The decoy scale project was, objectively, one of the more ethically murky things Isla had ever done in a lab.
Which was saying something.
She spread several samples on the stainless steel table: a piece of keratinous rhinoceros horn from an old, deaccessioned teaching collection; a chunk of giant tortoise shell; a sliver of aged ivory from an undocumented fragment that had been ethically retired from display.
She handled them with gloves, the weight of their histories heavy in her hands.
Colonial theft.
Extinction.
Human greed.
“You deserve better than this,” she murmured to the horn. “But right now, you’re helping keep something worse at bay.”
She sanded, polished, layered translucent resin, tinted with mica powder to mimic the strange, shifting sheen of the real scale.
Under the harsh lab lights, it looked… convincing.
Under her other sense, it was dead.
Good.
She ran a quick, deliberately shallow spectrographic analysis.
The readings were… weird.
Keratin and mineral and a dash of synthetic.
Plausibly mysterious.
She printed the graphs.
Labeled the sample: *Unidentified organic composite. Possible keratinized structure with unusual mineralization.*
Not entirely a lie.
Just… not the right object.
By the time Leona appeared at the lab door, tablet in hand, Isla had the decoy in a Petri dish under a microscope, looking very serious.
“Dr. Ward,” she said, looking up. “Perfect timing.”
Leona stepped inside, closing the door behind her.
“Is that…?” she asked.
“The Schmiedler organic oddity,” Isla said. “Or part of it. I took a micro-fragment for testing. I didn’t want to compromise the main piece until we knew what we were dealing with.”
Leona’s gaze flicked to the labeled dish.
She moved closer.
Peered into the microscope.
Her mouth tightened.
“What do you see?” Isla asked, as if she didn’t know.
“Layered structure,” Leona said slowly. “Organic. Some crystalline inclusions. Not bone. Not shell. Something… else.”
She straightened.
“Chemical analysis?” she asked.
Isla slid the printed graphs across the table.
“Keratin-like,” she said. “With… anomalies. The lattice is… nonstandard. Almost like it’s been… overwritten.”
“Overwritten,” Leona repeated, interested.
“Like someone took a biological template and… etched something else into it,” Isla improvised. “A pattern. A code.”
Leona’s eyes gleamed.
“Clever girl,” she murmured.
Heat flickered along Isla’s skin.
“Is it… dangerous?” she asked.
“In the wrong hands,” Leona said. “In the right hands… useful.”
“Useful for what?” Isla pressed.
Leona smiled faintly.
“Bridging gaps,” she said. “Tuning instruments. Anchoring spells.”
The word slipped out so casually that it took Isla a second to parse it.
“You perform spells,” she said.
Leona arched a brow.
“You don’t?” she asked.
Heat rose to Isla’s cheeks.
“Not… on purpose,” she said.
Leona’s gaze softened.
“You’re in over your head,” she said. “But you’re swimming. That’s more than most.”
“I prefer land,” Isla muttered.
“Land shifts,” Leona said. “Ask your dragon.”
Isla’s heart stuttered.
She schooled her expression.
“Excuse me?” she asked.
Leona’s lips quirked.
“Figure of speech,” she said. “This substance… if Schmiedler had more of it, if he used it in his… acquisitions… it could explain the pattern of anomalies around his pieces. He might have been binding them. Or marking them. Or using them as… bait.”
“Bait,” Isla repeated, sickened.
“For what?”
“For whatever’s been eating at your foundations,” Leona said calmly.
Isla’s skin crawled.
“You think Schmiedler… summoned it?” she asked.
“Not intentionally,” Leona said. “Men like him rarely think beyond their next auction. But play with enough old bindings, enough sacred objects, enough bloodstained relics…” She shrugged. “You shake loose more than provenance issues.”
Isla thought of the auction catalogs she’d pored over.
The notes about “unusual patina,” “remarkable energy,” “haunting presence.”
“We’re cleaning up after a rich man’s mess,” she said bitterly.
“As usual,” Leona said.
She tapped the Petri dish lightly.
“I’d like to run my own tests on this,” she said. “If you’re willing.”
Isla hesitated.
“Under what conditions?” she asked.
Leona smiled.
“Spoken like a proper witch,” she said.
Isla almost choked.
“I’m not—” she started.
Leona waved a hand.
“Relax,” she said. “Witch is just a word for ‘woman who notices patterns others ignore.’ My conditions: I don’t remove this from the building. I don’t apply any destructive magic. I share my findings with you before anyone else. Yours?”
The offer was… tempting.
Knowledge.
Data.
A glimpse into methods Isla had only read about in footnotes and whispered about with grad students in bars.
“My conditions,” she said slowly. “You don’t take any samples without my consent. You don’t… feed… anything through it. No opening cracks. No summoning.”
Leona’s eyes glinted.
“You think I’d try,” she said.
“I don’t know you,” Isla replied. “And I’ve seen enough horror movies to know someone always thinks they can control what comes through.”
Leona’s mouth curved.
“Fair,” she said. “I accept.”
The air tasted… different.
Like a handshake that hummed.
Isla’s thumb prickled.
“You just bound that,” she said.
“Yes,” Leona said. “Words have weight. Especially down here.”
Isla swallowed.
“Then we’re… partners,” she said.
“Until our terms diverge,” Leona replied.
She picked up the Petri dish, cradling it carefully.
“If you feel… pressure… from below,” she said quietly, “call me. Before you call anyone else.”
“Even if I’d rather call someone with… bigger teeth?” Isla asked.
Leona smiled, shark-bright.
“Especially then,” she said. “Teeth bite. Contracts hold.”
When she was gone, the lab felt colder.
Isla pressed her palms against the edge of the steel table until her knuckles whitened.
“You just made a deal with another wizard,” she muttered to herself. “Great job, Reyes.”
Her thumb throbbed.
She lifted it.
The scar line glowed faintly.
“Don’t scold me,” she told it. “I’m trying.”
The hum of the hoard answered, distant but present.
She took a breath.
Next right move.
Coal room.
Confession.
***
Cael listened without interrupting.
Tim and Jay, predictably, did not.
“You *what?*” Jay yelped. “You made a pact with Tapeworm Lady over a fake scale?”
“Not a pact,” Isla said. “An agreement. With conditions.”
“That’s what a pact is,” Tim muttered.
Cael’s expression was hard to read.
“You gave her… a piece,” he said slowly.
“Not *the* piece,” Isla said. “A decoy. She’ll learn things. Just… not the things she thinks. And I’ll see how she works. How she… writes her own terms.”
“She said she wouldn’t feed anything through it,” Tim said. “You trust that?”
“I bound it,” Isla said. “With my own conditions. It… felt like it stuck.”
Cael’s eyes narrowed.
“She will find ways around it,” he said. “Old magic always does. It wriggles.”
“Like a tapeworm,” Jay said.
“Stop making that metaphor so apt,” Isla groaned.
Cael considered her.
“You did not tell her about me,” he said.
It wasn’t a question.
“No,” she said. “Of course not.”
“You told her about the scale,” he said.
“Not… everything,” she said. “Not the hoard. Not the bond. Just… that it cut me. That I fainted. That it felt… wrong.”
He exhaled slowly.
“You walk a knife,” he said.
“So do you,” she shot back.
He smiled faintly.
“We are both foolish, then,” he said.
Tim rubbed a hand over his face.
“I don’t like any version of this where she’s playing with even a decoy scale,” he said. “But I get why you did it. Better to have her chewing on a puzzle piece we control than sniffing around the real thing.”
“Exactly,” Isla said.
Jay tapped his laptop.
“Also, on a purely tactical level,” he said, “if she learns to detect *that* signature, we can see how sensitive her gear is. If her devices freak out over the decoy, we know we have to keep Cael way, way away. If they barely twitch, we can be a little bolder.”
Cael gave him an approving look.
“You think like a thief,” he said.
“Compliment or insult?” Jay asked.
“Yes,” Cael said.
Despite herself, Isla laughed.
The tension in the room eased a fraction.
“We keep the real scale here,” she said. “With you. With the crown. With… the other pieces. If Leona tries to… bargain… with whatever’s under us, she’s doing it with a fake key. Not the master.”
Cael’s gaze softened.
“You are very protective,” he said.
“Of you?” she asked, startled.
“Of everything,” he said. “Even those who do not deserve it.”
She thought of Schmiedler.
Of Leona.
Of the crack-thing.
“Someone has to be,” she said.
He nodded once.
“Then I will be… protective of you,” he said.
Her heart did that annoying swoop.
“I’m not a relic,” she said.
“You are rarer,” he said simply.
Heat rushed to her face.
“Stop,” she muttered.
“Why?” he asked, genuinely puzzled.
“Because I don’t know what to do with it,” she said. “With… you. With all of this. Every time I think I’ve found my footing, the ground shakes.”
He looked down at his hands.
“At least this time,” he said, “the shaking is… partially my fault.”
She snorted.
“Comforting,” she said.
He smiled slightly.
“Isla,” he said.
She braced.
“Yes?”
“If you choose another,” he said evenly, “I will not burn him.”
Her brain stuttered.
“Excuse me?” she squeaked.
“If you choose Tim,” he said, nodding toward the guard, “or your mouthy friend with the computers, or some stupid boy in a coffee shop, I will not cook him.”
“Wow,” Jay said. “I feel so honored.”
Tim choked on his water.
Isla stared.
“That’s…” she managed. “Good? I guess? Thank you for not committing hypothetical murder?”
He looked confused.
“You humans are so dramatic,” he said. “I am saying: you are free. Even with the bond. I will not… punish… you for making choices that do not… feed my pride.”
Her chest ached.
“Who hurt you?” she whispered.
His face shuttered.
“Many,” he said. “But that is… another story.”
Her thumb tingled.
Her grandmother’s notebook flickered in her mind.
One day, she thought.
Not yet.
“Right now,” she said, “my romantic entanglements are the least of our problems.”
Jay made a disappointed noise.
“Speak for yourself,” he muttered.
Tim elbowed him.
Cael’s lips twitched.
“Perhaps,” he said. “But they are the most… interesting.”
Her cheeks burned.
She threw up her hands.
“I’m going to go audit the reliquary mounts,” she said. “At least those don’t talk back.”
“We do,” Cael said.
“Yes,” she said. “That’s the issue.”
She stalked out, heart pounding, heat crawling up her neck and down her spine.
In the corridor, she leaned against the cool concrete and took a deep breath.
“You’re in trouble,” she told herself.
The thing in the cracks wasn’t the only danger.
The dragon in the coal room was.
So was the part of her that wanted to walk back in there, grab his ridiculous band-shirt collar, and test exactly how patient he was about waiting.
Next right move, she reminded herself.
Not that one.
Not yet.
***
She found peace, as she often did, among the reliquaries.
The medieval gallery was quiet in the late afternoon.
School groups gone.
Tourists thinned.
The soft murmur of audio guides floated through the dim.
She stood in front of a case of small shrines, each one a tiny house for a bone fragment or a scrap of cloth.
Gold.
Silver.
Enamel.
The faithful had poured their hope and fear into these boxes for centuries.
Now they sat under glass, their labels tidy.
Her fingers itched to open them.
Not to steal.
To listen.
“Talking to them again?” a voice said at her shoulder.
She jumped.
Tim stood beside her, hands in his pockets.
“Jesus, Tim,” she hissed. “Wear a bell.”
“Occupational hazard,” he said. “Sneaking.”
She exhaled.
“Checking for cracks,” she said. “Literal and metaphorical.”
“Any luck?” he asked.
“Lots of metaphors,” she said. “Few literal.”
He smiled faintly.
They stood in silence for a moment, looking at the reliquaries.
“Do you ever feel… weird… in here?” she asked quietly.
“Define weird,” he said.
“Tingly,” she said. “Like the air’s… thicker. Like someone’s watching. Someone *else.*”
He shrugged one shoulder.
“Sometimes,” he said. “Usually after a double shift.”
“Helpful,” she muttered.
He bumped her shoulder lightly with his.
“You’re doing good,” he said.
“I lied to a sorcerer and a security consultant in the same week,” she said. “My abuela would either be proud or beat me with a chancla.”
“Probably both,” he said.
She huffed a laugh.
“Tim,” she said, hesitating. “If this… all goes sideways. If Leona figures out Cael. If the crack-thing comes through. If I…” She gestured vaguely. “Break. You can walk away. You know that, right? You don’t owe me anything.”
He snorted.
“That’s adorable,” he said.
She frowned.
“I’m serious,” she said. “You didn’t sign up for this when you took a museum security job. You thought you were stopping kids from touching the art, not…”
“Not playing dragon bodyguard?” he said. “True. But I made my choice. Same as you.”
“You could un-choose,” she said softly.
He shook his head.
“I don’t do half-measures,” he said. “If there’s a monster under my feet, I’m going to stand on its head or die trying. That’s my damage.”
Her throat tightened.
“Why?” she asked.
He considered.
“My old precinct,” he said slowly, “had this saying. ‘We go where it’s bad so other people don’t have to.’ It was corny. It was also the only thing that got me out of bed sometimes. This… feels like that. Just with more… hoard management.”
She laughed weakly.
“You’re a good man, Tim,” she said.
“Don’t spread that rumor,” he said. “I’ve got a reputation.”
Silence stretched.
“Do you ever wish…” she began, then trailed off.
He waited.
She forced herself to finish.
“Do you ever wish it was just… us?” she asked softly. “No dragons. No cracks. Just… two people in a museum with too much student debt and not enough funding.”
He exhaled slowly.
“Sometimes,” he said. “Then I remember that even in that world, someone else would be under those cracks. Without us. And I’d be pissed I wasn’t there.”
Her heart ached.
“You’re very annoying,” she said.
“I get that a lot,” he said.
He hesitated.
“Isla,” he said.
She turned her head.
“Yeah?” she murmured.
“If you…” He cleared his throat. “If you ever want something that is just… us. Coffee. A walk. Bad TV. No dragons. You know… you can ask. You don’t have to wait for the world to stop ending.”
Her breath caught.
“Tim,” she said.
“I’m not… asking for an answer,” he said quickly. “I know you’ve got a lot on your plate. And a dragon in your basement. And zero bandwidth. I just… didn’t want you to think your only options were ‘ancient fire lizard’ or ‘eternal spinsterhood with relics.’”
Emotion rose, hot and confusing.
“You’re—” she began.
He held up a hand.
“Not trying to make this harder,” he said. “Just… putting the card on the table. For future reference. No pressure.”
Her vision blurred.
“I don’t…” She swallowed. “I don’t know what I can… give. Right now. To anyone.”
He smiled softly.
“I know,” he said. “That’s why I’m not asking for it now.”
Her chest felt too tight.
“Okay,” she whispered.
He bumped her shoulder again.
“We’ll figure it out,” he said. “One cursed object at a time.”
She huffed a laugh that was half-sob.
“You and Cael should start a support group,” she muttered. “ ‘People Who Volunteered for My Chaos.’”
He grinned.
“Already got the group chat,” he said.
She groaned.
“Of course you do,” she said.
She walked away from the reliquaries feeling more conflicted than she had when she’d gone in.
Her heart—
—stubborn, loyal, stretched between the dragon underground, the guard at her side, the friend on her couch, the grandmother in her notebook, the city above her.
She didn’t know yet where it would land.
She only knew this:
She wouldn’t let the cracks decide for her.
Not the literal ones.
Not the metaphorical.
Terms and conditions.
She would write her own.
Even if the ink shook in her hand.
***
End of Chapter 15.