The rest of it came to Sebastian in pieces over the following week, the way a fracture in old plaster reveals itself gradually under careful pressure — first a hairline, then a spreading web, then, without warning, the whole surface giving way at once.
The first piece came from Foster, the archivist, whom Sebastian visited himself two days after the conversation in Margaret's office, without telling her he intended to go. Foster had been startled to see him — Sebastian couldn't remember the last time he'd been down to the basement level at all, and said as much, which seemed to relax something in the older man, a sense that the visit was genuine curiosity rather than a formal inspection.
"Your fiancée's been the best thing that's happened to this archive in twenty years," Foster told him
