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He stared atopen "What?" I asked "That’s oet into our world doht out or office lunch Sorry, that’s all I’ve got"

"No, I was actually surprised you knew that much I’ve known Rod since I was little, and I don’t think I know quite that uys You talk about things, not how you feel about things I take it, then, you don’t have a lot of scoop on Idris"

"Not like you’ve got on Ari I usually tried to avoid talking to hi the li the accepted path If he’d been willing to stay away froot bored easily by the usual things and wanted to try so as different as possible"

"Sounds like Ari and men," I quipped "They’re a match made in heaven"

"Why do you think she’s with him?" From the expression on his face, I couldn’t tell if he was baffled by Ari being with Idris, or by Idris being with Ari

"It’s hard to say I can’t be sure how much of what she toldI suspect he gives her an outlet for her less ade and use people, and he considers it a good thing I doubt she set out to find hiradually, and then she got in too deep"

"Which ht -out with hi patterns is accurate"

"If we could find her Which brings us back to the initial problem Idris orried about her and didn’t know she was free I think hedistracted by so else He took off pretty quickly when he found out she was free, so he ht have had an idea where she’d be Meanwhile, who’s that other person whowith Idris? Think about who he was close to when he worked here I know he and Gregor were tight Anyone else?"

He looked intensely uncomfortable, and when he spoke, he dropped his voice to little above a whisper "He got along really ith uy?" I asked, barely re to keepin an "industrial accident" years ago and seldom left his office "You know, there are a lot of industrial accidents in this departre problere, but he tended to turn green and sprout horns and fangs when he was angry That actually made him easier to deal with than my boss at my old job, who didn’t have such obvious physical clues when she was in evil mode

"They used to take a lot of risks in experiement"

"Do you mean former as in before Merlin?"

He nodded "But I never got the sense of anything dark fro the envelope"

"What happened to the former boss?"

"He retired I don’t recall any hint of scandal associated with hirain of salt Oas so clueless about the company rumor mill, they could have tarred and feathered the for with the staff brandishing pitchforks and torches, and he ht not have noticed Until he found hiainst Idris, he’d apparently stayed hidden away in his lab, happily translating ancient spells and oblivious to anything happening elsewhere in the co up a lot of the corporate grapevine, thanks toa mole, so I was sure I’d have heard about it if there had been any breath of scandal associated with the former boss It was yet another dead end

"You didn’t recognize the erprints, did you?"

He shook his head wearily "Unfortunately, that doesn’t alork You can only figure out who did a spell if you have a basis for coerprints--just finding one doesn’t solve the crime unless you have a copy of the criether All I can say is it wasn’t soic style I’ve worked with before"

"Can people change their style, kind of like wearing gloves hides fingerprints?"