“Welcome back, Lord Northcliffe, Princess Jaya.” Silas walked out just as Grey finished that last thought, snuffing out his brief spark of optimism. He held a big piece of black velvet cloth, folded in half and sandwiched between his hands, and gestured for Grey and Jaya to follow. “Here we are,” he said, walking to his mahogany workbench.

Grey’s legs felt like Jell-O as he made his way to the bench.

“Hello, Silas. So what seems to be the problem?” Jaya said, watching as he lifted the velvet cloth to reveal the necklace and turned on his work light so they could all see it better. “Wait.” She peered closer. “You haven’t added in any new rubies.”

Grey stayed back and kept his distance, just in case. He could see fine from here.

“No, I haven’t,” Silas said, a rueful half smile on his face. “But it wasn’t from lack of trying.” From a drawer, he extracted a small metal box, which he opened with a small key he produced from his pocket. The box held six rubies. “I shall demonstrate for you, Princess.” He sat on his stool and adjusted himself in front of the necklace. Next, he applied a dot of jeweler’s epoxy into one of the empty sockets. Then, very carefully, using special tweezers, he set one of the rubies into the empty, epoxied socket of the pendant. It was a perfect job; Grey could see no visible imperfections at all. Silas looked up at the both of them appraisingly. “There. Now we’ll let it set. Does that look all right?”

Both Jaya and Grey nodded uncertainly.

“Now,” Silas said, reaching into an interior pocket for a gold pocket watch. Of course he had a pocket watch. “The epoxy instructions say to let it set for four minutes. We’ll give it five just to be sure.” He stood and walked to Jaya and Grey, who were standing by a brass statue of a knight.

“But what—” Jaya began.

“You’ll see, Princess,” Silas said. “Let’s give it a few minutes.”

“I’m not sure what we’re doing,” Grey said, trying to keep the impatience out of his voice.

“In just a few moments, Lord Northcliffe, I shall show you.”

“Well, this is all very intriguing,” Jaya said. “But if the product is defective in some way, I’m sure my father would want to know and take action. It’s very important to him that the things he pays for are reliable.”

“It’s not that the pendant is defective, exactly,” Silas said. “But perhaps your father should return it anyhow.” He paused. “Are either of you… superstitious at all?”

Grey glanced at Jaya and found her looking right at him. He turned to Silas. “Why do you ask?” he said carefully, keeping his face blank.