She left in the morning without seeing him. When she got to campus it was still twenty minutes before she was due to meet George, and Dickory was walking past Ann's desk, she had a sudden thought.

"Ann," she said, turning and going back. "Can I ask you something?"

The secretary looked up from the pile of files she was sorting. "Go ahead."

"How long have you worked here?" Dickory wanted to ask if she remembered any particular students who had a history of theft.

Ann looked at her suspiciously. "Ten years. Why?"

It probably wasn't the best idea to say flat out that she was looking for a thief. "Just curious," Dickory said. "You must have seen an awful lot of students through here over the years."

"Oh, yes," said Ann. "Thousands." She sounded completely unenthusiastic about it, which struck Dickory as odd. It wasn't exactly an exciting job, but it was practically cushy in comparison to driving a bus for a living, for example.

"Do you not like art?" she asked, genuinely curious now. "Or is it just the students?" She didn't dare suggest that maybe it was D'Arches that Ann hated, even though she thought it a serious possibility. The man was insufferable.

"I like art," said Ann flatly. "I even—" She cut herself off.

"Mm?" Dickory made an encouraging noise.

"I applied to the program here," Ann said, almost unwillingly. "Didn't get in."

"Oh," said Dickory. "That's too bad." She knew she sounded stupid, but couldn't think of anything better to say.

Ann shrugged. "Doesn't matter." But there was a tense set to the way she was holding the stack of files that told Dickory it does matter.

Dickory decided this probably wasn't a good time to start asking questions about disaffected artists. "Well, I hope you find something you like more, then. Anyway, got to go!" She gave a cheery wave and walked away quickly. Okay, that was uncomfortable.

She didn't want to think about what it was like to be the kind of artist who wasn't good enough to get accepted to art school. It was too much like poor Isaac. Too much like her own worries about the MFA program.

When she rounded the corner of the hallway George was already there, waiting outside the storage room and looking a bit impatient. But he seemed to sense her unrest, because after she unlocked the door he propped it open without speaking, and they started in on the work together.

They worked for a half hour without saying much before Dickory broke the silence. "So Chief Quinn brought us another case yesterday," she said. She was looking at Harold's portfolio now, so thoroughly bored that she needed something to distract herself.

"Oh yeah?" George said. "What was it?"

"Art theft," Dickory said. "But freaky. Whoever it is steals the pictures replaces them with his own paintings that look sort of the same. Not forgeries. Just similar work. Garson thinks it's ego. You know, put your own stuff in among the masters."

"Weird," said George. "Are they any good?" Someone shuffled past in the hallway, and Dickory checked her watch. They still had fifteen minutes before class.

"They're decent, but…" She shrugged. "Not like what was taken. I could pick out the replacements pretty quickly. Even the Pollock knock-off. Maybe Smith's endless drilling about confidence in brushwork finally sunk in. Still, that doesn't help us find him. 'Second-rate artist' could fit a hundred thousand people in this city."

"No kidding," said George. "But listen, Dickory. You're not second-rate. I know I promised not to badger you about Chicago, but—"

But Dickory wasn't listening. Instead she was looking down at a sketch in the portfolio, a drawing of three women seated around a table. It was unmistakably the same design as the replacement painting for the stolen Picasso, the one whose technique Dickory had vaguely recognized.

Harold? she thought. Harold Silverfish is the thief?

George was skeptical. "Are we talking about the same Harold Silverfish? He's not remotely some sort of criminal mastermind, Dickory."

"I know, I know," Dickory said. "But… I'd swear this is the sketch that goes with that painting." She hesitated. "And he has been arrested before. You remember, back in our first year."

"Yeah, but that was because of D'Arches," said George. "And it was just vandalism, not some massive art heist. Come on. Can you picture Harold sneaking anywhere?"

Dickory had to admit he had a point. Harold was whiny, annoying, and a terrible grade-grubber. But he didn't really strike her as a thief. "But it's definitely his work. So how the hell did it get there?" She ran a hand through her hair, considering. "Why go to all that trouble to stick someone else's painting up on a wall? What's the point?"

"I don't know," George said. He looked at his watch. "Look, we have to get to class. But he'll be there. Maybe we can talk to him after?"

"Yeah," said Dickory. "Good idea." She tucked Harold's portfolio into her bag.

But Harold wasn't in class. D'Arches droned on for an hour and a half about creating a sense of elegance and flow in exhibit design; Dickory didn't register a word of it. All she could think of was getting home to tell Garson about what she'd discovered. When class ended, George asked if she wanted to work on their project some more, but Dickory shook her head.

"I want to see what Garson thinks," she said. "If it is Harold…" George looked exasperated, so Dickory said, "Look, take the key. You can pull out whatever you think is good, and I'll take a look at it when I get a chance. Or don't, and I'll come back and look at the rest of it tomorrow. I don't want to dump on you, but this is— I have to do this." She pulled the key out of her pocket, and after a moment he took it.

"Fine, I'll do some more sorting. But we have to start writing the labels tomorrow, okay? I don't want to be scrambling at the last minute."

Impulsively, Dickory gave him a hug. "Thanks, George. You're the best friend I could ask for."

George's face went pink beneath the freckles. "Yeah, well." He shrugged. "Go on, then. Get out of here."

Dickory went.

She walked home as quickly as she could, feeling the weight of Harold's portfolio in her bag with every step of the way. When she got to Cobble Lane she unlocked the door and took the stairs up to Garson's apartment two at a time, bursting into the studio where she expected to find him painting. Instead he was in the library with Chief Quinn, bent over the pile of photographs.

"Oh, Chief Quinn," said Dickory. "It's good you're here. I found the artist of one of the paintings! Only he's a student, and I don't think he can possibly be the thief because, I mean, it's Harold. But I was looking through all the stuff from everyone in our curatorship class, and I found—" She slung her bag onto the table and pulled out the portfolio, flipping through until she reached the sketch of the three women. "It's this one, which has to be the sketch for—" She paused for breath, looked up, and then hesitated. "What?"

Both Garson and Chief Quinn were looking at her with shifty expressions. "What?" she said again.

"There was another theft overnight," Garson said finally. He slid a photograph across to her, and Dickory picked it up.

She recognized it instantly. It was a landscape painting, the Empire State Building at dusk with the sunset glowing behind it. And it was signed, almost illegibly, in the bottom right corner: 'Dick Ory.'

When the rushing noise in Dickory's ears stopped and she could hear again, she realized that Garson was talking. "I think that's what confused me so much about the others, the first time we looked at them. They didn't go together. I figured it was because they'd been painted to look similar to the things that were stolen. But the different styles make a lot more sense if you know they're from different artists. And the difference in quality, too."

"Hmm," said Chief Quinn. "You think they're all different?"

"Yes, I think so," said Garson. He was watching her carefully out of the corner of his eyes now, his gaze wary.

Observing, Dickory realized. He really thinks it might be me! The thought made her see red. Oh, yes, Dickory. She lives in a tenement, so she must be a thief! It was a sentiment she'd heard far too many times in her life, and not one she'd expected from Garson. She swallowed hard and gave him a stiff nod. "That makes sense," she said, trying to keep her voice even. She reached for Harold's portfolio again and pulled out the sketch of the three women. "Because that one is definitely Harold's."

Garson pulled out the photograph of the painting with the three women from the pile and compared it with the sketch. "Yes, I agree."

Even Chief Quinn had to admit they were nearly identical. "I suppose so," he said grudgingly, and then, as if saying it had switched something in his brain, "Obviously you aren't the thief, Dickory. Never thought you would be." He shifted in his chair. "But how on earth would someone get hold of student work? If we assume it's all from students."

Angry words rose in her throat, but she knew better than to quibble with that 'obviously.' "There are a million ways," she said instead. "Easiest would be to take it out of a classroom where things are in progress." Now that she had something to focus on, she could feel her shock receding. "But you could also break into a professor's office. Towards the end of term they've each got a stash of work for grading. Or, hmm." She chewed a fingernail.

"That still doesn't address the question of why, though," said Garson, setting Harold's sketch back onto the table.

"To disguise the thefts as long as possible," said Chief Quinn, impatiently.

Garson shook his head, but didn't bother arguing further. He sat back in his chair. "Well, chief, if I was you, I'd start checking with all the art schools in the city, see if there have been any thefts of student work reported. Maybe that will give a clue as to how the thief got Dickory's painting, as well."

The chief gave him a disgruntled look, then shoved his chair back and stood. "I suppose Winkle doesn't have anything better to do today – he can start calling around. If you two think of anything else, let me know."

"Absolutely," said Dickory, and showed him out.

When she got back up to the studio, Garson was standing in front of his easel. Dickory gritted her teeth, still mad, but decided to change the subject rather than argue. "How was dinner at the Vogels?" she asked.

"Fine," he said absently. He wasn't painting, just examining the half-finished picture of the businessman.

"Are you going to do a portrait for them?" she tried again.

Garson made a negative noise, but it was obvious he wasn't really paying attention. Dickory tried a different tack. "Shall I get the hats, Inspector Noserag?"

This, at least, made him turn. "What? Oh, no, Dickory. Not today."

Perhaps, reminded a small voice in the back of Dickory's brain, she ought not to ask questions. But she was too mad to listen to it. "Do you not want to talk about it because you actually thought I was the thief?"

Now he did look at her, surprise written across his face for a brief moment before it went blank. "Don't be ridiculous, Dickory," he said. "Of course you aren't the thief."

"Why not?" Dickory heard herself say. "After all, to you my work must be just as third-rate as all the other paintings the thief chose."

"If you really think you're third-rate," Garson said harshly, "then why are you applying to MFA programs?"

Dickory flinched back. "How do you know about that?"

His anger disappeared as quickly as it had come, his face settling into the expressionless mask that Dickory had come to hate. "Your brother came to see me yesterday. He indicated that he had some strong opinions on the subject."

The man with the resentful shoulders who she had seen exiting Cobble Lane on her way home. "That was Donald?" Dickory realized she was gaping and shut her mouth with a snap. "That little— Ooh!" She was really angry now. "He had no right!"

"He seemed to think he was looking out for your well-being," Garson said. He sounded almost diffident.

Dickory made a dismissive noise. "'If someone had supported me when I was your age,'" she mimicked an old saying of Donald's, "'maybe I wouldn't be driving a bus back and forth all day.' So much for that!" She gave Garson a defiant look. "And? Well?"

"Well what?" he said.

"Am I wasting my time applying?" she said. "Should I give it up and sell my soul to an ad agency, move out into my own crappy tenement walk-up and just be happy I'm not driving a bus all day?"

"Dickory..." said Garson, stiffly polite. "I'm sure you'll do very well at whatever you choose to do."

Dickory stamped her foot in irritation. "Shut up," she said. "For god's sake! Do you even listen to yourself? You've turned into something as flat as that god-awful painting!" Her hand stabbed out in the direction of the businessman's portrait. "At least Edgar Sonneborg had an actual opinion."

Before the words had even finished coming out of her mouth Dickory was completely appalled at herself. Garson's face went white, and then red, and then he turned away so that she couldn't see his expression at all.

"Garson," she choked out. "I'm— I didn't mean— I'm sorry—"

"It doesn't matter," he said. The words were precise and cold. "I think it's best if I find a new assistant, however. The apartment, of course, is yours for as long as you need it." He went up the stairs before she could say anything else, and closed the door behind him. Dickory burst into tears.

It took her nearly five minutes to get enough of a hold on herself to be able to go downstairs, and by the time she was slumped over in her bed the shakes had arrived.

What an absolutely unforgivable thing to say, she thought, when she could manage actual sentences in her head instead of wordless misery. God. I'm horrible. She couldn't stop thinking about the tightness of his face after she'd said it. Well done, Dickory.

This was why she hated New York, Dickory decided. It was a hateful city, and that was what it had made her – hateful Dickory, cruel Dickory. She had fancied herself a haunted angel, her face turned towards the skies. But when it came down to it, she was as wretched and gutter-bound as the worst of them. Worse, even, because he'd saved her life, he'd supported her dreams, and all she'd done to repay him was throw it back in his face.

If he painted me now, what face would he give me? The thought sent her into a fresh spasm of weeping.

The afternoon passed. Twice Dickory tried to make herself read, but each time gave it up after a few minutes of staring blankly at the page. At dinnertime, she heard Isaac's lumbering tread on the stairs, and the reminder of Garson's kindness was like a punch to the stomach. Before she could think about what she was doing, she grabbed the envelope with her MFA application from the bedside table and fled the house.

There was a mail box at the end of Cobble Lane. Dickory stared at it for a long moment, then, in one swift move, opened the flap and shoved the envelope inside. It shut with a metallic clank. There, she thought. There. It's done.

Suddenly exhausted, she looked in both directions down 7th Avenue. What now? She couldn't go home. Donald— But no, she was still too angry with Donald, though the emotion was pale in comparison with her own self-loathing.

To school. They still hadn't answered the question of how the thief had gotten access to the students' work, and if she was just going to be somewhere, anywhere that wasn't Garson's house, she might as well try to do something useful with herself.

She registered nothing of the walk to campus, only her own ceaseless litany of recriminations. When she arrived, the buildings were dark, classes long since over. Dickory slipped through the door to the Fine Arts department, her shoes almost silent on the linoleum tiles of the entryway. There was Ann's desk, there Professor D'Arches' office, and beyond them both the hallway. Dickory could see that the door to the storage room was open, a light shining from inside.

George, she thought, quickening her steps. He must still be working on the project. How she wanted to see him now, her steadfast friend in spite of everything. He'd know what to say – not to make it all right, nothing could make it all right – but to get her through it.

But it wasn't George.

It was Ann, her hands rifling through a box of unframed canvases as efficiently as if they were file folders.

Dickory gasped. "You!"

Ann's expression was briefly panicked before it slid into a sneer. "Yes, me! Finally figured it out, have you? You're all the same, you artists. If I haven't got a paintbrush in my hand, I might as well not even exist," she spat.

"But—" said Dickory, too shocked to do anything but stand there.

"But," Ann mimicked nastily. "But what?"

"Why?" Dickory burst out.

Ann laughed. It wasn't a pleasant laugh. "Because art is a sham," she said. "It's an industry, churning out nothing but frauds who can make pretty pictures to hang on the walls of New York's new money. It's not what you can do, but who you know, whether you can talk the right line. You know that Monet? I stuck up a painting in its place, made by an eighteen year old girl from Tennessee, and no one even noticed for two days."

Dickory thought of Garson's slick portraits, of how the rich of New York lined up to see themselves as bland and blemish-free as they wished to be. She thought of her classmates, most of them happy to spend four years dabbling in whatever style the professors wanted and then go on to easy jobs with good pay.

But then she thought of the Sonneborg paintings, the way Julius Panzpresser had seen one and then spent fifteen years looking for another. She thought of George's watercolors, the way they sometimes made her catch her breath. Of the different pieces she'd seen in museums and galleries all over the city – not every piece, not even most, but many – that had captured her attention for minutes or hours, left her startled to find that the rest of the world still existed.

"You're wrong," she said, but Ann clearly wasn't listening.

"And then when real art, true art comes along, what do they do?" she ranted. "They throw it away and tell you to take up stenography. Did you know that I came back two years later looking for a job and he didn't recognize me? The great observer MacDonald D'Arches and he didn't even recognize me. They're blind, girl! There's none so blind as an artist."

It was all too easy for Dickory to imagine how Ann must have felt when her art school application had been rejected. "You could try again," she said, feeling a surge of empathy. "It's not too late! Another school—"

"Pfah!" said Ann. "They're all the same. You're all the same. But it doesn't matter now. I haven't got a paintbrush in my hand. They'll never find me." She gave Dickory a brief, hard look – and then rushed at her, hands curled into claws.

Dickory screamed, holding up her arms to ward off the attack. Ann pushed past her, shoving her painfully into the corner of the storage room door, and then she was gone.

It was only after she disappeared that Dickory realized it hadn't been an attack at all – it was only that she'd been standing in the doorway. She ran after her briefly, then stopped short. What am I going to do? Drag her off to the station myself? Instead she went to Ann's desk, picked up the phone with one trembling hand, and called Chief Quinn.

She waited nearly twenty minutes in front of the storage room before he arrived, both Winkle and Finkel trailing behind him. "Winkle, fingerprints," he said, gesturing. "Finkel, go through the desk. You okay, Hickory?"

Dickory decided to let the nickname slide. She told him the whole story – well, the whole story of her thought to investigate, omitting the details of what she and Garson had argued about – of finding Ann, of their conversation. The chief listened without speaking, and when she was done all he did was pat her on the shoulder.

"You've got to stop getting involved in situations like this," he muttered. "Maybe I shouldn't have—"

"No," said Dickory. "No, chief, it's fine. I'm fine. Honest."

He gave her a long look, then nodded. Just then, then phone on Ann's desk rang, and Finkel answered it. "Yeah? Uh huh. Yeah. Good. I'll tell the chief." When he hung up, he said, "Dinkel found her at her apartment, packing. He's taking her in now."

"Good," said Chief Quinn. He looked at Dickory. "Finkel's going to drive you home."

Dickory was too tired to argue. It wasn't until the police car pulled up in front of the house in Cobble Lane that she started to have second thoughts. Maybe she should go to Donald's. But it seemed like a long way to go, and it was getting cold, and in the end she just told Finkel 'Thanks' and got out of the car, pulling her keys from her pocket.

She unlocked the front door. Inside, Garson was sitting on the bottom step, and he stood up so quickly that he almost tripped over his own feet.

"Dickory!" he said. "When you didn't come back, I thought— And then Chief Quinn called, and— Thank god you're safe!" And then, before Dickory could say a word, he kissed her.

It was everything like she had imagined, and nothing like she had imagined. His mouth was warm, lips soft and faintly chapped, as if he'd been biting them. She could see the bright blue of his eyes looking into hers with the same searching intensity of the day before, and now knew it for what it was – a question. He smelled like paint. His right hand cupped her face, and she could feel the tremor in it where skin touched skin.

She put her hands on his waist and kissed him back.

Garson made a noise in the back of his throat and pulled her closer, his trembling hand curling into her hair. "Dickory," he said against her lips. "Oh, god."

They kissed and kissed again. Beneath his hands and mouth Dickory felt herself transformed into something beautiful, and she clung to him until her heart was beating too hard to think. Finally she pulled her mouth away from his with a gasp, pressing her forehead to his cheek.

For a moment they stood in silence. Then Dickory forced herself to meet his gaze. "I'm so sorry," she said. "So—" Her voice caught.

He closed his eyes, but didn't let her go. "You were right," he said, his voice low. "About... what I've made myself into. But it was always easier. Easier to be someone else than to face up to my own failures, my own weaknesses. If I couldn't care about anything, then I couldn't mess it up, you see."

"I'm sorry," she said helplessly.

"It's been so long," he said. "Since Edgar Sonneborg even existed. I thought I'd killed him. Even just three years ago I thought I'd finally done it. The world didn't need him, so he was gone." He swallowed, rubbing his thumb against the base of her neck. "But you made me think that maybe someone needed him. That maybe I needed him."

It occurred to Dickory for the first time that he had lived as Garson for almost twenty years – that he had been Garson longer now than he had ever been Edgar Sonneborg. Maybe it wasn't as easy as calling one fake and one real.

But— "Maybe you don't have to choose," Dickory said slowly. "Maybe you don't have to be—" she hesitated, "—thoughtless Edgar Sonneborg any more than I have to be heartless Dickory. We can be who we make ourselves."

He kissed her again.

"If you'll stay," he said, when they stopped the second time. "If you'll stay and help me. There are MFA programs in New York, too."

"You really think—" Dickory started, then cut herself off, regretting the question immediately. "I mean—"

He tilted her chin up so he could look her in the eye. "I do. You've got a good eye. And that's the truth."

She let out a puff of breath, and nodded. They looked at each other for a long moment, then Garson suddenly let go of her. "What am I doing? I haven't even let you sit down! You're not hurt, are you? Chief Quinn said— but I should have asked—"

"I'm fine," Dickory reassured him. "Really. Just a little bruised. And tired." Now that he wasn't touching her, she could feel herself settling back to earth.

"Come upstairs," he said. "Tell me what happened." He sounded like Garson again, but it didn't bother her now. She followed him up the stairs to the studio, and he poured her a cup of coffee before they settled into two chairs in the library. After a moment he put a hand on her arm, as if to reassure himself she was still there. "So?"

She told the story for the second time. When she'd finished, Garson stared off into the distance for a long moment, not speaking. Dickory drank her coffee and let him think for a while; Ann's situation was close enough to poor Isaac's that she knew it must have been difficult for him to hear. Finally, just as she was considering saying something, he shook himself. Dickory turned her hand over and laced their fingers together, feeling greatly daring.

Garson gave her a warm glance. "I'm all right," he said.

"At least I didn't need you to save me this time," Dickory said, aiming for lightness.

Garson stared at her for a moment, then cracked a smile. "Of course you didn't. I mean, you are a native New Yorker."