Free The Oxford Inheritance by Ann A. McDonald Page A

the photograph into her sweatshirt pocket and shrank back against the library stacks, scuttling quickly down the aisle to take cover behind a long shelf of hardbound books, out of sight of the front entrance.
    The heavy footsteps came to a stop just inside the vaults. Cassie silently moved a book aside and peered through the gap in the shelves.
    It was one of the porters, a man she’d never seen before: in his forties, perhaps, with a pinched face and a potbelly bulging under his coat. He looked around the room with deep-set eyes. “Hello?” he called out. “Anybody here?”
    Cassie shrank back out of sight and held her breath. The man’s footsteps sounded again, and she peered back through the stacks, hoping he was leaving. But instead he continued down the aisle and came to a stop by her corner of research. He took in the mess of files. “This is a restricted area.” The man’s voice rang out sternly. “You’d do well to come out now, and we’ll sort this out.”
    Cassie backed away from her vantage point, panic rising. She wondered if she could fake it: saunter out of the stacks and play the overworked student, try and hurry past him before he had a chance to question her closely. But he could demand to see her pass-card. He might know Evie personally from around college, and then she’d be caught for trespassing, and stealing her roommate’s access card in the bargain.
    No. She would just have to stay hidden until he left. Cassie pulled her hood up over her head and melted into an alcove, waiting for the porter to tire of this mystery and return to the lodge for a cup of coffee and the racing post. But instead he began a methodical search of the space, pacing in turn up and down each aisle.
    Cassie squeezed her eyes shut for a moment, desperately trying to think of an escape. The layout of the room was all wrong: she had no way of dashing for the main entrance without revealing herself, and back behind her there was only darkness and endless rows of library stacks receding down the gentle slope into the black.
    The footsteps sounded louder, closer.
    A familiar heat began to rise in Cassie’s chest. The squeezing choke, cornered and desperate. Cassie clutched at her pendant and tried to think clearly. There had to be another way out. She hitched her bag andquickly tiptoed down the aisle, deeper into the vaults, doing her best to tread silently on the dusty concrete floors.
    The deeper she plunged into the unknown, the thicker the air seemed, dense and untouched. Then she felt a whisper of fresh air dance across her face.
    She stopped. The draft was coming from the wall beside her. As she moved closer she could see this section was hung with a dense tapestry, and when Cassie lifted it aside, she found a narrow passage and a spiral staircase cut into the stone, twisting upward.
    â€œHey!” The shout came from behind her. Cassie spun around to find a flashlight beam, bright and dazzling from the end of the aisle. The porter started toward her. “Stop!” he called.
    Cassie bolted into the passageway and raced up the stairs. She could hear the porter chasing loudly after her, his labored breathing echoing in the narrow space. Higher she climbed, heart pounding, praying fervently that she’d find an escape at the end of it, but when the ground finally leveled out, Cassie found herself in a long, narrow passage.
    She raced on. The porter was still lagging on the stairs; she’d put some distance between them, but for all she knew she was racing headlong into a dead end. And then there it was, at the end of the corridor: a window set high into the far wall. She could have cried out with relief, but instead she reached up to get the catch. The hinges were rusted and stiff, but Cassie finally flung the window open and pulled herself up to the ledge.
    The night air was cold and sharp after the stifling air of the vault, but she barely had time to glance