Page 179 of Nobody Told Me Thrift Shops Sell Stolen Dragon Heirlooms

Max wore no tie, only his working collar.

The inside of the house was worse than the outside. White walls, dark floors, enormous windows, objects displayed as if the entire place were a museum that had gotten too rich to be held accountable. Sculptures stood in lit alcoves. Bronze masks floated behind glass. Painted screens glowed under hidden lighting. Every room looked like a billionaire had walked through history with a shopping cart and no adult supervision.

Dimitris gave us the tour.

“This,” he said, gesturing toward a long case of jeweled daggers, “came from a private collection in Vienna.”

“Legally?” I asked.

His smile widened. “Define legally.”

A muscle in Rafe’s jaw ticked.

I glanced at him. “I think I found the wrong question.”

“You found the correct one,” Rafe said.

Dimitris laughed. “How dreary you both are. History is rarely clean.”

He showed us rooms full of paintings, relics, armor, carved boxes, old books locked behind special glass. Eventually, we reached a lower gallery where the security became noticeably more serious. Cameras tucked into the ceiling. Pressure sensors near the cases. Doors that required Dimitris’s handprint, his voice, and something he breathed into a gold-edged panel that made the whole room hum softly.

“You seem proud of the system,” Rafe said.

“I am proud of things that work.” Dimitris waved one elegant hand as the final door opened. “I have very little staff. Employees are expensive, unreliable, and prone to developing opinions. Security systems are expensive, reliable, and only develop opinions if one has made a very specific programming error.”

“Well, that’s comforting,” I said.

He smiled. “Isn’t it?”

The secure room beyond was smaller than I expected and colder. A few objects rested inside separate cases, each lit from beneath. A crown of blackened silver. A bowl that seemed to hold smoke though nothing burned inside it. A blade so thin it looked like a line drawn through the air.

The incense burner wasn’t there.

I knew before Rafe asked, “Where is it?”

Dimitris turned back, almost amused. “Not here.”

Rafe’s eyes hardened.

“Oh, don’t glare. Your little burner is charming, but it is not in my top tier.”

“My family heirloom is not charming.”

“No? Then it is deeply meaningful and insufficiently rare.” Dimitris tapped one case lightly with a knuckle. “These require certain protections. The burner is upstairs in the devotional objects gallery.”

I felt Rafe go still beside me.

The insult was quiet, but it landed. Dimitris hadn’t even valued the thing enough to secure it with his most precious collection. He had wanted it because Rafe wanted it. Because ownership, to him, was only about appetite.

By the time we reached the meeting room, my optimism had started to curdle.

The room opened onto a terrace overlooking the grounds. A round table had been set with tea, small sandwiches, fruit, and tiny pastries arranged in a fan shape. Max settled beneath my chair, accepting the entire estate’s nonsense with more grace than I had.

Dimitris sat opposite us, folded his hands, and smiled.

“So,” he said. “The incense burner.”

Rafe didn’t touch his tea. “Name your terms.”