Page 30 of Nobody Told Me Thrift Shops Sell Stolen Dragon Heirlooms

I explained the family records, surviving letters, estate references, one wartime inventory list, two photographs, and the way objects migrated through catastrophe when people were trying to stay alive. The lawyers interrupted when they needed clarity and, to their credit, only when they needed it. Moira asked the best questions. Helena asked the sharpest ones.

By the time the meeting moved from history into tactics, I was no longer wondering whether the firm could manage the work and had shifted to whether they could manage it quickly enough.

Helena tapped one manicured finger against the folder closest to her. “The museum cases are viable. Not easy, but viable. They’ll resist. Institutions always do.”

“Of course.”

“They’ll argue stewardship, public access, lack of sufficient proof. The usual litany.”

“I understand.”

“They may also attempt to drag out negotiations until the legal cost becomes part of their leverage.”

I held her gaze. “That would be an error on their part.”

A brief silence followed. Then Moira coughed into her hand, very politely disguising what I suspected was amusement.

The lacrosse attorney’s mouth moved at one corner.

Helena, to her credit, didn’t smile. “Noted.”

We spent another half hour on possible approaches. Demand letters with more teeth, and if that failed, reaching out to trustees. Pressure points within the museums’ governance structures. Using publicity as a threat if needed. The auction route for the shrine mirror would proceed separately; that, everyone agreed, was the most straightforward of the three identified pieces, though “straightforward” in the art world still involved enough money and ego to fuel minor wars.

By the end of it, I knew two things.

First, they were good.

Second, they had correctly concluded I wasn’t interested in being soothed.

Helena closed the file. “We’ll take the case.”

Something in my chest eased with such abruptness that I disliked it on principle.

“Good,” I said.

Her expression didn’t change. “Moira will handle day-to-day coordination with support from our restitution and family law teams. We’ll move quickly.”

Moira gathered her notes. “We’ll have engagement paperwork to you this afternoon, and I’d like to begin the formal document review tomorrow, if possible.”

“That is possible.”

She nodded. “Excellent.”

The meeting concluded with handshakes, assurances, and the subtle mutual acknowledgment that money, grief, and expertise had entered into a professional agreement and would now have to make the best of one another.

Moira walked me toward the elevators.

“Thank you for coming in,” she said. “I know these matters can be… difficult.”

There was enough tact in the pause before difficult that I didn’t resent it. “They are what they are.”

“Yes,” she said. “Still.”

We had just rounded the corner into the open bullpen outside the conference suites when I heard singing. The communal sort inflicted on colleagues in the name of affection and sugar.

“Happy birthday to you⁠—”

I looked up, spotting a small cluster of people near one of the copy rooms: a broad-faced older man in shirtsleeves looking mildly trapped, a very tall, alarmingly narrow-framed young man holding a grocery-store cupcake with a single candle shoved into the frosting, and a woman standing beside him with two more cupcakes on a cardboard tray.