Maya opened the door before Isla finished knocking.
“You’re late,” she announced, stepping back to let her in. “The cheese is at that magical stage between ‘gooey perfection’ and ‘molten lava that will destroy your mouth.’ You’ve got a five-minute window.”
Isla stepped into the familiar warmth of the tiny apartment, the smell of baked dough and cumin wrapping around her like a hug.
“You texted me ten minutes ago,” she protested, toeing off her sneakers.
Maya scoffed, tossing her braids over her shoulder. “Time is a construct. I missed you. Come on.”
The coffee table was already set: foil pan of empanadas, open bottle of red wine breathing in the center, two mismatched mugs instead of proper glasses. The TV played something on mute in the background—some crime show Maya had seen a hundred times.
Isla’s shoulders loosened a fraction.
She dropped onto the sagging couch, tucking her legs under her. Maya handed her a mug brimming with wine.
“To surviving the gala,” Maya said, raising her own.
“To not setting the medieval wing on fire,” Isla muttered before she could stop herself.
Maya squinted at her over the rim. “That… sounded weirdly specific.”
Isla took a long swallow.
Warmth spread down her throat.
She set the mug down carefully.
“Okay,” Maya said, watching her. “Spill. You’ve got your ‘I did something ethically dubious and my Catholic upbringing is screaming’ face on.”
“I don’t have—”
“You do,” Maya said. “It’s very specific. Also adorable. Start from the fainting incident. Did you get the object analyzed? Is it cursed? Did it make you see God? What’s happening?”
Isla stared at the empanadas.
The words “I woke a dragon” seemed too big for the small, cozy room.
She picked one up, tore it open to give her hands something to do.
Steam hit her face.
“Promise you’ll hear me out,” she said finally. “And remember that you once believed I saw the ghost in the Spanish armor when we were thirteen.”
“You did see the ghost in the Spanish armor,” Maya said easily. “He was hot. Go on.”
Isla half-laughed, half-choked.
“Okay, well,” she said. “Turns out the scale is… not a rock. Or horn. Or anything in our database. Its lattice structure is… I don’t even know. It’s… alive? Not in a cell-and-DNA way. In a… power way.”
Maya’s eyes widened, interest flaring. “Like… cursed object alive or, like, AI alive?”
“Third option,” Isla said faintly. “Dragon alive.”
Maya blinked. Once. Twice.
Then she nodded slowly. “Okay. Cool. Love that for you. Elaborate.”
Isla took a breath.
“The day I cut myself on it,” she said, “I didn’t just faint. I… fell. Somewhere. In my head. There was this… roar. Heat. And this… *presence*.” She swallowed. “And then, tonight at the museum…”
She told her.
Not everything—she left out the exact number of objects she’d helped move and the specifics of Tim’s camera rerouting—but enough.
The waking under the building. The smoke. The way Cael had looked at her in the medieval wing like he knew the shape of her bones. The hum of the stolen sword in her hands. The flash of a cavern that felt too real to be imagination.
She said “dragon” twice and heard how absurd it sounded in her own mouth.
Maya listened without interrupting, her wine forgotten, empanada slowly collapsing onto a napkin.
When Isla finished, the TV’s muted detectives were mid-car-chase.
Silence stretched.
“Okay,” Maya said finally. “Say it again.”
“I woke a dragon,” Isla said miserably. “And now I’m helping him steal back pieces of his hoard so he doesn’t go crazy and barbeque the entire museum.”
Maya stared.
Then she burst out laughing.
“Of *course* you did,” she gasped. “Of course the girl who cried over a cracked chalice in undergrad ends up in a morally complicated alliance with a literal dragon. This is the most on-brand thing you’ve ever told me.”
Isla’s shoulders sagged in something that was half relief, half indignation.
“You believe me?” she asked.
Maya sobered.
She leaned forward, eyes sharp.
“I believe you fainted in a basement and the thing you touched is weird,” she said. “I believe something happened in your head that shook you. I believe you saw a dude breathe fire in front of your reliquaries.” Her mouth twitched. “I believe you stole artifacts for the first time in your life and you’re equal parts horrified and high on it.”
She reached out, covered Isla’s hand with hers.
“And I believe you wouldn’t make this up,” she said simply. “Not like this. Not when you look like you’re about to throw up on my empanadas.”
Isla laughed weakly.
“Thanks,” she said. “I think.”
Maya squeezed her fingers.
“So,” she said, brightening. “Tell me about this dragon man. On a scale of ‘mall Santa beard’ to ‘my toxic ex that you still stalk on Instagram,’ how hot are we talking?”
“Maya,” Isla groaned.
“What?” Maya said innocently. “If you’re going to become a legendary thief and possible war criminal, I need to know what kind of nonsense dick made it happen.”
“Please don’t say ‘nonsense dick’ and ‘dragon’ in the same sentence,” Isla muttered.
Maya raised both hands. “Okay, okay. I’ll rephrase. Is he, like, objectively attractive? You mentioned cheekbones. I heard cheekbones.”
Isla’s mind, traitor that it was, supplied an image: Cael’s face in the half-light of the staff lounge, hair falling into his eyes, rune-scars glowing faintly along the cut of his ribs.
She cleared her throat.
“He’s… not ugly,” she said carefully.
Maya smirked. “Translation: you’d sit on his face.”
Isla choked on empanada.
“Absolutely not,” she sputtered, coughing. “He’s arrogant. And infuriating. And weird. And dangerous. And he keeps talking like I’m… part of his hoard or something.”
Maya’s eyebrows shot up. “Oh, he dropped the h-word.”
Isla frowned. “The… hoard word?”
“The *possessive* word,” Maya said. “You know how shifter romance goes. ‘You’re mine, little human.’ That whole vibe.”
Heat crawled up Isla’s neck.
“He literally said ‘mine’ in my head,” she admitted. “But it wasn’t… like that.”
Maya tilted her head. “Was it kind of hot, though?”
“NO,” Isla said too quickly.
Maya’s grin said she didn’t believe her.
“Babe,” she said, “you’ve spent your whole life obsessing over knights and relics and stories where people swear oaths with their whole chest. Of *course* the first guy who shows up and breathes actual fire is hitting some deep, weird button.”
“I am not some dragon groupie,” Isla protested.
“Don’t worry,” Maya said. “You’re too much of a control freak to fall for someone who doesn’t understand consent. Did he ask before he… hoarded you?”
Isla frowned.
“That’s not how it works,” she said. “He thinks it’s… deeper. Not just… owning.” She made a face. “He looked genuinely confused when I told him I’m not property.”
“Dragon boy’s got some unpacking to do,” Maya remarked. “But it sounds like he *can* learn. He listened when you yelled at him about the fire thing?”
“Yes,” Isla admitted reluctantly. “Eventually.”
“Okay,” Maya said, counting off on her fingers. “One: He’s hot. Two: He respects your professional expertise, at least enough to not set the tapestries on fire. Three: He literally bound himself with magic to not hurt anyone for twenty-four hours.”
“And then threatened to burn the place down after that,” Isla said.
“Boundaries,” Maya said. “We love a man with clear communication. Also, you’re helping him not burn it down, right? That’s the gig?”
Isla slumped back against the couch.
“I don’t know what the gig is,” she said. “Every time I think I’ve wrapped my head around it, something else happens. I keep seeing… things. Flashes. Caverns. Gold. A woman’s face in that reliquary stone. It’s like my brain is part-museum, part-dragon Netflix.”
Maya’s expression softened.
“That sounds… a lot,” she said quietly.
“It is,” Isla whispered.
She stared at the TV without seeing it.
“What if I’m screwing everything up?” she blurted. “What if helping him means betraying everything I’ve worked for? What if *not* helping him means people die? What if I lose my job? What if I lose my mind?”
“What if,” Maya said calmly, “you stop trying to game out eighteen possible catastrophic futures and focus on the next right move.”
Isla sighed.
“You make that sound so easy,” she said.
“It’s not,” Maya replied. “But it’s the only way to not drown. Next right move could be ‘go to work tomorrow, make condition reports, pretend nothing’s weird.’ Or it could be ‘break into a rival museum with your dragon boyfriend and steal a cursed chalice.’”
“He’s not my—”
“Next right move *tonight,*” Maya cut in, “is: eat empanadas, drink wine, and sleep. You are no good to anyone, human or dragon, if you pass out in a display case again.”
Isla winced. “Please don’t put ‘again’ on that.”
Maya grinned.
“Too late,” she said. “It’s part of your lore now.”
***
By the time Isla finally stumbled home, full of food and slightly fuzzed by wine, the throbbing in her thumb had faded to a dull pulse.
She fell into bed without bothering to turn on the light, jeans barely shoved down, cardigan bunched under her head.
Sleep snatched her quickly.
And brought dreams.
She stood in a cavern that hummed.
Light danced on the walls, water and fire entwined.
Coins stretched in every direction—a sea of gold and silver and strange metals that her modern brain had no names for. Chalices. Crowns. Daggers. Scroll tubes. A hundred thousand artifacts, each one humming on its own frequency, joining into a low, constant song.
She walked.
Her bare feet sank into the treasure like sand.
Every step sent up small eddies of color. Faces flickered in the gleam: men, women, children, warriors, peasants. Each object’s history trailing behind it like ghost-light.
“Careful,” a voice said.
She turned.
Cael leaned against an outcropping of rock, scaled and massive in this form. His eyes glowed like molten gold in the half-dark.
His human face lingered for a moment, superimposed over his dragon’s, then shifted, one sliding fully into the other.
Her breath caught.
“You’re dreaming,” he said. His voice rolled through the cavern like distant thunder.
“I figured,” she said dryly, looking down at herself.
She wore her sleep shirt and underwear.
Of course.
“When you dream,” he went on, “you bleed into the places we share.”
She frowned. “Places we share.”
He nodded toward the hoard.
“You anchored to me,” he said. “Through the scale. Through the pieces we returned. Through… this.”
His gaze dipped to her bandaged thumb.
“You keep staring at my thumb like it insulted you,” she muttered.
“It did,” he said simply. “It tore open the spell that held me. It ruined my sleep. It forced me to care again.”
Her chest squeezed.
“That sounds suspiciously like a thank you,” she said.
“It is not,” he said.
She smiled.
He huffed, smoke curling from his nostrils.
“You should wake soon,” he said. “Dream-walking is… easier. Dangerously so. It would be simple to stay. To let the waking world blur.”
She looked around at the endless, glittering treasure.
“At least I’d never have to file another incident report,” she said.
“At least you would never have to worry about your… job,” he agreed. “Or your board. Or your small apartment with its peeling walls. Or your father’s pills. Or your mother’s prayers.”
Her breath hitched.
He knew those things?
“How—” she began.
“You carry them with you,” he said. “In your scent. In the way your magic hums. You are like a hoard made of threads. Pull one, the others answer.”
She swallowed.
“That’s… invasive,” she said.
“You invaded me first,” he said mildly. “We are even.”
She crossed her arms.
“Good to know consent culture never reached dragon society,” she muttered.
His huge head tipped.
“Consent,” he repeated, thoughtful. “You said this word earlier. Your… friend used it. It means… asking before taking?”
“And respecting the answer,” she said. “Even if it’s not the one you want.”
His pupils narrowed.
“That seems… inefficient,” he said slowly.
“Welcome to being a decent person,” she said.
He huffed again.
“Dragons are not people,” he said.
She gestured around. “You’re in my head. That gives me the right to apply my rules.”
One massive brow ridge lifted.
“Little curator,” he murmured, “you have no idea what I [italic]could[\italic] do in your head.”
His tone slid lower.
Her pulse leaped.
“Don’t threaten me in my own subconscious,” she said, voice coming out more breathless than she liked.
He watched her.
The humming around them swelled.
“Go to sleep,” he said softly. “Properly. Rest. Tomorrow will be… worse.”
“Oh, good,” she said. “I was worried we’d peaked with ‘steal ancient relics for dragon.’”
His mouth curved.
“Sleep,” he repeated.
The word wrapped around her like a command.
Warm.
Heavy.
Gentle.
Her knees wobbled.
She glared at him as the cavern blurred.
“Stop… bossing me… around in my dreams,” she tried to say.
He rumbled something that might have been a laugh.
Then the gold melted into darkness, and she sank.
***
Isla woke to sunlight stabbing through her thin curtains and her alarm blaring the default chime she’d never bothered to change.
Her head felt… clear.
Too clear.
For a second, she lay there, rigid, waiting for the wave of dread she’d expected—guilt, fear, panic—to crash over her.
It didn’t.
Instead, there was a… humming.
Soft.
Always at the edge of hearing.
Comforting and terrifying all at once.
She swung her legs over the side of the bed and sat up.
Her thumb ached.
She peeled the Band-Aid off carefully.
The cut had already sealed, a thin line of silvery skin that hadn’t been there yesterday.
Her heart stuttered.
She touched it cautiously.
A spark danced up her arm.
She jerked back.
“Okay,” she whispered. “Okay, that’s… new.”
Her phone buzzed.
Tim: *Can you come in early? We need to talk before opening.*
Her belly dipped.
*Be there in 30,* she texted back, fingers moving almost on their own.
She moved through her morning routine on autopilot.
Coffee. Shower. Clothes.
Jeans. Museum T-shirt. Cardigan. Badge clipped to her belt.
Normal.
She stuck her head out the door and looked up at the patch of sky between buildings.
“Next right move,” she murmured.
Then she headed to the museum.
***
Tim waited for her in the staff entrance corridor, leaning against the wall with his arms crossed.
He looked like he hadn’t slept much either.
“Morning,” he said.
“Define ‘good,’” she replied.
“Fair,” he said. “Come on. Jay’s in early too. We wanted to catch you before Halpern starts his rounds.”
That tone.
That *we need to talk* tone.
Her stomach tightened.
“What happened?” she asked, lengthening her stride to keep up.
He hesitated.
“The board wants an emergency walk-through of the medieval wing,” he said. “This morning. Before opening.”
Ice slid down her spine.
“Why?” she demanded. “They were just here for the gala.”
“Because one of Schmiedler’s other bequests had a break-in last night,” he said grimly. “Across town. Someone hit their medieval gallery. Hard. Took three objects on loan from us.”
She stopped dead.
“What?” she whispered.
He turned to face her.
“Chalice,” he said. “Necklace. Small reliquary.”
Her heart plummeted.
“But those are…” she began.
“Here,” he finished. “With us.”
They stared at each other.
“Well,” Jay said from the doorway to the security office, sounding weirdly chipper. “At least we know we have a copycat.”
Isla turned.
“Jay,” she said. “Not helping.”
“Sorry,” he said. “I cope with stress by being a dumbass.”
He gestured them into the room.
The monitors showed the museum waking up: staff trickling in, janitorial carts moving through the main hall, a volunteer restocking brochures at the front desk.
Cael wasn’t in the room.
“Where is he?” she asked.
Tim jerked his chin toward the back.
“Found an old coal storage room behind the foundation,” he said. “Cameras don’t cover it. He likes the dark.”
“Of course he does,” she muttered.
Jay cleared his throat.
“So,” he said. “We’ve got a dragon under the building, three objects missing across town that are supposed to be missing but aren’t, and a board that will lose its collective mind if they think someone is targeting Schmiedler’s collection.”
“Someone *is* targeting Schmiedler’s collection,” Isla said. “Us.”
Jay made a face. “Details.”
Tim clicked through a few cameras.
“Whoever hit the other museum knew what they were doing,” he said. “No alarms tripped until they were already gone. Clean entry. Clean exit. Cameras glitched for thirty seconds right before the theft. Like here, when Cael woke.”
Isla’s skin prickled.
“You think…” she began.
“That something—or someone—else is after the same pieces,” Tim said.
“Someone tied to the original curse?” Jay suggested. “Like… rival sorcerer bloodline? Dragon groupies?”
“Stop saying dragon groupies,” Isla said weakly.
Tim pinched the bridge of his nose.
“Whoever they are,” he said, “they’re going to put pressure on us. And our missing-but-not-missing objects. Which means we have to stay ahead of the story.”
Isla’s mind whirred.
“The board thinks their loaned pieces were stolen,” she said slowly. “They’re going to check our inventory. Make sure ours are safe. If they find out *ours* are missing—”
“It will not go well,” Tim agreed.
“And if the other museum realizes the pieces they ‘lost’ are actually here…” Jay said.
“Worse,” Tim said.
Isla’s stomach churned.
“We need a story,” she said.
Jay snapped his fingers. “Field rotation. We ‘messed up’ the loan records. Accidentally sent duplicates. Someone stole the originals. We still have the copies.”
Isla threw him a look.
“This is not a comic book store,” she said. “We don’t have dupes of fourteenth-century reliquaries.”
“Not officially,” Jay said.
She blinked.
Then frowned.
“Jay,” she said slowly. “What did you do?”
He held up his hands. “Nothing! Yet. But… I mean, we could. Sort of. Make them. Kinda.”
Tim sighed. “Explain before Isla has an aneurysm.”
Jay tapped the side of his nose. “3D printing, baby. High-res scans. Resin. Paint. We’ve done it for educational replicas, right? ‘Touch the knight’s gauntlet, kids, it’s totally not the real thing.’ We could do the same here. Make replicas. Put them in the cases. Paper over the discrepancy until we sort this out.”
Isla’s head spun.
“You want me to… fake artifacts,” she said.
“I want you to help me fake artifacts so our dragon heist doesn’t blow up in our faces on day two,” he corrected. “Temporary. Ethical gray zone. Like… restoration, but with more lying.”
Her conservator soul recoiled.
Her more pragmatic, newly-minted-criminal side whispered that it was… possible.
“We don’t have time to make convincing dupes,” she said. “Not before the board shows up.”
“We have time to make… something,” he said. “Enough that from five feet away, through glass, with bad lighting, a bunch of board members see ‘shiny objects’ and move on. We can refine later.”
Tim glanced at the clock.
“They’ll be here in an hour,” he said.
Isla closed her eyes briefly.
“Okay,” she said. “Okay. I’ll pull the highest-res scans we have. Chalice. Necklace. Reliquary. Sword is still in the case; we just need to… not let anyone look too closely at the hilt.”
“And Cael?” Jay asked. “Do we… tell him about the break-in?”
Tim’s mouth tightened.
“He needs to know someone else is after his hoard,” he said. “But we tell him *after* we get through the board walk-through. One crisis at a time.”
Isla nodded.
Her pulse pounded.
She turned to go, then hesitated.
“Tim,” she said. “What if the break-in wasn’t… human?”
He met her gaze.
“I’ve been asking myself that since five a.m.,” he said quietly. “Let’s hope it was. Because if there’s more than one kind of monster interested in Schmiedler’s mess…”
He trailed off.
Jay shuddered.
“I liked it better when my job was yelling at teenagers for vaping in the bathrooms,” he muttered.
Isla didn’t say, *Me too.*
She went to the conservation lab.
***
The next three hours were a blur of panicked craftsmanship.
Isla and Jay worked side by side at the long table, sleeves rolled up, gloves on, printer humming in the corner.
They weren’t making *art*.
They were making lies.
It felt wrong.
It also felt exhilarating, in a way that made her deeply uncomfortable.
“This is the stupidest thing I’ve ever done,” she muttered, carefully aging the surface of the printed chalice replica with a combination of paint, varnish, and ground pigment.
“You interned at the Natural History Museum that one summer,” Jay said. “Surely you did something stupider there.”
“...I did take a selfie kissing the T. rex,” she admitted.
He grinned. “See? This isn’t so bad.”
She shot him a look.
He sobered.
“Hey,” he said more quietly. “We’re not doing this to sell them on eBay. We’re covering our asses while we try to stop an actual dragon from losing his mind. Intent matters, right?”
She thought of what Cael had said in the dream.
Intention matters more than knowledge.
“Yeah,” she said. “I hope so.”
By the time the board’s footsteps echoed distantly in the gallery, they had three decent approximations drying under the fume hood.
“Go,” Jay said. “I’ll swap them into the cases. You do your curator-ing. Pretend everything is fine.”
She wiped her hands on a rag, peeled off her gloves, and squared her shoulders.
Everything was *not* fine.
But she could pretend.
Years of family dinners spent smoothing over tension had trained her well.
She met the board in the medieval wing, Halpern at their head.
“Ah, Reyes,” he said. “Good. Walk us through the Schmiedler highlights, will you? There’s some concern after the incident at the Hammond Museum.”
Concern.
Right.
She pasted on her polite professional smile.
“Of course,” she said.
As she launched into her well-rehearsed spiel about fourteenth-century craftsmanship and devotional practices, her gaze flicked to the cases.
The replicas rested where the real pieces had lain twenty-four hours ago.
From this distance, under the glare of the spotlights, they passed.
Her stomach churned.
She talked.
Dates. Names. Provenance.
Her voice came automatically.
In the back of her mind, a dragon paced.
***
Cael did not like being kept out of things.
He had abided by the human’s request the previous evening—staying in the shadowed coal room, the familiar weight of four reclaimed pieces of his hoard arranged in a tight circle around him.
It had helped.
Their song had wrapped around him like a blanket, muting the jagged edges of his anger.
He had dozed, half-dreaming, half-watching through the thin thread of connection braided between him and the curator.
Isla.
Her name tasted good in his mouth.
He had watched her dream-walk into his cavern, small and stubborn and so very *herself* even in sleep.
He had sent her away before the hoard could pull her deeper.
Now, awake, the tension that had eased with the returned pieces started to coil again.
Something was… off.
He could feel it in the building.
In the way the lights flickered.
In the way the hum of the stolen objects shivered, their notes bending toward discord.
He did not like it.
When the door to the coal room opened and Tim stepped in, the lines of stress around his eyes deeper than they’d been the night before, Cael straightened from where he sat coiled.
“You kept me waiting,” he said.
Tim shut the door behind him and leaned against it, exhaling.
“Good morning to you too,” he said.
“What happened,” Cael demanded.
Tim’s gaze flicked to the objects around him—the sword at his side, the necklace looped over a broken pipe, the chalice and reliquary resting on a scrap of cloth.
“Nothing here,” he said. “Yet. It’s the Hammond. One of the other museums that got Schmiedler’s junk. They were broken into last night. Someone took three pieces.”
Cael’s eyes narrowed.
“Three of mine,” he said.
“Yeah,” Tim said. “Three of yours.”
Heat crawled up Cael’s spine.
“Who?” he asked, voice low. “Humans? Wizards? Something else?”
“We don’t know,” Tim said. “Cameras glitched. No one saw anything. But the timing is… bad. Really bad. The board’s freaking out. They think we might be next. Which, I mean, technically we are. They just don’t know *how*.”
Cael’s lips peeled back from his teeth.
“Another thief,” he said softly. “Another parasite feeding on my sleep.”
Tim held up his hands. “Wild idea: before you go full scorched-earth, maybe consider that whoever hit the Hammond might not know you exist. They might just think ‘Hey, cool haunted cup, mine now.’”
“Haunted,” Cael repeated, unimpressed.
Tim shrugged. “We have a lot of horror podcasts.”
“Do they speak of dragons?” Cael asked.
“Only metaphorically,” Tim said. “Point is: you’re not the only one in this game now. Someone else is moving pieces. We have to move smarter.”
Cael’s instincts wanted directness.
Hunt.
Find.
Burn.
But he was not the hot-headed whelp he’d been when the sorcerer first drew a circle around him.
He had learned, painfully, the price of charging in without seeing all the angles.
“What does Isla say?” he asked, surprising himself with the question.
Tim’s mouth twitched.
“She’s currently lying to twelve rich people about the integrity of our loan program,” he said. “After that, she’ll be here. And I’m guessing she’ll have… thoughts.”
Cael rumbled.
“I do not need her *thoughts*,” he said. “I need my hoard.”
Tim’s eyes sharpened.
“You need both,” he said. “You just don’t like that fact.”
Cael stared at him.
He was so… human.
Fallible.
Soft.
And yet he stood there, between a dragon and the world, without flinching.
Cael had known kings who quaked more in his presence.
“You are very free with your opinions for a man whose lifespan I could measure in heartbeats,” he observed.
Tim’s mouth quirked.
“Yeah, well,” he said. “Occupational hazard.”
Cael studied him for a long moment.
“You remind me of someone,” he said finally.
Tim blinked. “Should I be flattered or worried?”
“Yes,” Cael said.
Tim snorted.
Footsteps sounded in the corridor outside.
Light, quick.
Isla’s.
Cael’s heart thumped, an involuntary answering beat.
Tim opened the door.
She slipped in, closing it behind her, leaving the overhead bulb off.
The dim light from the hall outlined her silhouette.
“Hi,” she said.
Her voice was tight.
She smelled like museum coffee and nerves.
Cael’s eyes adjusted quickly.
She looked tired.
There were faint shadows under her eyes, darker than last night.
He did not like it.
“What did the board say?” Tim asked.
“They’re… concerned,” she said. “Halpern is… disappointed. I hate that more. They think the Hammond break-in is a one-off. That Schmiedler’s name attracts weirdos. They ordered a full inventory of our medieval collection. Just in case.”
Tim winced.
“Inventory,” he said. “Of course.”
“We’re covered for now,” she went on. “Jay’s replicas passed the first sniff test. But once they start pulling things out of cases, looking closely…” She shook her head. “We bought ourselves maybe a week. Two, if the admin staff drags their feet.”
Cael’s jaw clenched.
“A week,” he said.
“Maybe less,” she said. “Depends on how fast they move.”
Silence stretched.
“Okay,” Tim said finally. “So we accelerate.”
“Accelerate *what,* exactly?” Isla demanded. “Our crime spree? Our dragon-assisted cross-town burglary tour?”
“Our plan,” Tim said. “Such as it is. Isla, you said yesterday we need to prioritize. Which pieces are most important? Most… anchoring?”
She looked at Cael.
His gaze locked on hers.
“The older,” he said, voice softer, “the better.”
Her mind flicked through the accession lists she’d been poring over.
“The crown,” she said slowly. “The one at the Hammond. Late thirteenth century. Gold, sapphires. The one they use in all their branding.”
Tim swore under his breath. “Of course it’s their centerpiece.”
“The crown is mine,” Cael said. “It sat on my head for two hundred years. It knows the shape of my thoughts.”
A weird flutter went through her at that image.
“Of course you had a crown,” she muttered.
He tilted his head. “You sound… unimpressed.”
“I’m not big on monarchies,” she said.
“Yet you worship dead kings in glass cases,” he pointed out.
“I *contextualize* dead kings in glass cases,” she shot back.
Tim stepped between them before the argument could spiral.
“Focus,” he said. “If the Hammond lost three of Cael’s pieces last night, there’s a good chance the crown is next on their mysterious thief’s list. Which means we have a small window before someone else makes a move.”
Isla swallowed.
“You want… *us* to get there first,” she said. “Before the board, before the cops, before whoever hit it last night comes back to finish the job.”
“Yeah,” Tim said. “Basically.”
She stared at him.
“I am a conservator,” she said. “Not an international jewel thief.”
“Yet,” Jay’s voice crackled over Tim’s radio.
“Jay,” Tim said warningly.
“Sorry, sorry,” Jay said. “Just monitoring. And, you know, spiraling.”
Cael’s lips curled.
“Your friend is right,” he said. “You are now an international jewel thief. Or you will be, if you wish to keep your city from burning.”
Isla squeezed her eyes shut.
Images rose unbidden: news reports of mysterious fires, people screaming, the museum a cracked shell.
“You can’t keep using that as leverage,” she said hoarsely. “You can’t just dangle… apocalypse… over my head every time you want something.”
He tilted his head.
“It is not leverage,” he said. “It is… fact.”
Tim’s jaw tightened.
“Maybe,” he said. “But threatening the people you’re asking for help? Bad strategy, man.”
Cael rolled his eyes.
“You sound like my sister,” he muttered.
“You have a sister?” Isla blurted.
He flinched.
The air around him chilled.
“Had,” he said shortly.
Guilt pricked at her.
“I’m sorry,” she said quietly.
He shrugged, the motion sharp. “She is dust.”
She wanted to ask.
About his kin.
About what it had been like, to be one of many instead of the last.
But there wasn’t time.
“There’s another problem,” she said instead. “Even if we wanted to… *borrow* the crown, it’s not just sitting in a case. The Hammond built an entire narrative around it. Security’s tight. Motion sensors. Cases designed to withstand earthquakes and idiots with hammers.”
“So we find another way,” Cael said.
“And what is *your* suggestion?” she asked. “Kick down the door? Glamour yourself as an exhibit and walk out with it?”
He considered.
“That last one has potential,” he said. “Explain ‘glamour.’”
She pinched the bridge of her nose.
“Magic,” Tim translated. “Illusions. Whatever you did to the cameras downstairs.”
Cael’s eyes gleamed.
“Those were not illusions,” he said. “That was… resonance. My waking disturbed your fragile little machines.”
“Semantics,” Tim said. “Point is, can you do that on purpose?”
Cael thought.
“I can… influence,” he said slowly. “Bend attention. Slip between what humans notice and what they do not. But I am… diminished. It would be easier if I could see the place. Taste it.”
“You can’t just stroll into the Hammond in broad daylight,” Isla said. “You’d set off every alarm they have. And also probably a few religious visions.”
“A private tour, then,” he said, turning to her. “You have… professional connections.”
Her stomach flipped.
“They know my face,” she said. “We’ve worked together on loans. If I show up right after a break-in and ask to see their most valuable piece, they’re going to be suspicious.”
“Unless you have a good reason,” Tim said.
She frowned. “Like what?”
“Like you’re doing a condition check on our loaned objects,” he said. “After the theft. Totally normal. Responsible, even.”
She stared.
“That’s… actually not bad,” she admitted. “We’d have to get Halpern on board. Officially request access. Set up an appointment.”
“And once you’re in,” Cael said, “you open a path.”
She gave him a look. “You are not teleporting into the Hammond through my pocket.”
He smiled, slow and sharp.
“You would be surprised what I can do with a doorway,” he said.
A shiver walked down her spine.
Tim cleared his throat again.
“I don’t love any version of this where we’re breaking into another institution,” he said. “But if we move fast, we can maybe… get ahead of whoever else is moving. And if we can get Cael closer to his hoard without leaving a trail of bodies, I’ll take that win.”
Isla’s mind ran through logistics.
Halpern.
The Hammond’s head of conservation.
Travel time.
Security.
Her calendar.
Her chest.
She pressed a hand there, as if she could physically push down the anxiety.
“Next right move,” she whispered.
“What?” Cael asked.
“Nothing,” she said quickly. “Okay. I’ll talk to Halpern. Say I’m concerned about our pieces. Which I *am.* Ask to go over, inspect, collaborate. It won’t seem weird. I’ve done cross-institution checks before.”
“And once you’re there,” Tim said, “you text us. We’ll figure out… the rest.”
“The rest,” she repeated faintly.
He gave her a wry smile.
“Hey,” he said. “You chose a career in dead things. No one told you about the live dragons.”
“Budget didn’t cover that unit,” she muttered.
Cael watched her.
There was something… different in his gaze.
Less mocking.
More… intent.
“You do not have to do this,” he said suddenly.
She blinked.
He scowled, as if the words annoyed him.
“I could find another way,” he went on. “Break in myself. Tear the place apart. Steal the crown in the chaos.”
“And get caught on a million cameras,” she said. “And start a panic. And confirm every ‘monster’ story humans have ever told.”
He shrugged.
“It would be… easier,” he said.
“Easier for you,” she said. “Not for everyone else.”
He held her gaze.
He looked… frustrated.
“At least one of us should not have ash on their hands,” he muttered.
Warmth pricked behind her eyes.
She blinked it back.
“You don’t get to decide that for me,” she said, voice steady. “You dragged me into this. I get to choose how deep I go.”
“And you choose ‘deep,’” he said.
She exhaled.
“Yes,” she said. “Apparently I’m that stupid.”
His mouth curved.
“You are… braver than most of your kind,” he said.
“Bravery and stupidity often share a bunk bed,” Jay’s voice crackled over the radio.
Isla huffed a small laugh despite herself.
“All right,” she said. “Let me see what I can do with Halpern. You”—she jabbed a finger at Cael—“stay put. No burning. No wandering. No… dream-invading without permission.”
His lips twitched.
“Consent,” he said.
“Exactly,” she said.
He inclined his head.
“As you wish,” he murmured.
The phrase hit some deep, well-worn groove in her brain labeled *Princess Bride* and *proposals disguised as jokes.* Heat rushed to her face.
She turned away too quickly and nearly walked into the door.
“Smooth, Reyes,” Tim said under his breath.
“Shut up,” she hissed.
She fled into the corridor before either of them could see the way her hands shook.
Behind her, in the dim coal room, Cael watched the door close.
He tightened his grip on the sword at his side.
“Consent,” he repeated to himself, tasting the word like a new metal.
The old ways, the old bindings, the old notions of what it meant to claim and be claimed, shifted imperceptibly in his mind.
Just a little.
Just enough to make room.
***
End of Chapter Five.
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