The Oxford Inheritance

The devil is more laborious now than ever; the long day of mankind drawing towards an evening, and the world's tragedy and time near an end.

SIR WALTER RALEIGH

S
he ran.

Through the tunnels, feet bare on the stone floor. Torches blazed along the main pathways so she veered deeper into the labyrinth, tripping down hidden stairs and along the dark, winding corridors until the air became heavy with decay and doors groaned their protest as she heaved them open. Still, she ran.

The chanting was getting closer, a dizzying hum that echoed off every wall, no matter how far she fled. It was all in her mind, she told herself. It had to be. A shadow suddenly reared up in the gloom and she stumbled in fear, falling hard in a bloody scrape of skin on sharp stone. But there was no time for pain, not with the knife gripped, slick in her hand, or the faint clatter of footsteps getting louder. Closer.

She hurled herself around another corner and up another flight of stairs, almost crying out with relief when she saw a familiar carved archway. Beyond, she knew was a side tunnel, and past that, freedom.

He stepped out of the shadows.

She faltered, coming to a stop just inside the anteroom. He didn't say a word, or even block her path, but the desperate adrenaline that had pushed her on through the darkness seemed to drain away in an instant, leaving nothing but a hollow ache
in her limbs and a sob of resignation welling, unbidden in her chest. Her fingers curled open. The knife fell to the ground.

Of course he'd found her.

The man strolled closer, reaching to brush the hair from her eyes in a gesture so familiar, it made her legs give way with grief. A sob escaped her, the cry raw in the heavy silence of the catacombs. He pressed his hand over her mouth, muffling the sound.

“Shhh,” he murmured, breath soft against her cheek. “I've got you now.”

He caught her as she fell, guiding her gently down until they were both folded on the dusty floor, her body cradled against him. Now that she knew the truth, she could feel the blackness seep out of him: drifting and curling in shadowed tendrils from the very tips of his fingers as he traced the outline of her jaw. But worse than the black touch—far worse still—was the unfurling she felt, deep in her breast. A wing-swept flutter as her own dark heart rose up to answer his call.

She struggled, but it was over. He knew it. “Shhh,” he said, cradling her, gentler than any of the nights he'd held her before. The flutter was a beating now, drowning even her own heartbeat with its insistent thrum. She could feel the darkness rise, ready to take flight, ready to take her over completely.

“I've got you,” he whispered again. His eyes were lit with triumph, a hungry anticipation of what was still to come. Her fingers searched desperately for the knife as he bent his lips to hers, and then she found it: cold steel on the dusty stone.

She surrendered to the kiss, sending up a silent prayer. Then there was nothing but red.

OXFORD IN SUMMERTIME WAS A CITY UNDER SIEGE. THEY CAME
from across the oceans, from Norway and Brazil, India and Japan: civilizations old and new alike descending on the dreaming spires and neat, lush quads as a single invading army, sounding their battle cry in the chatters of foreign tongues, faces painted with warlike stripes of sunscreen zinc. Uniting to traipse the well-worn trail from the peaceful floral walkways of the Botanic Garden to the vast, soaring dining hall at Christ Church College, divisions of race and nationality blurred beneath the Union Jack baseball caps and souvenir sweatshirts. They clustered along the cobblestones of Cornmarket Street, consulting phrase books and foldout maps, and squeezed through iron gates for a better shot of statues and sweeping sandstone walls.

Shops along High Street carried a brisk trade in miniature flags, figurines, and long, looping scarves knitted in the muted rainbow of official college colors: mulberry and dark navy, mustard seed and hunter green. Cream teas were served in old-fashioned tearooms—dainty china clinking against gold-ringed saucers—and the river was gridlocked with punts: the long, low barges steered by students through the mossy waters as their passengers sipped Pimm's from cups floating with cucumber slices and nibbled sweet summer strawberries bought by the punnet from the fruit stands on the bridge.

From early May to the end of August, the ancient streets were clogged, dusty, and littered—or, more often, drenched with cold summer showers that sent the crowds scrambling into doorways and under shop awnings,
maps held aloft to shelter them from the sudden downpours. Then, as September dawned, the great quads were suddenly quiet again. The crowds departed, and the city exhaled a breath. The air took on a new, autumnal chill, and dewy mists hung over the Port Meadow fields each morning as the church bells rang out their baritone dawn chorus.

It was only a week or two, this gentle lull, for the shopgirls to slump idle behind their registers and the college groundsmen to set about pruning the rosebushes and mowing the neat strips of lawn.

Too soon, the next set of visitors arrived.

These weren't quite so temporary. They came bearing crisp new textbooks and fat induction packets, shined shoes and wide eyes, weighed down as much by their own hopeful expectations as the brand-new possessions they pulled behind them in overstuffed cases.

Summer was over, and it was time for a new generation of students to take their place in the hallowed roll call of Oxford's great academic legacy.

First, Cassandra Blackwell discovered, came matriculation.

She'd arrived late, her flight delayed by freak storms over the East Coast, so by the time she'd collected her baggage from Arrivals at Heathrow and made the two-hour ride up to Oxford by coach, the first official day of term at Oxford University was already well under way. She knew from reading the thick information packets what to expect, but still, it took her by surprise when she dragged her cases across the bumpy cobblestones and through the gates of Raleigh College to find a sea of students in strange black robes milling about the courtyard, shifting and spinning like newspaper twists in the English breeze.

Cassie paused in the middle of the bustle, drinking in the foreign scene. The students were assembling on a set of bleachers for an official photograph. But unlike the casual, jeans-clad freshmen she knew from college back home, these new students wore crisp white shirts and suits
under the robes; girls in blouses and black skirts, with dark ribbons looped at their necks and wide bands of black fabric trailing from their shoulders. It was an old-fashioned costume, the kind you'd expect to find immortalized in faded sepia photographs, yellowed with age. The only hint that this was the twenty-first century was the sea of cell phones students gripped as they lined up beneath the ancient honeyed sandstone walls to pose for their first photos.

The chimes of the chapel clock rang out noon across the courtyard. She was late.

Cassie looked hurriedly around. People were streaming in and out of the small guardhouse just inside the gates, so she made her way inside, ducking to avoid the low doorway carved into the stone. Inside, it was chaos: people lined three deep in front of the desk, clamoring for attention. She waited in line, unsure, before one of the staff—a weathered-looking man in a peaked cap and heavy cable-knit sweater—noticed her bags, and the information pack she was clutching to her chest.

“Are you a fresher?” he demanded.

“Yes.” Cassie offered her papers. “Cassandra Blackwell. My flight was delayed; I only just got here.”

The man's eyes widened. “You better leave your things and change before you miss the photograph.”

“It's okay,” Cassie tried to protest. “I just need to get settled into my room.”

But the man wouldn't be dissuaded. “Here, pass me your case.” He grabbed it from her before she could object. “Have you got your sub fusc?”

When Cassie stared blankly, he explained. “The robes and uniform. Never mind, you don't have time. Good thing you're wearing black.” He rooted in a box and pulled out a robe like the ones she'd seen outside. “Get along with you; I'll find your room assignment. Cassie, was it?” She nodded. “I'm Rutledge. Come find me later, when you're done with
matric. Go on!” He shooed her away and was quickly lost in the bustle again.

Pulling on the robe, Cassie headed back outside, only to be swept up and directed to a place in line, near the back of the photo. The other students parted to let her through, barely giving her another glance as they chatted and joked, full of first-day nerves. They were too caught up in their own excitement to notice her.

Cassie felt her own excitement, but it wasn't the giddy eagerness written all over their faces. Hers was a curiosity at this new world, mingling with the sense of being an impostor, as if one of her new classmates would look too closely and see the truth of her intentions written all over her face. The true reason for her place among them, and all her secret plans for the year.

“Places! Everyone, please take your places.”

She was barely in position when the photographer and his assistant began chasing stragglers to the edge of the crowd.

“Is this right?” The girl beside Cassie was fussing with her neck ribbon, tying and retying it into a looping bow. She had wide, birdlike eyes and a nervous tremble in her fingertips, her face lit up with a breathless glow.

Cassie glanced around, but the girl was talking to her. “Let me.” She quickly fixed the ribbon in place.

“Thanks.” The girl beamed. “Can you believe we're really here?” She didn't wait for a reply. “I've been dreaming about this my whole life,” she babbled. “All that time, and I finally made it. Oxford University.” She breathed the words gently, reverently—like a familiar prayer that had finally been answered. “Isn't it wonderful?”

Cassie glanced up at the crimson Raleigh flag, rippling on the far battlement. She'd seen it in photographs and glossy brochures, even in person, years ago, but now it seemed to loom larger, more vivid than ever before. The photographer's flash suddenly burst in front of her eyes, sending dark sparks dancing through her vision. She blinked,
dazed by the jet lag and travel, and the years of planning it had taken to finally make it inside the hallowed, exclusive gates of Raleigh College.

All her work had finally come to fruition: the scheming and lies, the sacrifice and risk.

“Wonderful,” she echoed softly, as the bulb flashed again, blinding them all in the bright afternoon sun.