“Oh yes, please do,” I said. I could hardly wait. “What exactly do you want us to find for you?”

“It’s simply a figurine of a cat carved from carnelian. It’s not large.” He gestured with both hands, indicating an object about the size of a small adult living cat. “The eyes are inset beryl. My sources suggest that it is curled into a rather compact position, but I am not entirely certain about that.”

“Is it dangerous to touch directly? Or to have in immediate proximity for an extended time, until we can get it to you? Any extra precautions needed? And please remember, we’d prefer that you just admit to not being sure so we can err on the side of survival, unless you have solid evidence to the contrary.”

“To the best of my knowledge, simply wearing gloves to handle it will be more than enough to keep it from causing any complications. I will provide you with a bag to place it in which will keep it inert.”

“Small and safe. So it’ll be easy to transport, at least. That’s good. Do you have some idea of where? Even approximately?”

“Finding it should not be difficult, since I know the approximate location and can provide you with a map. I do not know where it is precisely, however. I believe it to be a temple or religious cloister, but I do not have details beyond that.”

Just knowing that much was already an improvement over some of our jobs. “Right. We can search it bottom to top.” Sylvael is very good at identifying the architecture, even of ruins, and working out likely hiding places and traps or elaborate locks or the myriad other methods ancients had used to protect their goodies. “Long journey?”

“Not terribly so.”

Known location, not far away, object easy to handle with basic precautions. From anyone but a wizard, I’d accept that. From a wizard, I was sure there had to be a catch, some reason he didn’t go himself or send some personal minion out to do his legwork. “Is the journey dangerous, then? Or the temple grounds are?”

“The temple, or cloister, or what-have-you, has very old protections on it that prevent me from entering. You two, I believe, will have no such difficulty.”

“Ah. One of the gods that dislike wizards?”

“Something like that. Here is what I would like to see occur. I will give you this folder—I believe your husband can read?”

“We both can,” I said tersely.

“I will give you this folder, which contains all the relevant information, and I will provide all tools needed for you to do your job. I will create a portal that will take you to a location near the target. You will infiltrate, find that cat, then signal me and I will open a portal to bring you back here. You hand me the cat, I reward you handsomely, and we part ways with all of us happy.”

“Infiltrate.” That one word stood out. “We are not thieves. If it’s in someone else’s hands, then you’re going to have to try something else. We are certainly not going to break into an inhabited cloister with active divine protection to steal something.”

“There is a second course of events, in which I throw you both through a portal onto the doorstep of Duke Caulsey of Covingnor. He is, I believe, offering quite a substantial reward for anyone who can deliver you to him for a, ah, private chat.”

I considered feigning ignorance, but didn’t really think that would work. In part because Sylvael started violently, drawing back, and his fingers began to move much more rapidly on his bracelet’s many dangling charms.

“Caulsey’s a criminal,” I said flatly. “The title doesn’t change that. But I suppose that doesn’t matter to you in the least, does it? You figure that gives you a way to make sure that we steal this thing.”

“Does it not? The offered payment still stands. I am not going to go back on that. If you retrieve that cat, I will swear a binding oath that I will never act on that threat. If it helps, the item in question was stolen from my grandmother, many years ago. I am not accusing the cloister in which it now resides. Quite possibly, they did not know they were receiving stolen goods. It is, however, very problematic to prove to them that they have done so and convince them to hand it over.”

“Uh-huh. I doubt that you want it for sentimental value.”

“Of course not. It’s a magic artefact of no use to anyone except a wizard.”

This was an appalling situation. Caulsey was ruthless. Someone else had hired us to find an item, one of the usual lost artefacts; Caulsey’s men had stolen it from us, rather violently. We had stolen it back—in my case, it had been partly revenge for how badly they had upset Syl, but Syl had been adamant that we had accepted the job and had to finish it—and delivered it before he could get it back again. He had offered a bounty for us, and if he got the chance it wouldn’t end with a ‘private chat’. That was a very long way from here, but apparently distance didn’t matter to wizards.

I could not allow Syl and I to fall into his hands.

Even if it meant we had to do something illegal, immoral, and potentially rife with dangers I couldn’t evaluate. At least it gave us a chance of survival that we lacked with Caulsey.

“Officially,” I said, “you are coercing us into doing something that we would otherwise not do, and it is also not the kind of job we specialize in. We are not especially stealthy and we are not particularly good at subduing humans, much less killing them. I cannot guarantee success under these conditions. So I have no idea why you’ve decided to pick on us and force us into this.”

“You’ll do it, then.”

Oh, I hated this. “We will not hurt or kill anyone innocent.”

“I don’t care about your methods, only the result. Once I have what I want, I will have no further interest in you or Duke Caulsey. I find threats distasteful, but if that is what it takes, then needs must.”

“And you do plan to pay us.” Maybe we could at least get that out of this mess.

“A thousand gold crescents are waiting for you.”

Okay, that was generous, I had to give him that, although it felt like a bribe, something to make us resent less that we were being forced.

“Fine.” I felt like I was gagging on the words. I never like breaking my word, and it’s generally a doubly bad idea to do so with a wizard involved. “We’ll do it. But I want an actual, written magical contract to sign, with the terms spelled out.” I had no intention of heroically trying to protect the identity of our employer if we were caught, but I saw no need to point that out. “Do you have a name?”

“Enzaneth is sufficient. I will prepare a contract tonight and bring it when we next meet.” He reached under the outer layer of his robe again, searching for something. “Ah, yes.” He withdrew a tablet that I evaluated without a thought: larger than my hand, roughly triangular but rounded, antique gold, a spear of watermelon tourmaline set in it, pink shading into green. When he held it out to Sylvael, Syl took it immediately. He knows better than to touch things carelessly while we’re working, but it would just never occur to him to be cautious when we aren’t; I didn’t have time to stop him.

“This is from Galador,” Sylvael said, all his attention now focused on the thing in his hand, even the bracelet he was forever playing with forgotten for the moment. “Third dynasty... late third, maybe even very early fourth, with the shape of the sickle and cup symbols. It’s in beautiful condition.”

“You can read the text, then?” Enzaneth seemed to be having trouble finding whatever he was looking for.

“Of course I can.” Sylvael rattled off a dozen or so syllables that made no sense to me. Given that many people couldn’t even read their own language, it was astonishing how effortless he made speaking a language dead for the better part of a thousand years. “It’s an odd inscription. Let me step through the mirror? Something like that. I might be able to work out the context if I studied the other symbolism on it for a while.”

“No, that’s fine. Ah, here.” He produced a bag of fine white fabric that shimmered faintly, with symbols woven into it in duller white, and laid it on the folder. “Place the carnelian cat in this and it will remain inert. Perfectly safe to handle.” He held out a hand, palm-up, to Sylvael, who reluctantly placed the gold-and-tourmaline object on it. I couldn’t think of any good reason for that little exchange, unless he’d used it to verify that Syl really was him? Few other people could so casually have read that, and they were usually in universities, so it would have been a fairly solid confirmation. But he’d approached us, so probably had a good idea that we were who we claimed anyway. It was a shame Syl hadn’t been completely bewildered by it, or at least pretended to be. Maybe that could have gotten us out of this.

“How do we get there?” I asked.

“I’ll meet you outside the east gate of the city at sunrise, since I assume you would like a night’s sleep first, and create a portal that will take you to a location as close as I can to the cloister itself. There is a map with the rest of the information provided. I will give you a charm that you can use to notify me when you are done so that I can create a portal to the same location to bring you back here.”

“Tell me you’re joking. I’m not even planning to be awake at sunrise tomorrow, and if you want us to be any use at all to you, we need time to look at that information and come up with a plan. We also need to check through our gear and do a shopping trip, because we just got back from a job and haven’t gotten to that yet because we didn’t expect to need it so fast. And I’m not starting off without a decent breakfast, and the kitchen here doesn’t open that early. Noon, day after tomorrow.” I wasn’t giving up our night out without a fight, and if he valued our expertise so much, he could make a concession or two.

He heaved an audible sigh. “If you insist. Noon, the day after tomorrow.”

“You do know that we have two horses and a caravan and we won’t be leaving those behind?”

“That is not an issue.”

“All right. Noon, outside the east gate, day after tomorrow. With a proper binding contract.”

“Then I will see you at that time. Do enjoy your evening.” He rose.

“We intend to.”

Sylvael watched him go, thoughtfully, playing with his bracelet.

“I don’t like him,” he said after a moment.

Syl likes most people—in small numbers at a time. He doesn’t like admitting to the ones he doesn’t care for.

“Neither do I, love. But try not to worry about him. I’ve been wanting to try the berry pie they have here.”

Sylvael followed my lead, and we had pie, more wine, danced, and eventually made our way up to our bed. It was soft and clean, absolutely heavenly after camping for so long.

Plus there were no weird wizard-made critters watching. Here, safe behind a sturdy locked door, we could indulge in some of the sensual games that were just not a good idea while out in the wilderness. Syl is enthusiastic, and shameless, and very good at the adult version of Let’s Pretend, and the trust between us is very powerful. Given the entirely too-rare opportunity to do so, we can have a lot of fun that is not compatible with an early-morning start. And if we had to infiltrate a cloister, who knew how long until we next had the chance?

Suffice it to say, we made the most of it, and we snuggled up to sleep, Syl’s arm over me.