Page 37 of Nobody Told Me Thrift Shops Sell Stolen Dragon Heirlooms

I pressed on.

“He has a family restitution case. I had an heirloom from that family. He believes in boons—agreements—and everyone in that room knew it the second he said it belonged to his horde. The only thing I had that mattered was timing. So I used it.”

Moira lifted her head then.

I could feel Helena’s eyes on me.

James leaned back slowly in his chair. “And if we now had a furious dragon client who felt manipulated by one of our interns?”

“Then I imagine you would be telling me I was fired.”

Moira made a small sound that might have been a swallowed laugh again. James ignored her.

I tried, because I wasn’t suicidal, to add something slightly more contrite.

“I know it was a gamble,” I said. “I do. But I also know I’m here to practice law, not become the world’s most efficient floral maintenance specialist. If I see an opening I can ethically take, then I will.”

James rubbed his jaw and let out a long-suffering sigh. “You realize you’ve made it very difficult to punish you.”

I didn’t smile, even though I really wanted to. “I can work with that,” I said.

This time Helena’s lips twitched.

There it was. Not approval, not exactly. But something alive enough to make the back of my neck warm. She still hadn’t said more than six words since the whole thing began, but her silence had changed texture. She no longer looked like she was assessing the fallout. She looked like she was reassessing me.

James exhaled and pulled his legal pad closer. “You are not to freelance negotiations with clients in the corridor.”

“Understood.”

“You are not to invoke mythological bargaining customs without at least a passing awareness of whether they remain legally or socially binding.”

I opened my mouth to retort, thought better of it, and settled on, “Also understood.”

“And you will remember,” he said, pointing his pen at me, “that getting something right does not retroactively make the method wise.”

That, unfortunately, was true enough that I could only nod.

“Good,” he said. “Get the hell out of my office.”

I stood at once.

Moira held the door open for me. I glanced back at Helena. She was looking down at the files now, one hand resting lightly over the closed folder that contained Mr. Virelli’s case materials. But before I stepped out, she met my gaze, and though her expression barely changed, I had the unmistakable sensation of being weighed and, for the moment at least, not found wanting.

Then Moira was ushering me into the hall and shutting the door behind us.

For three full steps, I said nothing.

Neither did Moira.

Then, because I wasn’t a saint, I whispered, “Was that as bad as it could have been?”

She stopped walking and gripped my elbow.

There are moments when a person’s face can tell you their entire professional history. The years of being underestimated. Delight in competence. Irritation at carelessness. The deeply buried, very specific affection for chaos when it serves the right end.

Moira held my gaze for one long second and I saw all of that in it.

Then she said, “That was one of the most reckless things I’ve ever seen an intern do.”