But Layla was forgotten as a sudden bone-deep chill settled over me, as if someone had just walked on my grave. My mother used to say that, but I never knew what it meant until this moment.

“Well, if it isn’t the black widow herself,” a woman said in a familiar high, whiny tone that was purported to cause dogs’ ears to bleed. “Wherever she goes, somebody dies.”

Minka LaBoeuf.

My worst nightmare. To think I’d been so happy to be here only a few minutes ago.

I turned and glared at her. “So maybe you ought to leave, just to be on the safe side.”

“Very funny,” she said, tossing back her overly processed, stringy black hair. “I should think they’d be afraid to let you in here with your record.”

I ignored that comment, just as I ignored the cheap, fuzzy black angora sweater she wore that was causing tiny black hairs to stick in unattractive clumps on her face and neck. “What are you doing here?”

“I’m an instructor now,” she said, jutting her pointy chin out smugly. “I ran into Layla at the book fair in Edinburgh and she offered me the position.”

“What?” I might’ve shrieked the word. I couldn’t help it. Minka was the world’s worst bookbinder. She destroyed books. She was like the bubonic plague to books. Why in the world would anyone hire her to teach bookbinding? “You’ve got to be kidding.”

But she was no longer looking at me. I turned at the sound of scuffling footsteps behind me and saw Ned, the printing press guy, frowning at us. And when Ned frowned, what little forehead he had completely disappeared. He wasn’t completely unattractive, if you liked that haunted, confused look in a guy. Minka did, apparently.