Portrait of a Thief

Will begins to clean out his art studio at Harvard, since he’s not taking art classes during his final semester. He’s been applying for jobs, but still doesn’t know what he’ll do after graduation. He receives an offer to interview at the Met for an assistant curator position for Asian art. Will and Irene aren’t speaking, so he tells Lily about the interview instead.

After Lily talks to Will, Irene tells her that Will has no right to be upset with her, because if they’d kept doing heists, they would have gotten caught. Lily says this is not why Will is upset. Irene considers how much Will wanted her to believe in him. Then, she asks Lily to go to Boston with her. As they drive, they talk about their future jobs at a consulting firm and Microsoft with a shared tone of resignation. Lily asks Irene what she would have done if they’d completed the heists, and Irene says “I’d do something of my own” (285).

In Boston, Lily and Irene visit Will. While Irene and Will talk, Lily receives a text from Zhao Min saying, “Your turn.” She finds a news article indicating Norway’s KODE Art museum was robbed that morning; every item from the Chinese Collection was stolen except the next zodiac fountainhead.