Edgar crept through the halls as silently as he was able, careful to peer around every corner and stopping to listen to every noise. Ordinarily he would not have felt the need to be so cautious, his eyesight in the dark being better than any man's - but he was not so sure that Vaselyevich was a man.

But it was not Vaselyevich that Edgar encountered creeping through the hallways, but another slave, the fearful young child named Bram. The boy was a bit of a coward, but he was a good friend to Edgar, and there wasn't anyone the would-be investigator would rather have seen just then. "Ah, there you are, Bram. Just who I was looking for." In spite of himself, the boy smiled.

Then, Edgar furrowed his brow. Bram worked in the kitchens, the same place Usher had spied the two Overseers dragging off Leo. Perhaps that was why the normally cowardly boy was creeping around the dark like this. "Bram," he said, "Did you see Rais and Vasilyevich carry Leo off? They're going to kill him, unless we do something to stop it. Probably even then, to be honest, and also us. We have very little chance of succeeding where I'm going. How about it, friend?" The slave gave a wry smile and spread his hands.