“Whenever have you been?” The stranger engulfed me in a hug while I tried to sort out what his strange question meant. The dogs leaped and frolicked, excited to meet me now that their master had signaled his approval. He let me go and lifted his goggles, his nudging stare feeling like a buss of welcome. “You’re a daemon,” I said unnecessarily.
“And you’re a witch.” With one green eye and one blue, he studied Gallowglass. “And he’s a vampire. Not the same one you had with you before, but still big enough to replace the lightbulbs.”
“I don’t do lightbulbs,” Gallowglass said.
“Wait. I know you,” I said, sifting through the faces in my memory. This was one of the daemons I’d seen in the Bodleian last year when I’d first encountered Ashmole 782. He liked lattes and taking apart microfilm readers. He always wore earbuds, even when they weren’t attached to anything.
“Timothy?”
“The same.” Timothy turned his eyes to me and cocked his fingers and thumbs so they looked like six-shooters. He was, I noticed, still wearing mismatched cowboy boots, but this time one was green and the other blue—to match his eyes, one presumed. He clicked his tongue against his teeth. “Told you, babe: You’re the one.”
“Are you T. J. Weston?” Phoebe asked, trying to make her voice heard above the din of yelping, wriggling dogs.
Timothy stuffed his fingers in his ears and mouthed, “I can’t hear you.”
“Oy!” Gallowglass shouted. “Shut your gobs, little yappers.”
The barking stopped instantly. The dogs sat, jaws open and tongues lolling, and looked at Gallowglass adoringly. Timothy removed a finger from one of his ears.
“Nice,” the daemon said with a low whistle of appreciation. The dogs immediately started barking again.
Gallowglass bundled us all inside, muttering darkly about sight lines and defensive positions and possible hearing damage to Apple and Bean. Peace was achieved once he got down on the floor in front of the fireplace and let the dogs scramble all over him, licking and burrowing as if their pack’s alpha had been returned to them after a long absence.
“What are their names?” Phoebe inquired, trying to count the number of tails in the squirming mound.
“Hansel and Gretel, obviously.” Timothy looked at Phoebe as though she were hopeless.
“And the other four?” Phoebe asked.
“Oscar. Molly. Rusty. And Puddles.” Timothy pointed to each dog in turn.
“He likes to play outside in the rain?”
“No,” Timothy replied. “She likes to piddle on the floor. Her name was Penelope, but everybody in the village calls her Puddles now.”
A graceful segue from this subject to the Book of Life was impossible, so I plunged forward. “Did you buy a page from an illuminated manuscript that has a tree on it?”
“Yep.” Timothy blinked.
“Would you be willing to sell it to me?” There was no point in being coy.
“Nope.”
“We’re prepared to pay handsomely for it.” Phoebe might not like the de Clermonts’ casual indifference to where pictures were hung, but she was beginning to see the benefits of their purchasing power.
“It’s not for sale.” Timothy ruffled the ears of one of the dogs who then returned to Gallowglass and began to gnaw on the toe of his boot.
“Can I see it?” Perhaps Timothy would let me borrow it, I thought.
“Sure.” Timothy divested himself of the parachute, which he had been wearing like a cape, and strode out of the room. We scrambled to keep up.