Fenwick opened the door before Liora's second knock landed.
That alone told her he had been close, already waiting within earshot of the stairwell. He stepped aside without greeting her formally, as if the urgency of the visit had already replaced ceremony.
She entered quickly.
"Voss told him," she said.
Fenwick did not react immediately.
He closed the door behind her, then moved to the table and sat down with deliberate control, the kind of motion that was not about comfort but about creating a moment of pause before response.
"Start from the beginning," he said.
Liora did.
She described the third aisle.
The carved figure.
Thrane standing between cases with his ledger open.
Voss speaking in that casual, almost conversational tone as if sharing something minor rather than revealing a structural fault in decades of trust.
She repeated the phrasing exactly where she could.
"The archivist found a recurring mark," she said. "He said she thought it was puzzling."
