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me plan a shindig, I don’t need a butler.”
    “I regret that I am not a butler, madam,” Pelham said, “though I can fulfill the duties of a butler if required.”
    “He’s a valet,” the Chamberlain said. “He’ll attend to your personal needs. Think of it as…eternal concierge service, plus a personal shopper, plus…” She was clearly groping for terms she thought Marla would understand, which annoyed Marla, because she knew perfectly well what a valet was. She’d been to the
movies.
    “I get it, and it’s very generous, but I can’t accept. I wouldn’t know what to do with him.”
    The Chamberlain regarded her coolly. “Are you refusing my gift, Marla Mason?”
    Marla went very still. Gifts were serious business. Refusing a gift was a heavy insult. By the same token, sorcerers didn’t give gifts to other sorcerers without good reason.
Gods, is she
really
trying to make up with me? Giving me a valet the way I’d give her tickets to a hockey game?
“Of course not,” Marla said. “I’m just…He’d be loyal to me? And he’s not a…a slave or anything?”
    “I know your views on compulsory obligation, Marla, fear not. He is a free man, and may leave your employ if he finds you unreasonable, and you may terminate him if he proves unsatisfactory—though that’s hardly likely. You will, of course, have to pay him, and arrange for occasional time off, but he will be unable to spy on you or betray you. Such geas are laid on those of Pelham’s line at birth. Pelham, excuse us for a moment, would you?” He bowed and drew back some distance. The Chamberlain sighed. “I know having such help is unusual for you, Marla. But just think of him as a personal assistant, if you must. One who knows and understands magic, and who can keep secrets, and who will eventually learn to tend to your needs before you yourself are aware of them. I’m afraid when the last of the living ancestors of the founding families left the city, Pelham was merely a child, and he’s grown up with no one to serve, save me, and…well…” She gestured at the people cleaning and painting in the ballroom. “I have no shortage of help, and he would thrive in a more personal relationship. He could also help you navigate certain…social channels you currently find a bit difficult.”
    “Okay.” Marla surrendered. “Thank you. It’s a very generous gift.”
    “Think nothing of it. I’ll see you at the party next week. Pelham will take you to Rondeau, and then he’ll lead you out.” She turned and charged off toward a stack of paint buckets, and just like that, Pelham was back, bowing to Marla and murmuring that she should follow him.
    I can always fire him later,
Marla thought, and went after him, wondering how exactly she’d become the kind of person who received a valet as a gift.
    “You’re going to raise the mummy
here
?” Viscarro said. “Really, I’d rather you took the thing away.”
    “Necromancy makes you nervous, does it?” Ayres grunted, marking the floor of the room with red chalk. “Funny, I’d think you’d love the stuff, as it keeps your bones from crumbling to dust.”
    “I insist you do your business elsewhere.”
    “Bah. Marla surely has me under surveillance in the world above. Here, I’m safely out of sight. You may leave. I don’t need you here.”
    “You should treat me with more respect,” Viscarro said stiffly.
    “Bugger that. You’re dead. Now shoo. Oh, and send in the other thing I asked for.”
    Viscarro spat at his feet—a sad little gesture, as walking corpses don’t produce much in the way of saliva—and departed the storage room. It wasn’t a proper vault; there were no magical items here, just curios and curiosities that Viscarro hadn’t gotten around to selling yet.
    Including the mummy, resting on a bed of straw in a wooden crate against the far wall. The preserved corpse was of relatively recent vintage, not Egyptian, or Meso-American, or dug up from some bog on the