Hidden in a dark alcove behind a secret bookcase in the Baroque Library, Katherine Solomon clings to Robert Langdon, overwhelmed with relief after believing she might never see him again. Langdon notices Katherine is cold and without her coat, and Katherine explains she used it to lash the hidden door shut so no one could pull the bookcase open.

Katherine tells Langdon she received a panicked voicemail from Alex, a PRH systems tech, warning that someone hacked the PRH server and deleted all traces of Katherine’s manuscript. Alex also said he had tracked Langdon’s phone to the middle of the Vltava River before the signal vanished, making him fear Langdon had drowned, and he warned that whoever targeted the manuscript might be coming for Katherine, Langdon, and Jonas Faukman, who has “disappeared.”

Katherine says she printed a hard copy of the manuscript that morning when the hotel business office was empty, intending to secure it in the suite safe. Before she could, a fire alarm forced an evacuation, so she kept the pages in her bag—potentially the only remaining copy—and came to the Klementinum to hide. To avoid monitored communications, Katherine emailed Langdon in code—using Enochian and Codex XL—before dumping her phone; Langdon recognizes the message and praises her ingenuity as their intimacy deepens.

Outside the Baroque Library, Lieutenant Pavel monitors the evacuation and learns from the docent that Langdon entered the library and has not left. Pavel scans the room, spots the balcony loggia as a likely hiding place, and forces the docent to reveal a concealed bookcase door and spiral staircase leading up.

Pavel orders the docent to seal the library doors and not open them for any reason, even if gunfire is heard. Left alone inside the locked chamber, Pavel frames the library as a “killing box,” believing he has Langdon trapped.