The morning was weird.

  Marie kept glancing at him over breakfast. Not saying anything, just glancing. Zelig ate his bread and said nothing back. Eventually she went to her mending and that was that.

  He grabbed his jacket and left.

  He set up near the middle of the Row where the stalls made people slow down. Handkerchief out, makeshift wand out, same as always.

  The marks came easy. A few notes here, a few there.

  He was mid trick with a man who kept squinting at his hands when he caught it. Three people across the street against the old boarded shopfront. Two men and a woman. All three angled toward him in that way people angle when they are pretending not to watch something.

  Zelig finished the trick. Pocketed the man's two notes plus the seven he lifted without the man noticing.

  He ran two more cons. The three people stayed put.

  He packed up and walked the other direction.

  Half a block later footsteps fell in behind him.

  "Fourth mark almost had you."

  Zelig stopped and turned around. It was the woman from the three. Up close she had the look of someone who had been in bad situations enough times that they stopped surprising her.

  "I let her almost have me." Zelig said. "She was getting suspicious. Giving her something small to find stopped her looking for the rest."

  The woman looked at him for a moment.

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  "Reva."

  "Zelig."

  "I know." She had clearly asked around before walking over. "Walk with me."

  He walked.

  Reva explained while they moved. A crew called the Hollow Hand. Five people. They moved stolen magical artifacts, stuff lifted from cultivators who had too much and not enough sense, sold to buyers who had ambition but not enough rank.

  "What do you need me for." Zelig said.

  "Front work. You talk, you distract, you keep eyes where we need them."

  "I work alone."

  "Sure." She stopped outside a narrow building a couple streets off the Row, looked like it used to be a repair shop. "Come meet the captain first. You don't have to decide anything today."

  Zelig looked at the building.

  A crew that moved magical artifacts meant access. To items, to information, to cultivators, to the parts of the world he had only been watching from outside. The cost was four people he didn't know yet.

  He did the math.

  "One meeting." He said.

  Inside was dim and smelled like old wood. Two men sat at a table not doing much. A third man stood at the back with his arms crossed looking at Zelig like he had met a lot of people and most of them had not been worth his time.

  Older than Reva. Solid build. A scar along the jaw that healed badly a long time ago. He had a way of standing that Zelig noticed and filed away without knowing why yet.

  "Ervan Birch." Reva said. "He runs things."

  Ervan looked Zelig over slowly.

  "Counted six marks during that show." He said. "Let one of them find something small on purpose." He uncrossed his arms. "Rank."

  "Base."

  Ervan's face didn't change. His eyes said he wasn't fully convinced. He let it go.

  "Job in four days. Middling Ring collector got hold of something that isn't his. We need someone who can get close and hold attention while the rest of us work."

  "Split." Zelig said.

  "Equal. Five ways."

  Zelig looked around the room. Four unknowns.

  "Equal split." He said. "And I get first look at anything written. Documents, texts, anything with words on it. I don't take it. I just read it."

  Ervan looked at Reva. Something passed between them Zelig couldn't read.

  "Why." Ervan said.

  "That's my condition."

  Ervan stuck his hand out.

  Zelig shook it. Plain grip. Even. No show to it.

  He got home to Marie asleep over her mending, head on the table, still holding the needle. He put his jacket over her shoulders and sat down across from her in the dark.

  Four days. A crew he didn't know. A job in the Middling Ring.

  He thought about Ervan Birch's handshake. That way of standing.

  He closed his eyes.