No more footsteps in the service hall. Good. Towel still wrapped around herself—no sense abandoning a fitting disguise—Izza climbed two flights of stairs and reached a hallway that smelled of fire and kitchens and knives. A stenciled label opposite the stair pointed left to Level Three Restaurant, and Izza retreated to the turn in the stair as a tuxedoed waiter rushed down the hall above, cursing, a decorative white towel draped over one arm and a large domed tray teetering on the fingertips of his white-gloved hand. Another door opened, and closed; she waited a breath, climbed back to Level Three, and turned left.

She almost ran into Nick.

He wore the hotel grays, and carried a pink purse slung over his shoulder, obvious and obviously not his. He froze when he saw her, then double-took when he recognized her, face pale with the fear of the discovered. He pulled back, hands raised, warding, but too slow. Izza grabbed him by the purse strap and tugged him down the hall to the stairs.

“What are you doing here?” he hissed.

“That’s my line.” They rounded the turn of the stair, and, safe for a second, she shoved him against the wall, hard. “Are you crazy?”

“I’m helping.” Fire and fear sparked from his eyes. “Helping us when you won’t. Let me go.”

“You’re stealing things people will notice gone, and bringing Plaza keys straight back to the warehouse. They can trace those, Nick.”

He blinked. “I didn’t—”

“You almost led them to the altar. Because you didn’t think this through.”

“You were stocking up,” he said. “I wanted to help.”

She ripped the purse off his shoulder. “And you think someone who came to a restaurant with a purse won’t notice their damn purse is gone? What’s with you?”

“Like jumping into dreamdust dens is smart?”

“That doesn’t get the Watch after you. This will.” She opened the purse, dug through its silver sateen guts, found the wallet and the room key. “You really work here?”

“Yeah. They trust me to open doors and stuff.”

“Trust you to be an idiot.” She shoved wallet and key into his hands. “Take this. Five seconds. You run up, say you found this in the hall, saw someone running off with the purse.”

“You can’t—”

“Listen to me. Steal what you want, but bring nothing to the warehouse until I say.”

A man’s voice from the upper hall: “Nick?” And again, nearer, “Nick? You here?”

Izza gaped. “You told them your real name?”

The fire left Nick’s eyes, and only the fear remained.

“Nick?” The waiter from before, dark hair and tuxedo and white gloves and towel, peered down the stairs, turned. “Who the hells is that?”

Sorry, she mouthed.

Nick nodded, and said, “Thanks.”

She hit him in the face as hard as she could, and ran.