook her head a little to dislodge the thoughts of Professor Clairmont that were currently filling it, and then turned her full attention back to her friend. "Yeah, sorry. I just got lost in my own mind for a moment," she chuckled. "Did you wanna do another hour here and then grab a drink together? You can tell me all about your mom then."

"That sounds like an excellent plan to me," Gillian whispered back, before turning her eyes down to the paper that she needed to finish before the end of the week. The last thing she wanted to do was fail one so early into the first term of the year.

Diana did her best to do the same, but she couldn't seem to shake the image of Professor Clairmont's small smile from her mind long enough to focus on finishing her work that afternoon.


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