He was just a thief.
And she was just a fixer.
“Show me.”
Nero grinned, and pulled a necklace from his pocket. A gaudy, gilded thing, set with stones. He held it out to Tes. “Not really my color, is it?”
“I suppose thieves can’t be picky.” She plucked it from his hand, but as she did, her eyes went to his fingers. There was white paint on them. Her stomach clenched. She told herself she shouldn’t care. It was none of her business.
Nero followed her gaze, and recoiled, wiping his hand on his trousers.
“I didn’t,” he started.
“I don’t want to know,” she said.
“I touched the wall,” he insisted. “I didn’t realize it was wet.”
“I don’t care,” she said. And she meant it. That was a kind of trouble she didn’t need or want. The Hand was faceless. Nobody knew how many there were, or who had joined. If anyone knew a Hand, they didn’t live to tell anyone, and if a Hand did go around bragging about being one, they didn’t live long enough to do it twice.
“Let me guess,” she said, turning her attention to the necklace. “You liberated this from a ship, or it fell off a merchant cart, or the wind just blew it into your hands.”
Nero crossed his arms. “For your information, I won it fair and square in a game of Sanct.”
“There’s nothing fair or square about that game.” Tes cleared a place on the counter and set the necklace down on a piece of black cloth.
“Well, I won it. Though perhaps a little too easily.” He leaned forward, into her space. “I just want to make sure it’s not cursed.”
She reached for her blotters. “This is a shop for broken things,” she began.
“Clocks, and locks, and household trinkets,” he finished, “I know the line. Well, this is a household trinket, and I think it might be faulty, so maybe you could do whatever it is you do—” He made a little flourish. “—and check?”
Tes shook her head, even as she tugged the blotters on. The rest of the room disappeared, and Nero with it, the chaos of strings smoothed to a flat and empty black. She looked down at the necklace on its cloth, now the only magic in her vision. It was easy, then, to see the problem. She didn’t need to touch it, but she did, made a show of lifting the necklace, and turning it over.
“It’s not cursed,” she said, “but it is tethered.” Somewhere to her left, Nero groaned. “No wonder they let you win it,” she went on. “Knowing they can hunt you down and take it back.”
He slumped forward, into her line of sight. With the blotters on, all she could see was his face, too close, and the ominous purple of his magic as it twisted through the air around his green-gold eyes. Which were wide, and pleading.
“Unless you untether it.”
Tes sighed. “Unless I untether it,” she said. “Which I’m only going to do so the owner—”
“—previous owner—”
“—doesn’t come looking for it in my shop.”
Nero smiled that dazzling smile. “Have I told you you’re the best?”
“Only when I’m doing you favors.”
“I’ll try to say it more often,” he said, disappearing into the darkness beyond her sight.
“I don’t need your flattery,” she said, ignoring the heat that flooded stubbornly into her cheeks. “Now let me work.” Tes took up a tool, pretending to prod at the spellwork written on the metal instead of the threads running through the air above it. Tools wouldn’t work on the magic itself—she’d tried. Only her hands seemed able to catch and hold, to braid and fray, to knot and tear.
As she picked apart the spell, Nero wandered the shop.
“Don’t touch anything,” she said, and she could practically hear his fingers stop halfway to a shelf.
“How long will this take?”
“That depends,” she said, “on how often you distract me.”
She could have worked a lot faster, but it would have been too obvious what she was—and wasn’t—doing. She heard the crackle of waxy paper as Nero stole another dumpling, and swore, picking at the threads.
Each time she pulled one free of the spell, and set it aside, the light instantly began to fade. Without being bound to something, the magic slipped away, diffused back into the world. In moments, the thread itself was gone. She worked, minutes sliding by, until the necklace sat on the counter, as lightless as the square of cloth beneath it. Nothing but a gaudy bauble. She was still staring at it, resting her eyes in the dark, when something large and metal crashed to the floor behind her.