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“Your memorandum is waiting.”

A quiet breath of amusement escapes him.

“So it is,” Ross replies.

He turns toward the doors, but his pace slows after only a few steps. Ross glances back at the painting, then at me.

“I’d be interested to know what you find,” he says.

“I’ll put it in the report,” I tell him.

“I meant before the report,” Ross clarifies.

The distinction hangs between us for a beat before Margaret asks Amelia a question from the other side of the table and the working rhythm of the library closes around us again.

Ross gives me a brief nod and leaves with the memorandum under his arm. I watch the doorway for perhaps a second longer than necessary before returning to the Hartmann file. The Munich discrepancy is still sitting exactly where I left it, but when I lower my eyes to the page, I have to read the same line twice.

Later that afternoon, I find Sebastian near the rear terrace doors with a coffee in one hand and his phone in the other.

He looks up when he sees me. “Still alive?”

“Barely,” I say.

Sebastian slips his phone into his jacket pocket.

“That bad?”

“The project’s fine,” I tell him.

“Your brother is another matter.”

His eyebrows lift. “Ross?”

“He challenged me over the Hartmann provenance.”

Sebastian laughs under his breath.

“That sounds more like him.”

“He seemed very confident the family ledger couldn’t possibly be wrong.”

“Ross enjoys being right,” Sebastian says.

“He enjoys it even more when everyone else knows it.”

I glance toward the corridor leading back to the library.

“He accepted it easily enough once the evidence supported me.”

Sebastian studies me for a second, amusement settling into his expression.

“What?” I ask.

“Nothing.”

“That wasn’t nothing.”

He takes a sip of coffee. “I’m just remembering something.”