Emma pulled a face. “Animals are easier than people. If you look long enough, stay still enough, you can see everything you need to know. About who they are.”
“People are different?”
Emma smiled and nudged him onto the path that wound up to the Library. “I don’t know. Maybe it’s just that we can’t stay still enough around other people to see clearly.”
After an hour in the Library, Emma suspected that staying still might be a particular problem for Jasper. If he wasn’t darting around to look over her shoulder, he was taking photos of her from behind a bookcase.
“Are you done yet?”
The river records had been fruitful. She’d not found one mention of another notable flood for the past eight hundred years. Whatever was happening, it was indeed new.
“Mmm. Sorry.” Emma tore herself from a catalogue of photographs. There were strange annotations on this one: The Edwardian author had an obsessive belief that animals native to the area—the river’s rats, foxes, ravens, and the like—were demonic forces, possessing “unholy and unnatural” traits. Emma forced herself to close the file and reach for the next. The historian’s ramblings were entertaining, but not exactly scientific.
“Like I said, you really can go home if you like. I think I’ll be a while here.”
“Seriously?”
Jasper’s face dropped. On anyone less beautiful, Emma might have described the lines between his brows as petulant.
“Do I need to remind you both that this is a no-talking area?”
They both jumped. The woman behind them had approached noiselessly. One eye was a hollow, an eyelid puckering over emptyspace. Emma had seen her working at the reception desk, but always wearing an eye patch. Jasper’s chair screeched.
“There’s no one else here.” He swept a hand at the empty reading room. “So what’s the problem?”
She looked sharply at Jasper.
“You. Your voice is familiar.”
“Happens to me all the time,” Jasper said, stretching back in his chair.
“A Balfour,” she pronounced, with the air of sentencing him for a crime.
“Yes.” Jasper’s smile faded. “How did you know? I don’t remember—”
“You’re just like your father.” The receptionist had already turned her back. Her gray hair snarled past her waist. She was piled into a shapeless top and floor-length skirt. But her walk was surprisingly graceful, and her answer floated back to them with a hint of barely concealed merriment.
Jasper’s face was white under its tan: with shock or anger, Emma couldn’t tell. When he spoke, his voice was tight.
“God, what a harpy. Maybe my father banged her and she’s been bitter about it ever since. Hard to believe, though—even my father has some standards.”
For Jasper to sound so unlike himself, Emma knew, meant he had to be very upset. It did seem unfair for the woman to compare Jasper to his father. Without even knowing him, Emma thought indignantly. Children didn’t have to be like their fathers. She wasn’t anything like—and more to the point, Jasper wasn’t anything like his father, from what she’d gathered. Jasper had spoken of him almost with fear, as well as resentment.
Jasper waved off her concern.
“Come on, let me buy you a drink. Let’s leave the witch to her library.”
As they were leaving, a familiar Humpty-Dumpty figure emerged from a side corridor.
“Rich!” roared Jasper.
“J-dog!” bellowed back Richard.
“We’re going to Boddington’s, Emma ’n’ me, want to come with?”
“I just need to—ahem, lock up for the historical society,” said Richard.
Emma saw the look of suppressed mirth pass between him and Jasper, as the latter said gravely, “Very good, mate, very responsible.”
