The job came from Ervan on a Tuesday and was presented as straightforward, which in Zelig’s experience was a word that did approximately half the work people expected it to do.

  A collector in the upper Middling Ring had a piece that belonged to a client of Ervan’s. Small sculpture, decorative, no magical properties, no complications. The collector was hosting a dinner that Friday. Six guests, a hired serving staff for the evening, the kind of social event where two additional faces in the serving rotation would not register.

  “We go in as staff.” Ervan said. “Take the piece from the display room during the dinner. Out before dessert.”

  He looked around the table.

  “Clean.” He said.

  Zelig looked at Flint.

  Flint’s face said: this will be clean.

  Zelig’s face said: your face said that last time.

  Flint’s face said: this is different.

  The serving uniforms came from a contact of Reva’s and fit everyone well enough except Aldo, one of the two regular crew members, who was built in a way that made fitted clothing a theoretical concept. Reva handed him his jacket and looked at it on him for a moment and then looked at Ervan.

  “He stays outside.” Ervan said.

  Aldo seemed relieved.

  They went over the floor plan. The display room was off the main hallway, accessible from the dining room through a connecting door that would be closed but not locked during the dinner. Zelig and Flint would rotate through serving for the first forty minutes, establish their presence as unremarkable, and then Zelig would slip through the connecting door while Flint covered the room.

  Routine. Clean. Half an hour in and out.

  The collector’s house was a narrow four story building on a quiet street in the upper Middling Ring, the kind of building that communicated wealth through restraint, no ornamentation, just good stone and clean lines and windows that fit properly. A man at the door checked them against a list. They were on the list because Reva’s contact had put them on the list three days ago.

  Inside, the house was warm and smelled like candle wax and something being cooked with wine. Six guests already in the sitting room, the collector moving between them with the particular performance of a host who had done this many times and knew exactly how it was supposed to look.

  Zelig picked up a tray.

  Forty minutes of serving was forty minutes of being furniture, which was a state Zelig was comfortable in. He moved through the room, refilled glasses, noted exits, noted the collector’s patterns of movement, noted which guests talked to each other and which ones were there for the food.

  Flint was better at this than he had any right to be.

  He had the serving manner exactly right, the specific combination of present and invisible that good service required, attentive without drawing attention, there when needed and not there when not needed. Zelig watched him work between his own rotations and felt the same thing he always felt watching Flint do something well, a kind of reluctant appreciation.

  At the thirty five minute mark Zelig caught Flint’s eye.

  Flint gave a small nod.

  Zelig set his tray down on the side table and moved toward the connecting door.

  The display room was dim, lit by two lamps turned low. Glass cases along the walls, items on pedestals, the careful arrangement of someone who organized their collection by an internal logic that made sense only to them.

  He found the piece in under a minute. Small, dark stone, a figure with its arms at its sides, sitting on the third shelf of the second case. He opened the case, which was not locked, took the piece, wrapped it in the cloth he had brought, put it in his jacket.

  The story has been illicitly taken; should you find it on Amazon, report the infringement.

  Forty seconds total.

  He turned to leave.

  The connecting door opened and a woman walked in.

  Not a guest. One of the other hired servers, young, carrying an empty tray, apparently looking for somewhere to put it down. She saw Zelig. Looked at the open display case. Looked at Zelig.

  Zelig looked at the tray in her hands.

  “Third door on the left.” He said, with the specific tone of someone answering a question that had been asked. “That’s the kitchen.”

  The woman looked at him.

  “For the tray.” He said.

  She looked at the tray in her own hands as if she had forgotten it was there. Then she looked at the display case again.

  Zelig was already moving past her toward the door, not fast, not slow, the pace of someone who had finished what they were doing and was moving on to the next thing.

  He went back into the hallway and picked up his tray from the side table and re-entered the dining room.

  Flint was in the middle of refilling a glass and glanced at him.

  Zelig’s expression said: done.

  Flint’s expression said: already?

  Zelig’s expression said: thirty eight seconds.

  Flint looked quietly impressed and went back to the glass.

  They left at the natural end of the serving rotation, with the other staff, at the point in the evening when the guests had moved to the sitting room for after dinner drinks and the kitchen was clearing up. No one stopped them. No one looked at them twice.

  On the street outside Flint loosened his collar and exhaled.

  “Clean.” He said.

  “Yes.” Zelig said.

  “I told you it would be clean.”

  “You did.”

  “You didn’t believe me.”

  “I believed you were intending for it to be clean.” Zelig said. “Which is different.”

  Flint considered this. “Fair.” He said.

  They walked to the corner where Ervan’s intermediary was waiting. Zelig handed over the wrapped piece.

  The intermediary looked at the cloth, looked at them, and left without saying anything. That was always how it went with Ervan’s intermediaries. Zelig had never once gotten a word out of any of them.

  They were two streets from the Underlayers when they heard the sound behind them.

  Running. Specific running, the kind with purpose behind it.

  They both turned.

  It was the server from the display room. She was half a block back, coming toward them at a pace that suggested she had been looking for them since they left. She stopped when they turned, slightly out of breath, and looked at Zelig.

  “I’m not.” She said. “Going to say anything.”

  Zelig waited.

  “I just.” She paused to catch her breath. “I want you to know that I saw the case open and I’m not going to say anything. Because Mister Doverton.” She said the name with the specific weight of someone using it as a complete sentence. “Is not a good employer.”

  Zelig looked at her.

  “He underpaid everyone tonight.” She said. “By about thirty percent. He does it every time apparently. The others warned me. He just.” She shrugged. “He just does it. Because he can.”

  Flint was looking at her with the expression he got when he found someone interesting.

  “What’s your name.” Flint said.

  “Pen.” She said.

  “Pen.” Flint said. “You ran half a street to tell us you weren’t going to tell anyone.”

  “I didn’t want you to worry about it.” She said. “That’s all.”

  Flint looked at Zelig.

  Zelig looked at Flint.

  He reached into his jacket and took out three marks and held them out to her.

  Pen looked at the marks. “I wasn’t asking for—”

  “I know.” Zelig said.

  She took the marks.

  She looked at them in her hand for a moment. Then she looked up. “He has two more of those figures. In the same case. In case that’s relevant to anyone.”

  She turned and walked back the way she had come.

  Flint watched her go.

  “I like her.” He said.

  “I know.” Zelig said.

  “We should keep her in mind.”

  “I already am.” Zelig said, and started walking.

  Back at Arbor Street Marie was at the table with tea and the diagram woman’s latest piece, which appeared to have come back again.

  “Fifth time.” Marie said, without looking up.

  “What’s wrong with it this time.” Zelig said, sitting down.

  “She says the thread tension is uneven.” Marie held it up to the lamp. “It is perfectly even.”

  “Is she going to pay for the fifth attempt.”

  “She always pays.” Marie said. “She’s not trying to avoid paying. She just.” She put it down. “I think she’s lonely.”

  Zelig looked at her.

  “The notes she sends.” Marie said. “They’re very long. Much longer than they need to be to describe a thread problem.” She picked up her needle. “I think the garment coming back and forth is the whole point.”

  Zelig thought about that.

  “Are you going to charge her more.” He said.

  “No.” Marie said. “I’m going to do it a fifth time and I’m going to write a longer note back.”

  Zelig said nothing.

  Marie threaded her needle.

  “Don’t say anything.” She said.

  “I wasn’t going to say anything.” Zelig said.

  “You were doing the thing.”

  “I wasn’t doing anything.”

  “You were thinking loudly.” Marie said. “I could hear it.”

  Flint, who had followed Zelig upstairs without being explicitly invited, sat down at the table and looked between them.

  “Does he do this often.” He said to Marie.

  “Think loudly?” Marie said. “Constantly.”

  “I don’t think loudly.” Zelig said.

  “You absolutely do.” Flint said. “I’ve said this.”

  “Both of you.” Zelig said.

  Marie and Flint looked at each other with the specific mutual satisfaction of people who had independently reached the same conclusion about a third person and were glad to have it confirmed.

  Zelig picked up his tea.

  It was cold.

  That was the whole evening, more or less, and it was enough.