The Oxford Inheritance by Ann A. McDonald Page A

called. “What are you, stalking me now?”
    Cassie didn’t reply. She waited for him to pass them by, but instead he slowed, then jogged backward as they kept moving toward him. “I’m Charlie,” he told her, brown eyes alive with amusement. “I figured it was time I introduced myself.”
    â€œI’m Evie,” Evie volunteered. “And this is Cassie.”
    â€œYou students?” Charlie asked, still jogging backward.
    â€œPostgrad,” Evie replied. “At Raleigh.”
    â€œFancy,” he teased. “You know, I’m always looking for a running buddy,” he added, attention still fixed on Cassie. “If you’re worried about keeping up, I promise I’ll go slow.” He grinned, broad and cocky.
    But Cassie wasn’t looking for whatever this man had on his mind. Romance, dating—they were foreign concepts to her, and she had bigger things on her mind. She gave him a withering stare and lengthened her pace, speeding up to leave him there by the bridge. Evie caught up with her a moment later. “What’s wrong?” she asked, panting. “He was cute.”
    â€œI’m not interested,” Cassie said, feeling a flush of embarrassment.
    â€œSorry,” Evie said quickly. “I figured you guys had, I don’t know, a friendly runners’ thing. He seemed to like you,” she added.
    â€œTrust me,” Cassie said. “Men are the last thing on my mind right now.”
    â€œThen I’ll say no more.” Evie mimed locking her lips shut. “God, this is why I don’t exercise; I’m burning up inside. Want to stop by Harvey’s for a breakfast bap on the way back in?”
    â€œSure.” Cassie tried to relax, checking the path behind them to see if Charlie was gone. “Sounds good to me.”
    Her information pack listed a couple of libraries outside the college that could be used for her classwork, so after showering and changing, Cassie struck out across the city to see if one of them might hold any clues about her mother. There was an official university archive housed in the Radcliffe Camera, an eighteenth-century domed building set off Brasenose Lane. A flow of tourists posed for photographs out front. Inside, Cassie used her Raleigh ID to register for a reader’s card and filled in the request slip for the records she needed.
    â€œThe official record for every college?” The clerk looked over his fashionable black glasses frames at her. He was in his twenties, his hair slicked back, his fingertips paint-stained. He frowned at Cassie’s cursive script. “For nineteen ninety-two—”
    â€œAnd ninety-three, and ninety-four,” she finished. “Is that a problem?”
    â€œNo,” he said, but he sighed with a mournful air. “Wait here. I’ll have the first batch sent up in a minute.”
    Cassie spent the day tucked away in the upper reading room, systematically working her way through the books that the clerk called up for her in batches, each time greeting her request slip with the same weary sigh. Here, the crowd was older than at Raleigh: grad students, the occasional professor with his half-moon glasses and worn leather elbow patches. They built forts with their research materials, blocking off corners of their desks to keep out prying eyes, and it was easy for Cassie to blend in: just another reader, researching some old, faded records in the pools of afternoon sun.
    She broke only for lunch, which she bought from a café in an old converted church across the square, and ate in the shade of its leafy courtyard, among tourists and their cream teas, and clusters of blue-rinsed pensioners gossiping over fragrant lemon cake. It was a sea of strange faces, save one: Professor Tremain, deep in conversation across the courtyard. He saw her from across the courtyard and gave a wave, almost knocking his tea to the ground.
    He was a curious man,