Brom Granitehand had bought the table because his wife said the old one was becoming dangerous. This was an exaggeration, in Brom’s opinion, because the old table had only collapsed twice, and both times everyone had been warned not to lean on the left side. Still, with their eldest son coming home with his new wife, Brom agreed that perhaps a dining table should possess certain modern luxuries, such as four dependable legs.

The advertisement from Silverleaf Furnishings had promised Timeless Elven Craftsmanship, Delivered Directly to Your Door. Brom had been suspicious of anything described as timeless that also offered express shipping, but Mara liked the picture. The table was pale moonwood, carved with leaves and little running deer, elegant enough that Brom felt uncomfortable imagining stew being eaten over it.

Three weeks later, a wagon arrived carrying a long, narrow crate. Brom opened it eagerly and discovered six beautifully finished slabs of wood, four delicately curved legs, seventeen nearly identical wooden pegs, twelve smaller pegs, four brass rings, something resembling a polished acorn, and a folded sheet of ivory paper. He stared into the crate for some time before saying, “They forgot the table.”

Mara leaned over his shoulder and picked up the ivory sheet. There were no words upon it, only twenty-three delicate illustrations of smiling elves performing various gestures around shapes that vaguely resembled furniture. “Those are the instructions,” she said, while Brom’s face slowly assumed the expression of a man who had just discovered an ancestral enemy.

At the center of the page was a tiny enchanted picture. Inside it, a cheerful elf with perfect silver hair assembled the entire table in perhaps twelve seconds, smiling serenely as pieces floated into his hands and slid together without resistance. When the animation finished, the elf gave Brom two thumbs up and began again.

Brom spent the first hour sorting the seventeen large pegs. Each was supposedly different, because the instructions showed seventeen slightly different leaf symbols beside them, but Brom could detect no meaningful difference whatsoever. He measured them with calipers, weighed them on his wife’s baking scale, rolled them across the floor, and eventually declared, “These are the same peg seventeen times.”

His daughter Freya picked one up and examined it. “This one has a little line on the end,” she said. Brom snatched it from her hand, held it beneath three lamps, and discovered a mark approximately the width of a spider’s eyelash.

The second hour was spent determining which direction the table legs faced. The diagrams suggested that each leg had a front, back, inward side, outward side, and seasonal orientation. Brom installed the first leg three times before realizing the engraved vines were supposed to spiral clockwise when viewed from underneath.

“Why would anyone view it from underneath?” Brom demanded. Mara, who had begun making tea, replied, “Apparently elves.”

By supper, Brom had assembled something. It possessed four legs, a tabletop, and the broad structural confidence of a wounded deer. One end was six inches higher than the other, two legs angled outward, and the entire structure emitted a delicate musical note whenever anyone touched it.

Brom stared at the remaining wooden peg in his palm. “There should not be a spare peg,” he whispered.

The enchanted elf continued assembling his perfect table. Brom watched more carefully and suddenly noticed that, halfway through the animation, the elf reached behind the tabletop and inserted something before attaching the third leg. Brom grabbed the illustration, brought it within an inch of his nose, “What did you put in there?”

The elf smiled and gave him two thumbs up.

At midnight, Mara found Brom sitting beneath the unfinished table surrounded by tools. He had disassembled the entire thing twice, learned several phrases in Elvish solely so he could insult the manufacturer accurately, and discovered that the polished acorn was apparently a wrench. “I have built fortifications during active sieges,” he muttered as she crouched beside him. “I once repaired a bridge while goblins were still burning it.”

Mara patted his shoulder. “And tomorrow, you’ll finish an elf table.”

Brom looked at the smiling animated elf, who had just completed the table for perhaps the nine-hundredth time. Slowly, Brom smiled back.

The next morning, Silverleaf Furnishings received its first-ever customer support request delivered by battleaxe.