"That's all?"
"Th... that's all."
Vincent gave him a long, deep look, then turned and walked toward the door.
Before Mr. Borgin could even take a deep breath, Vincent suddenly turned back. "Your answers were very thorough. I'll verify them one by one. I hope that when we meet again, you'll still be as talkative as you are now."
Mr. Borgin felt as though he had fallen into an ice cellar.
His answers had indeed been thorough, but he had left out one person—his dear brother, the other owner of Borgin and Burke's, the true well-connected mole of Britain's underground magical world, Ebenezer Borgin.
Vincent left. The crisp sound of the door closing rang in Mr. Borgin's mind like a bell, its deep echo chilling him to the marrow.
He slumped in his chair, cold sweat soaking through his shirt as his fingers unconsciously scraped at the wooden counter.
"He saw through me..." Mr. Borgin trembled. "He definitely saw through me... That look..."
Vincent's final glance had been calm, even polite.
But he understood the chill beneath that calmness. It was the certainty of someone who had seen through everything.
Verify them one by one? What did that mean? It meant Vincent would go after the people on the list he had given him.
When those people were visited by that harbinger of doom, what would they think? Who would believe Mr. Borgin was innocent? They would only think that, to save himself, he had sold them all out to the Dark Lord.
He could practically see himself being despised and hunted by the entire underground world.
And if his shrewd, grudge-holding brother Ebenezer learned that he had indirectly led Vincent to him...
"It's over... It's all over..." Mr. Borgin buried his face in his trembling hands and let out