Alexandria: Dorian & Claire
"Hm?" Did she know that voice from somewhere? No. Maybe it just reminded her of someone from the past. Perhaps that guard in Dolceacqua. She peered through strands of hair to the source of the question. He was tall and handsome (handsome always meant trouble), and his smile was warm. Claire closed the book with care and tossed her hair over her shoulder with a flip of her head, returning his smile with a lazy grin of her own.
"I was double-checking the uses of hedge nettle versus cardamom for blood and bile disease." Claire's voice had gotten used to speaking Italian for the past couple of weeks, so her vowels were slightly elongated and there was a subtle roll of tongue, betraying her foreign birth. "Jacob Böhme was German. Do you happen to have this in German?" The book she was holding was old, certainly, but the German version hadn't been in circulation since the early 1720's. If Claire had been aware of that fact, she wouldn't have asked. To her, it was just another book, thanks to the extensive Vatican library.