Under pressure from the "urgent matter," Kraft reluctantly abandoned his setup work. A string of hurried footsteps carried him downstairs to Lucius.
Ignoring the noise, he moved down the stairs like a ghost. The steep staircase that had nearly broken Lucius's leg took him less than half a minute to descend, from attic to ground floor as if walking on level ground.
The uneven steps, shrouded in shadow, didn't hinder him at all. Though he'd stumbled several times the first time he came here, he now knew them as well as the back garden of his own home.
"What happened?" Kraft hurried down from the attic, carrying a pair of animal traps with jaws at least half the length of his shin.
Lucius let out a long sigh and set his glass of water on the windowsill. "We need to get to Liston's right away."
He looked quite dejected, yet also somewhat relieved, as though he'd set down a burden and resolved a long-standing inner conflict.
"Did he say what it was about?" Kraft, who'd only finished half his setup, wasn't eager to leave. Who knew if they'd put any of the traps in the wrong place without him there to supervise?
"I don't know if this is good news or bad news, so I'll just say it." Some barrier seemed to have fallen away for Lucius. For the first time in days, he looked Kraft straight in the eye without reservation. "You were right. Liston's at the Professor's house."
The bombshell left Kraft stunned for a good while. He couldn't understand how Liston had ended up at the Professor's house, and the craziest part was that he seemed to have found something important.
Who did something bad and then left the evidence at home?
He'd considered going straight to