Percy turned the corner onto Beningham Street. As the familiar sign of Beningham Styles came into view .
He stopped in front of it , observing silently for a moment. The wooden sign hung exactly as it always did. The front windows were clean.
Through the glass he could see the soft glow of the lamps inside and the faint movement of workers at their stations. Everything looked the same as it always had but for some reason he felt emotional looking at the scene .
Percy breathed out slowly before pushing the door open. The bell above the entrance chimed softly.
Silia was nearest to the front, standing beside a long table with a measuring tape looped around her neck.
She looked up at the sound of the bell with the composed expression she always wore for customers.
"Good afternoon. Welcome to—"
She stopped.
For a brief moment she simply looked at him. Then the professional smile faded into something considerably less warm.
"Percy."
"Good afternoon," he replied.
She studied him for a second longer before smirking .
"I think you're late."
Percy chuckled at the remark, before giving his own reply.
"What do you mean?"
"I barely made it "
---
The shop carried on the way it usually did through the afternoon. Scissors snapped. Machines rattled. Gareth complained about something under his breath while Miss Gracy pointedly ignored him from across the room.
Nobody asked Percy directly where he had been. Though he noticed Miss Gracy glancing toward him more than once with the particular look she used when she was storing up questions for later.
Silia said nothing further either.
Which somehow felt worse. It was only near the end of the afternoon, when the pace had slowed and a few workers were beginning to tidy their stations, that she finally approached his aisle.
She set a folded cloth down on the edge of his table and looked at him.
"I assume you spent today looking at restaurants."
It wasn't really a question. Percy kept his hands on the stitching in front of him.
"I found one," he said.
He set down the needle and turned slightly in his chair.
"George Eats. On Marco Street. New place, only opened four months ago." He paused. "Clean interior, reasonable prices.
Meals cost about the same as a decent tavern. The more expensive dishes run about thirty percent above that."
Silia was quiet for a moment.
"You checked the prices."
"I checked everything."
She held his gaze for a second. Then nodded once, which from Silia was approximately the same as a standing ovation.
Word spread through the shop the way it always did, which was immediately and without any effort on Percy's part.
Within two minutes Gareth had appeared at the end of the aisle with his arms folded, and Miss Gracy had drifted over from her station with the expression of someone trying very hard to look neutral.
"Marco Street," Gareth repeated. "George Eats."
"Yes."
"Never heard of it."
"It only opened four months ago."
Gareth considered this. "And the prices are reasonable."
"I just said that."
"I'm confirming."
Miss Gracy cut in before Percy could respond. "And it's clean? Properly clean?"
"The floor looked newly done. Tables were wiped. No smell."
She seemed to weigh this carefully. "I would like to see it myself before agreeing to anything."
"Same," said Gareth immediately, which was probably the first time in recent memory the two of them had agreed on anything.
Percy looked between them.
"Tomorrow then," he said. "Before work. We go, we look, you decide."
Gareth nodded.
Miss Gracy tilted her head. "I suppose that's reasonable."
Silia, who had been standing quietly to one side through all of this, simply picked up the folded cloth she had set down and walked back toward her own station. Percy took that as the matter being settled.
---
The shop emptied out gradually as the hour grew late. Workers left in ones and twos, voices trailing down the street outside. Percy stayed at his station longer than usual, finishing the last of the stitching on an order that had been sitting half done since his absence.
By the time he set it aside the room was mostly quiet.
He looked around the empty aisle. The long table with its scratches and burn marks from the lamp. The shelves of fabric above. The old foot-pedaled machine that still ran smoothly despite its age.
" should i tell them?"
He had joined the Syndicate that morning. Whatever came next, his days at Beningham Styles were probably numbered. It wouldn't be fair to keep taking on orders he might not be around to finish but most of all was leaving without any warning . It wouldn't be fair to Silia or Bram or any of them when they have a close bond with each other.
He should say something. Percy sat with the thought for a while.
Then he stood, put on his coat, and left without saying anything.
*Tomorrow*, he told himself.
The walk home was quiet. The streets had thinned out and the lamps were burning steadily along the road, throwing orange circles across the stone.
Percy kept his hands in his pockets and his thoughts mostly to himself.
He passed the leaning clock tower, where he took the time to adjust the time on his pocket watch for a while .
---
Elsewhere, in a room considerably larger and considerably warmer than Percy's, Zara sat cross legged on the floor surrounded by open jewelry boxes.
Tomorrow Lisa was coming.
This required preparation.
Lisa had an eye for these things, which meant Zara needed to have already decided what she was wearing before Lisa arrived and started offering opinions. Lisa's opinions, while well intentioned, tended to result in Zara wearing things that looked better on Lisa.
She held up a pair of earrings, considered them, and set them aside.
Picked up a bracelet. Set that aside too.
The process had been going on for nearly half an hour and had produced no clear winner, only a growing collection of things arranged in piles that Zara had labelled internally as maybe, probably not, and absolutely not but I might change my mind.
She was reaching for a necklace when she heard it.
*Click.*
Faint. From across the room.
Zara's hand stopped.
*Click. Click.*
She turned her head slowly toward the dresser. More specifically toward the drawer she kept closed.
For a few seconds she didn't move.
Then she set the necklace down carefully, stood up, and crossed the room. She paused in front of the drawer. The clicking had stopped. The room was silent again.
Her fingers found the handle.
She pulled it open.
Inside, resting exactly where she had left it, sat the plain wooden box.
Zara looked at it for a long moment. Then she reached in and picked it up.