Harder Than Steel

“Hold it steady. You’re breathing too loud.”

I didn’t look up. I kept my eye on the loupe, the single lens pressed to my right socket, magnifying the rough, carbon-heavy heart of the stone resting in the lead paw of my setting. The vault was silent except for the low, electric hum of the polishing wheel and the sound of his chest expanding and contracting against the heavy oak table.

We were three floors down in the family vault of the Van Der Berg house, surrounded by glass cases of sorted roughs, the air cool and smelling of ozone and metal dust. I was Yasmin, forty-five years old and the best cutter in Antwerp, and he was Carlos Van Der Berg, the man who owned the stone and the house, and soon, legally, me.