Professor Stone was a pragmatic man. Even here, in the muted gold glow of his private sitting room, he looked like someone who had already made every calculation worth making. His silk cream pajamas draped neatly over a frame still broad from his younger years; the only hint of indulgence was the expensive cigar burning slowly in the cut-glass ashtray on the side table. Its smoke curled upward in thin, blue-grey ribbons, weaving with the scent of old paper and night air drifting in from the balcony.
He was waiting for the inevitable.
Jonathan Clarke would call, or come in person, or send one of his children to do it for him. Either way, the rumor that Victor had pulled Elias out of the university labs and into the Numen manor would have reached him by now. Jonathan was predictable in that way, unable to leave a piece on the board when someone else had touched it.
