Chapter 84

“Mirko! What happened?” I asked. “Was it Álvaro?”

When he finally looked at me, I saw him very differently. Something in the innocent blue glow of his eyes had changed, and for a moment I was terrified to think that—

“No, it was with the wires,” he said, and pointed to a cubicle.

I turned over my shoulder to look at what he was pointing at, and it was up, on the top edge of the door. The metal mesh was finished with sloppy, poorly cut points. I looked at other closed doors, and I realized what he was referring to: I assumed that he had climbed onto the fabric and climbed until he reached the upper edge. He had escaped from his cage by sneaking through the gap between the door and the ceiling, taking advantage of the fact that he was small and slippery. That’s how he had come out. And maybe he had found the spare keys to the padlocks on a board somewhere.

Just like Álvaro’s little trick when he sneaked through the skylight in my basement. That meant that if Mi