“Did the goblins see that you had the amulet?” I asked.

“I don’t know.” He looked a little embarrassed. “It got kind of chaotic.”

Quentin screaming and running and jumping out of windows certainly qualified as chaotic.

“Well, if neither Stocken nor the client is expecting an amulet,” I said, carefully assuming my best rational tone, “then they won’t be disappointed when they don’t get one.”

“What are you saying?” Quentin knew very well, and from the way his eyes narrowed, he didn’t like it one bit.

“Nigel Nicabar had it,” I told him. “The Khrynsani want it. I don’t know what this amulet is or what it does, but if the Khrynsani want it, it would probably be bad if they got it.”

Quentin started to speak, and I held up a hand. “Hear me out. Just tell Stocken about the goblins. Tell him you dropped the box, and you don’t know what happened to it after that. That’s not a lie.”

“What about my money?”

“What about it?”

Quentin and Phaelan looked at me like I’d just uttered the most condemnable blasphemy imaginable.

“I got twenty gold tenari,” Quentin informed me. “Up front.”

Phaelan whistled. “I’d stroll around Nigel’s house at night for that.”

“I’m going to get five more when I deliver the goods, and another five if I deliver it before dawn.” Quentin took two steps in the direction of Stocken’s warehouse. “So I’m in a bit of a hurry. If we can move along, I can get my money, and we can all go home.”

I didn’t move. “Don’t you mean when you deliver the box?”

Realization began to dawn on Quentin, and the thought that he might not get paid for delivering an amulet rather than a box was the final blow to an already bad night. I felt equally bad about breaking the news to him, but I would have felt even worse if the amulet was sold out from underneath us before I knew what the Khrynsani wanted with it—or more to the point, what Sarad Nukpana wanted with it.