And on his lapel was a button that said, IF YOU CAN READ THIS, THANK A TEACHER.

It was typical Myrnin, really. She was surprised the bunny slippers were absent.

“I didn’t know you were coming today,” he said, and draped his hat, coat, and cane on a nearby coat rack. “And I assume it isn’t just a random occurrence, like gravity.”

“Gravity isn’t random.”

“So you say.” He came to the opposite side of the table and looked at the book, then turned his head weirdly sideways to read the title. “Ah. Some of my best work. If only I could figure out what it actually meant.”

“I was trying to figure out if you ever met a girl named Kim. Kim—” What the hell was her last name? Had anybody even told her? “Kim, something. Kind of Goth?”

“Oh, her,” Myrnin said. He didn’t sound too impressed, which made Claire just a little happy. “Yes, Kimberlie’s known to us. She asked permission to film some of us, for the archives—a sort of permanent record of our histories. As you know, we do value that sort of thing. Many have agreed. She’s been named our video historian, I believe.”

“You haven’t done it, though?”

“I write my own history. I see no reason to entrust it to a human with a video camera. Paper and ink, girl. Paper and ink will always survive, when electronic storage becomes random impulses lost to the ages.”

“But the vampires do know her.”

“Yes. She’s a bit of a pet for the older ones. Besides me, of course. I don’t like pets. They bite—ah! I almost forgot! Time to feed Bob.” And Myrnin bustled off to another part of the lab, where presumably he’d stashed Bob the spider.

Or possibly Bob the auto mechanic—Claire wouldn’t put anything past him. He seemed slightly manic today, from the glitter in his eyes. It made her nervous.

She was about to close the book, when she saw, in his spiky black handwriting, something about her:

New girl. Claire something. Small and fragile.
No doubt they believe that will make me protective of her. It only makes me think how easy it is to
destroy her. . . .

She shuddered, and decided she didn’t really want to read the rest.

She left Myrnin making little weird kissy faces to Bob the spider as he shook a container of flies into Bob’s plastic case, and went to the archives.