text: [Themes: love & dating, historical, fantasy]
  
  Your father and brother remain in London for most of the next few weeks, but the latter sends a handful of brief letters that make it clear the family isn't going to fall into complete ruin. When he comes back near the beginning of September, he says the same thing in person.
  
  Of course, changes must be made, and one of the serving girls is sent packing. Charles tells you they might send Simon away too, since your father does not often host guests and a family hardly needs a butler to manage things when they have only two other servants, but nothing has been decided yet.
  
  Meanwhile, you've spent the intervening days exchanging letters with Peter and reading anything you could find on succubi. There isn't much in the books you've collected, and you can't access the College's library until the term starts. What you've found hasn't made you any less anxious, but at least the dreams have stayed away. Maybe the ankh is working, or maybe it really was just the stress of the entrance examination. In any case, it's the longest you've gone without a nightmare since they started.
  
  You learned the College tuition is steep, but not terribly so, and informed your father of the cost by letter. He has not responded, and the few times he's been in Covingsford has barely said a word. There is something a little shameful, you cannot help but feel, in spending so much on your studies while the family is in somewhat dire straits, and despite all your anticipation, you nearly tell your father you've changed your mind. You always beat back these vague feelings of guilt, but you remain quite sure that your father feels the same way, though he has not shown it.
  
  Some madness has caused you to use his study as your main reading room, perhaps because it is not quite as hot as your bedroom. Simon raised an eyebrow the first time he saw you enter, but, dour gentleman that he is, has not said a word. There is something reassuring about being able to glance up at your mother's face whenever you read some new and terrifying fact about succubi or daemons in general. You wonder if the portrait did as much good for your father when he got the wretched news about the family's fortunes.
  
  With only one serving girl, Mrs. Littlethwaite has been working a good deal harder to keep the house impeccable. You tried telling her it was alright, that there was no need to dust rooms no one sleeps in, but she wouldn't hear it.
  
  As luck would have it, your father returns the evening of September 1st. The first day of term is in the morning. His presence sends Mrs. Littlethwaite scurrying out of the dining room- you had taken to eating all your meals with her in his absence. He stares for a moment. "You are to begin tomorrow. Your letter did not contain the cost of accommodations at the College."
  
  "I had thought I would lodge here, sir. There's no need to spend..."
  
  "There is every need," he interrupts. "Propriety insists things be done in the established way, and in any case, the cost of a room in their dormitory will not break this family. I will not have it be said that my son had to live in his childhood bedroom because his father had lost all the family's wealth. You will make arrangements for a room after your matriculation tomorrow and send the cost by letter. There will be no need for you to return until Christmas." He turns and walks upstairs, and the familiar feeling of guilt returns.
  
  A moment later Mrs. Littlethwaite creeps from the kitchen. "It seems I won't be seeing you for some time," you say.
  
  She glances at the staircase and frowns, though she catches herself after a second. "I shan't be going anywhere, dear. Now, you go off and learn everything you can, and don't spend a minute thinking of me." You shake your head and she gives you a quick, tight hug.
  
  You spend the next few hours packing everything you'll need. Clothes, books, it's all very ordinary. Very little to suggest you'll be learning to combat dark powers. When you're finished you try to sleep, but you lay awake, thinking of tomorrow, wondering what the future will bring, and arguing with yourself about what you ought to do. Time slides by and you aren't growing any more tired.
  
  > speak to your father
  The decision makes you want to scream, but you know it is right. Family must come before self, even in a matter such as this. It will not be as
  
  You go straight to your father's study. He sets down his book and listens as you explain yourself, his face unreadable. "Sir, I have realized my true purpose and duty is to further our family's business interests, and to that end I place myself entirely at your disposal. I have some learning and the willingness to acquire practical skill in whatever profession or venture you deem fit." He nods slowly and returns to his work. Perhaps you underestimated his interest at all, but what's done is done. You avoid looking at the portrait of your mother, but you fancy you can feel her pity as you walk from the room.
  
  You speak a little more freely in your talk with Mrs. Littlethwaite. She understands your reasoning and knows how unstable the Latimer family's fortunes are, but she also knows you have never cared for business, and she knows that to be a daemonologist is your dream. For a moment you are almost convinced by her honest kindness, but then you realize you could never go back on what you've said to your father. She nods and tells you she'll be proud no matter what you do, and that you must remember to write from wherever you end up.
  
  The next day your father announces you will go to London, where your brother will teach you how to manage some of the family's investments. He tries to conceal his pleasure as having two sons in business, but it's the most he's spoken to you in months. You don't mind. Everything still feels somewhat numb, and when you write a brief letter to the College informing them of your decision, you are hardly even disappointed.
  
  Your trunk is already packed and you arrive in the city a few days later in a driving rain. Charles has arranged rooms for you off Fleet Street, quite near to St. Paul's Cathedral. They are bare but not unpleasant. You have decided to forget everything about your former ambition, and to that end have not replied to two letters from Peter Aubrey. You will never be a daemonologist, but that does not mean you cannot find happiness or be a useful member of society.
  
  The room has a small desk, and there you sit most evenings, candle burning, studying figures and accounts that your brother brings you. Each day you travel with him to the Bank of England, the Exchange, the law courts, or one of the other places where business is done in the great metropolis. Your nights are harder, and every so often you still dream of the succubus, but she never appears in person. Perhaps it is the ankh you always wear, your one reminder of the College, perhaps you have successfully disappeared among the thousands and thousands that live in London, or perhaps she simply lost interest when you left your daemonological ambitions behind. You do not know.
  
  It is not the life you had hoped for, but it is still a life.
  
  > Continue
  "Yes," says a great fat man with a monstrous chin, "it was consumption. Took him off last night, I believe. Charles Latimer's brother, you know."
  
  "Sad really," says his companion, quite thin. "He wasn't a bad fellow at all, not really. Always polite when you met with him, always ready to talk about literature or natural philosophy. Not my areas of expertise, but still, a pleasant fellow. Not a very good man of business, no, but he was still young. He might have learned. His father and brother were clever."
  
  "I wonder if the father will come down for the funeral. They say his gout is worse, and the family's fortunes never really recovered from the shock they took a few years ago. Why, it was the American that did it..." Their conversation turning to the effect of the latest developments in America on the price of tobacco and wheat, the two walk off in the direction of the Bank.
  
  The year is 1780, and you are dead. Your life these past three years was not unpleasant, and as you learned the essentials of business you still managed to read literature, philosophy, and other learned subjects. You made a few friends, mostly other bookish men in business, the law, or the Church. Once you even met the great Dr. Johnson, who deigned to argue with you about the relative merits of two of Shakespeare's plays. No, your life in London was not unpleasant, only rather cold and gray.
  
  Your passing was difficult, but, for a victim of consumption, not especially painful. Your father does come to London for the funeral, which is sparely attended. You are buried in the churchyard with Dr. Thewliss' ankh still around your neck. A few days later, just as you begin to decompose, a beautiful woman with dark lips and enormous silver wings comes to your grave. She reads your name on the stone and sighs, a melancholy look her pale face. She is too late. She flies into the night sky, her hunger awakened, and wonders which of the thousands of men below will satisfy it.