Gribble had been given three instructions when the curator handed him the brass key to the Royal Gallery of Arcane Arts. Lock the front doors at midnight, ring the silver bell if there was a fire, and under absolutely no circumstances touch any of the exhibits. Gribble had nodded solemnly, scratched one enormous green ear, and said, “Gribble understand. No touching shiny things. Easy job. Sit in chair, eat sandwich, get paid shiny coin.”

At five minutes past midnight, Gribble settled behind the reception desk with his boots propped on a velvet stool that was almost certainly more expensive than his house. The gallery stretched away beneath moonlit skylights, full of enchanted paintings, sculptures, tapestries, and glass cases containing objects with little plaques explaining why touching them would cause death, transformation, historical paradoxes, or all three. Gribble unwrapped an onion-and-cheese sandwich, sighed contentedly, and decided night watchman was considerably better than sewer inspector.

Something tapped him on the shoulder.

Gribble froze with half the sandwich sticking out of his mouth. He slowly turned and found himself staring directly into the painted face of a noblewoman wearing a gigantic powdered wig, except the noblewoman was no longer inside her portrait. She stood behind him in three-dimensional form, holding her painted fan and looking annoyed, while the canvas twenty feet away now depicted only an empty ballroom.

Gribble swallowed hard. “Painting lady supposed to be in painting.”

The noblewoman pointed toward the eastern gallery, where a painted cavalry officer galloped past on a horse that should have been confined to a landscape entitled General Harrow at Dawn. Behind him came three sheep from a pastoral painting, a fisherman carrying a bucket, two cherubs, and what appeared to be an entire thunderstorm rolling along the ceiling. Gribble’s ears slowly flattened against his head.

“Ohhh,” he whispered. “Gribble going to lose job.”

Within ten minutes, the gallery had become a catastrophe. The cavalry officer had ridden into a naval painting and was now galloping across the deck of a frigate, while the frigate’s captain had climbed into a portrait of the royal family and was arguing with the king. The sheep had wandered into a snowy mountain scene, the fisherman was trying to catch koi from an imperial watercolor, and one of the cherubs had discovered that throwing painted fruit at marble statues was apparently hilarious.

Gribble ran from room to room waving his arms. “No! No! You go back! Sheep belong in grass picture! Not snow picture! Sheep freeze! Then curator blame Gribble for frozen art sheep!”

The sheep ignored him.

Gribble remembered the rule. Do not touch anything. Unfortunately, nobody had apparently told the exhibits not to touch each other. A marble knight had pulled the enchanted sword from a painting of an ancient battlefield, two portraits had swapped hats, and the fisherman had somehow acquired a crown.

Gribble developed a system.

He stood behind the noblewoman’s empty portrait and shook a bag of sugared almonds until she marched back toward it indignantly. He herded the sheep using his sandwich, although the largest sheep ate the sandwich and then refused to move. He convinced the cavalry officer to return to his landscape by shouting, “Enemy army hiding in sunrise picture!” and watched with tremendous satisfaction as the officer charged straight through the canvas.

By three in the morning, Gribble was sweating through his little security jacket. “Gribble not touch art,” he muttered while using a broom to gently redirect a painted goose without technically touching it himself. “Broom touch art. Gribble touch broom. Rules very clear.”

The worst problem arrived at four.

A dragon stepped out of a massive triptych titled The Burning of Valemere.

Gribble stared upward as the dragon unfolded itself across the central gallery, scattering cherubs and sending the fisherman diving into a vase. Smoke curled from its nostrils. Somewhere behind Gribble, the marble knight quietly put the enchanted sword back.

Gribble raised the broom.

“Bad painting lizard.”

The dragon growled.

“Back in picture.”

The dragon opened its jaws.

Gribble’s knees knocked together, but his eyes suddenly landed on the dragon’s abandoned painting. In the painted city below, hundreds of tiny knights were frozen in heroic poses, waiting for their monster to return. Gribble slowly grinned.

“Oi! Big lizard! Knights say you scared!”

The dragon stopped.

Gribble pointed dramatically at the canvas. “Tiny painted men say dragon smell like wet kobold!”

The dragon roared so violently that every frame in the gallery rattled, then spun around and charged straight back into the painting. The instant its tail disappeared, the frozen knights resumed fighting it, and the gallery went silent.

At six in the morning, the curator unlocked the front doors and found Gribble sitting behind the desk. Every painting hung exactly where it belonged, every statue stood perfectly still, and every magical object remained safely inside its case. Gribble’s uniform was scorched, his hair stuck straight upward, and a painted goose feather was somehow lodged behind one ear.

The curator looked around suspiciously. “Quiet night?”

Gribble stared at him for several seconds, then slowly slid beneath the desk.

“Gribble quitting.”