City of Dark Magic Read Free

thought Sarah had exceptional sensory abilities. He actually hugged her brain, which had been awkward but flattering. But, Sherbatsky said, they would have to begin in the fall. He was off on sabbatical for the spring semester. He was vague about his destination, which was not unusual. Sarah wasn’t sure if
Sherbatsky
knew where he was most of the time. She hadn’t heard from him since he left in January.
    So why hadn’t the Lobkowiczes hired someone like him, who was recognized the world over as the man who knew Beethoven better than Beethoven knew Beethoven? Or some acknowledged expert from the Royal College of Music or someplace like that?
    Why her?
    At the bottom of the letter was an e-mail address. If Sarah accepted the offer, she was to send an acknowledgment at once to Miles Wolfmann, head of the Lobkowicz Museum Collection. Travel accommodations would then be made. She should be prepared to leave immediately.
    Sarah decided that a brief acceptance message was best. She could have pretended that accepting meant canceling equally glamorous plans, but why bother? However, she needn’t tell Miles Wolfmann that the only people she’d be disappointing by her absence this summer were the members of Boston Sports Club, where she moonlighted as a spin-class instructor.
    How had the Lobkowicz family even heard of her? True, she had published, but only in academic journals. Had Sherbatsky himself recommended her? That was plausible, and Sarah decided to accept it as the most likely explanation.
    She left the office and biked quickly back to the tiny Porter Square apartment she shared with a roommate. Adrenaline and excitement kicked up her pace, and she beat her best time by forty-five seconds.
    Sarah knew she should call her mother and tell her the news. Actually, the person she really wanted to tell was her father. Even though it had been thirteen years since his death, she still wanted to tell him things.
    Sarah felt a weird mix of dread and resentment when she thought about what her mom’s reaction would be to Sarah gallivanting off to Europe for the summer. Her mom, Judy, had grown up very poor and dropped out of high school when her own mom died and she was left to take care of younger siblings. Judy was cleaning houses for a living when she met Sarah’s dad, an e Cswhelectrician she let into a fancy mansion on Beacon Hill so he could fix the crystal chandeliers for her employers.
    Sarah’s dad had been delighted that his daughter loved reading and school. Her mom said all the right things (“We’re very proud of you”), but even when Sarah was very little she had the sense that with every book she read, she was somehow distancing herself from her mom. This news wasn’t likely to improve matters.
    Sarah sighed, stowed her bike away, and climbed the stairs to her apartment. Alessandro, her roommate, greeted her at the door, clad only in a towel and carrying two raspberry-colored cocktails. Sarah accepted one gratefully.
    “Campari and pomegranate juice,” Alessandro purred in his thick Italian accent. “You will adore me forever.”
    None of Sarah’s friends could believe that Sarah wasn’t sleeping with Alessandro, who was hot in both the classical Renaissance sense and in a totally cheesy vampire movie one, too. Sarah, who took a scholarly interest in her own healthy libido, could only explain it as a matter of pheromones. When it came to sex, she simply followed her nose, and her nose never led her to Alessandro. “You’re spoiled,” her friends said. Which was probably true, since Sarah never seemed to have any trouble finding a suitable partner for the mood, and the mood occurred frequently. “What about common interests, intimacy, trust?” other friends said. “Don’t you want that?” At this point, Sarah usually had to hide a yawn.
    Now she followed her roommate into their cramped but immaculate (that was Alessandro’s doing) kitchen and showed him the letter from Prague.
    “The first thing