But the object in the tray caught the light again, and I leaned in for a better look.
A brooch. Round and nearly the size of my palm, with fierce interlaced beasts biting their own tails around the rim. The silver had gone almost black in the grooves, but where the tarnish had worn thin, the metal gleamed like moonlight on a knife blade.
Garnets, or glass made to look like garnets, sat in little settings at the center, dark red and watchful. The pin on the back was corroded and the hinge bent, and still the piece looked as though it had been made to outlast kings and fires and fools and everything else besides.
“That’s extraordinary,” I said.
“Aye.”
It reminded me of something I’d seen on the telly a while back. “Is it Saxon?”
“Some would say so.”
“That’s either very mysterious or you’re not sure.”
“Both can be true.”
“You should put that on the label. Very catchy.”
This time she did smile, and for one peculiar moment the noisy fair seemed to hush around us.
Somewhere behind me as if from far away, a man haggled over a porcelain dog. A child whined for chips. The sea wind pressed against the windows, and I could hear my blood beating in my ears.
“What’s the provenance?” I asked, pleased I’d picked up and remembered a few bits from all those antiques shows.
“Lost. Found. Lost again.”
“That’s not provenance. That’s a riddle.”
“And yet you haven’t walked away.”
Annoying woman. Accurate, but annoying. I held out my hand before I could overthink it. “May I?”
“No.”
I pulled my hand back. “Right. Sorry.”
She sighed as if I’d somehow failed a test by being polite, reached into her coat pocket, and drew out a small key tied with blue thread.
She unlocked the glass-topped case beneath the tray. I hadn’t even noticed it was locked. Then she lifted the brooch out with both hands.
I would have sworn the whole room leaned toward it.
“Hold it only if you mean to,” she said.
That should have done it. Sent me straight for the nearest exit, past the hazard lamp and the toast architecture and backout to my car, where I could eat service-station crisps for dinner and congratulate myself on not being the sort of woman who accepted cursed jewelry from cryptic strangers.
Instead, I held out my palm. The brooch settled into my hand, cold and far heavier than it looked.
Every hair on my arms stood up. For a second, nothing happened at all.
“See?” I said, though my voice wavered. “Completely normal.”
The old woman’s gaze softened.
“No, love. Nothing about you is.”
The center stone flared. Not bright. Not like lightning. More like an ember waking beneath ash.
