Tommy Walker was a pitiful bloke. Everybody knew it, save his own dear mother, and quite frankly there were days he worried she’d begun to catch on. And hadn’t his brothers said the same? After all, no amount of stretching and strengthening had been enough to rehabilitate his contemptible foot arches. As they packed up their rucksacks and headed to the front, they were perfectly pleased to leave him and his flat feet behind. And now, he was about to lose the best job he could hope to get in all of Oxfordshire.

As he hurried up the stairs of the Bodleian Library, he could feel sweat dripping down between his shoulder blades, his heart hammering in his ears. Reaching the door to the Keeper’s study, he hastily wiped his hands on his trousers, before rapping on the door.

“You’re late, boy!”

Tommy avoided his gaze as he slipped into the room.

“I know, I’m sorry, Mr. Poole. It won’t happen again, I promise.”

Mr. Reginald Lane Poole made a harrumphing sound in the back of his throat, speaking volumes as to the supposed likelihood of that statement. As Keeper of the Archives, he took a rather inflated view of his own importance, and a rather dismal view of all those who failed to hold him in proper deference.

Tommy hurriedly set to work on the waiting stack of archival papers, stashing them in his knapsack under the shrewd eye of the Keeper. The old man shook his head, lips puckered in that abject look of disapproval, before turning back to the work at hand.

“Letters, can you imagine? Absurd. Among founding charters and papal legates, we have ordinary letters from every minor academic. I do say, my predecessors had a fatal inability to destroy things when they’re done with. No longer, I assure you.”

Tommy didn’t bother to respond, knowing the cantankerous old man required no such reassurances as to his own rectitude.

But as he set about unloading his knapsack by the fireplace, one particular sachet of letters caught his eye. Perhaps it was the royal purple seal that adorned the outside, or something about the angle of the lettering, but he couldn’t resist taking a closer look. His eyes quickly scanned through the sachet of letters, brow furrowing as he went. Glancing toward Poole, Tommy quickly stuffed the packet of letters in his trouser pocket before continuing with the menial task. Yet all the while, his mind buzzed with possibilities.

Pneuma? What in the bloomin’ hell is pneuma? Well, apparently somethin’ worth dyin’ for…