the cage sat on a window ledge. The dark, narrow window reflected needlings of rain through its tubular green glass. It was the season of downpours in Ambergris. The rain would not let up for days on end, the skies blue-green-gray with moisture. Fruiting bodies would rise, fat and fecund, in all the hidden corners of the city. Nothing in the bruised sky would reveal whether it was morning, noon, or dusk.

The solicitor was talking and had been for what seemed to Hoegbotton like a rather long time.

“That black swan, for example, is in bad condition,” Hoegbotton said, to slow the solicitor’s relentless chatter.

The solicitor wiped his beaded forehead with a handkerchief tinged a pale green.

“The bird itself. The bird,” the solicitor said, “is in superb condition. Missing eyes, yes. Yes, this is true. But,” he gestured at the walls, “surely you see the richness of Daffed’s collection.”

Thomas Daffed. The last in a long line of famous zoologists. Daffed’s wife and son stood beside the solicitor, last remnants of a family of six.

Hoegbotton frowned. “But I don’t really need the collection. It’s a fine collection, very fine”—and he meant it; he admired a man who could so single-mindedly, perhaps obsessively, acquire such a diverse yet unified assortment of things—“but my average customer needs a pot or an umbrella or a stove. I stock the odd curio from time to time, but a collection of this size?” Hoegbotton shrugged his famous shrug, perfected over several years of haggling.

The solicitor stared at Hoegbotton as if he did not believe him. “Well, then, what is your offer? What will you take?”

“I’m still calculating that figure.”

The solicitor loosened his collar with one sharp tug. “It’s been more than an hour. My clients are not well!” He was sweating profusely. A greenish pallor had begun to infiltrate his skin. Despite the sweat, the solicitor seemed parched. His mask puffed in and out from the violence of his speech.

“I’m sorry for your loss—all of your losses,” Hoegbotton said, turning to the mother and child who stood in mute acceptance of their fate. “I won’t keep you much longer.” The speech never sounded sincere, no matter how sincerely he meant it.

The solicitor made a noise between a groan and a choke that Hoegbotton did not bother to catalog.

His thoughts had returned to the merchandise—rug, clock, bookcase, phonograph, table, chairs. What price might they accept?