Read Chapter 30: A Sign of More

The dinner was Louisa’s idea. She’d booked the back room of The Eagle and Brewer, a pub wedged between the Bodleian’s honeyed stone and a row of student housing, and insisted on “a proper toast to the greatest medieval heist since the Dissolution.” Elodie had laughed at that, but now, seated between James and a very drunk professor of Old Norse, she felt the weight of the evening pressing in on her.

“And then,” James said, gesturing with a half-empty glass of red wine, “she read the colophon aloud. By candlelight. In the crypt of a drowned chapel.”

Louisa leaned forward, eyes bright. “You’re romanticizing it.”

“I’m barely exaggerating.” James set his glass down. “That casket was sealed so tight we thought we’d have to take an angle grinder to it. But Elodie found the trick—the chain matched Marguerite’s cross. She turned it counterclockwise, and the lid just… sighed open.”

Elodie pressed her lips together, cheeks warming under the table’s low amber light. “It wasn’t a trick. It was a mechanism.”

“A mechanism she understood in seconds,” James said, turning to face her. The room seemed to dim at the edges. “Elodie is the finest paleographer I know.”

The table went quiet. Someone coughed. Louisa raised an eyebrow, slow and delighted, and Elodie felt the heat crawl from her cheeks to her collarbone. “James,” she managed, “that’s—you’ve worked with half the faculty in Cambridge.”

“I have.” He didn’t look away. “And I’m telling you. The finest.”

The Old Norse professor—Marcus, she remembered—slapped the table and roared a toast in what she suspected was inaccurate Old Norse. The spell broke, and the room dissolved into laughter and clinking glasses. But Elodie’s pulse hadn’t settled. She reached for her water, found her wine instead, and drank.

Louisa leaned across James to whisper, “That one’s gone for you, love.”

“We’re collaborating,” Elodie said, too loudly.

“Mm.” Louisa’s smile was knowing. “That’s what they call it.”

The evening stretched on in a blur of pub grub and academic gossip. James’s knee pressed against hers under the table, and neither of them moved. At one point, he reached past her for the salt and his hand brushed her shoulder, and Elodie found herself replaying the gesture long after the salt had been passed.

By the time they spilled out onto the cobbled street, the October air was sharp with the first taste of frost. Marcus stumbled toward his bicycle, waving dramatically. Louisa hugged Elodie tight and murmured, “Don’t let that one get away,” before peeling off toward her flat. The street settled into quiet.

James fell into step beside her. “I think that went well.”

“You told the entire medieval studies department I’m the finest paleographer you know,” Elodie said, tucking her hands into her coat pockets. “Are you trying to sabotage my reputation before the fellowship committee hears the evidence?”

“I meant every word.”

She stopped walking. The streetlamp above them cast a halo of pale light. James’s face was half in shadow, half in gold, and he looked younger than she’d ever seen him—unburdened, almost hopeful.

“James,” she started.

His phone buzzed. He glanced down, then swore under his breath. “Sorry. That’s my mother—she said she’d only call if it was urgent.” He frowned at the screen. “My father’s had a scare. Heart palpitations. He’s fine, apparently, but—I should call her back.”

“Of course,” Elodie said. “Go.”

He stepped a few paces away, phone pressed to his ear, his voice low and soothing in a way that made something ache in her chest. She watched him pace, the tension returning to his shoulders. When he came back, he’d tucked the phone away and schooled his face into neutrality.

“He’s fine,” James said before she could ask. “Stubborn old man. Refused the ambulance because he was mid-chess game.”

“James.”

“I’m fine.” He smiled, but it didn’t reach his eyes. “Let’s get back. We still have the last two folios to transcribe before the deadline.”

They walked in silence through the empty streets. Back in the hotel room—the same one, with its two narrow beds and the clutter of papers that had grown to cover every surface—Elodie shrugged out of her coat and went straight to her laptop, opening the transcript they’d been building.

The screen glowed. An email notification popped into the corner of her vision.

*From: M. Lefèvre, Archives Départementales d’Eure-et-Loir* *Subject: Suite de votre demande — Chapelle familiale*

Elodie clicked it open, her eye scanning the French quickly, then again more slowly.

*…the baptistery records confirm Marguerite’s family held rights to a small chapel in the hamlet of Saint-Julien-de-Chevry, fifteen kilometers southeast of Chartres. The chapel remains in private hands, but a condition of the family’s heritage trust allows scholarly access upon application. Our inventory notes reference a sealed niche behind the altar, mentioned in an 1897 vicar’s log as containing “objets de la fondatrice.” We have not been able to verify the contents. If you wish to pursue access, I can forward the application forms—*

Elodie’s breath caught. She read the sentence again.

*A sealed niche behind the altar. Objets de la fondatrice.*

“James,” she said, her voice thin. “Look at this.”

He crossed the room, reading over her shoulder. His hand landed on the back of her chair, warm and close. “Saint-Julien-de-Chevry. That’s forty minutes from Chartres.”

“The vicar’s log is from 1897,” Elodie said. “If no one’s opened it since—if it’s still sealed—” She turned to look up at him. “James, this could be another manuscript. Or letters. A portrait, even.”

His eyes were bright, reflecting the screen’s glow. “She hid her treatise in a drowning chapel. What else did she hide?”

“We have the fellowship defense due in ten days,” Elodie reminded him, but her mind was already running ahead, mapping train routes from Paris, counting hours.

“We work faster,” James said. “We’ve got the bones of the introduction. The conclusion is drafted. We can write the final edits on the train.”

“You’re serious.”

“Elodie.” He crouched beside her chair, bringing his face level with hers. “This is what we do. We follow the trail. If there’s another piece of her—another voice we can bring into the record—we can’t leave it sitting in some damp niche waiting for another century.” He paused. “I’ll call the archive tomorrow. Apply for access.”

Something warm and complicated unfurled in her chest. “We.”

“What?”

“You said ‘we.’” She held his gaze. “Two months ago, you’d have applied alone and left me in the dust.”

James’s mouth twitched. “Two months ago, I was an idiot.”

“I’m not arguing.”

He laughed—a real one, low and surprised—and the sound of it made her stomach flip. He was still crouched beside her, close enough that she could see the flecks of gold in his irises, the faint scar above his brow she’d never noticed before.

“I have a final fellowship interview at Cambridge next Thursday,” James said quietly. “The shortlist narrowed. They want to meet me in person.”

The warmth flickered, cooled. “Next Thursday.”

“Yes.”

“That’s the day after we’d arrive in Chartres.”

“I know.” He straightened, running a hand through his hair. “I can come with you, get the lay of the land, then take a morning train back to Cambridge for the interview. Meet you in the chapel after—if you want.”

Elodie looked at the email, at the promise of a sealed niche and a possible second manuscript. She looked at James, caught between his father’s legacy and the fellowship he’d claimed he no longer wanted—and yet was still pursuing.

“You’re still going for it,” she said. It wasn’t an accusation. It was a question she needed answered.

James was quiet for a long moment. “I don’t know what I’m going for anymore,” he admitted. “But I know I’m not letting you go to Chartres alone.”

The words hung between them. Elodie’s heart beat a slow, deliberate rhythm.

“We leave Friday,” she said.

James nodded. She turned back to the screen and clicked *Reply*.