Page 26 of Nobody Told Me Thrift Shops Sell Stolen Dragon Heirlooms

To me, though, it looked as if it had lived and had its own stories to tell.

“Oh,” I said softly.

Max got up and came over, front paws braced lightly against the couch cushion so he could inspect my prize with me.

“I know,” I whispered. “Very us.”

It was old and a little battered, not polished at all, but somehow, it was still beautiful.

I lifted the chain from the velvet and held it up to the light. The pendant swung gently, catching gold from the lamp in the softer places that hadn’t been scorched. There were cleaner, more expensive pieces of jewelry in the world. Thousands within a twenty-block radius, probably being stored in little suede drawers by women with better bathroom lighting and less student debt.

But this seemed like a one-of-a-kind find.

It also, for some inexplicable reason, felt like mine almost immediately, which I fully recognized as irrational. I gathered my hair over one shoulder and fastened the chain around my neck.

The coin was cool against my skin, a small, unexpected weight just below my collarbone.

I looked toward the dark window over the sink, where I could make out my reflection if I tilted just right.

Oh, it was really lovely, and so striking. But then, antiques usually were striking.

Max let out a low, pleased grumble and climbed onto the couch beside me without requesting clearance, which was a little rude.

I put a hand over the pendant. “Do you approve?”

He nudged the coin with his nose, then my throat.

I smiled. “That’s what I thought.”

He leaned harder into me, seventy pounds of retired military devotion. I wrapped an arm around his neck, scratching behind his left ear until his eyes glazed over.

“Look at us,” I said. “Matching again. You’ve got your collar, I’ve got mine. Very chic. Very codependent.”

His tail hit the couch cushion twice.

I kissed the top of his head, getting a whiff of dog shampoo and salmon treats.

“Thank you for finding it, and for being so diplomatic at the hot dog cart.”

I sat there with him, fingers resting lightly on the coin, and let the day unspool in reverse.

My life wasn’t easy or especially graceful. And tomorrow I would go back to the firm and fetch coffee for people who made more in a week than my parents had made in some years. I would smile like it was all part of a bright, upwardly mobile plan.

Some of it was, but mostly it was just endurance with lip gloss.

But days like this, these little pockets of beauty, made the grind feel less like the whole story.

5

RAFE

MARRY ME, WRITTEN IN SMOKE

The highest point of the manor had always looked, to outsiders, like a helipad.

That was how journalists described it in the occasional profile piece, and how guests described it after their third glass of wine, lowering their voices as though the family fortune might be listening from inside the stone. They saw it as a practical landing point for helicopters, just another vulgar convenience for people with more money than tact.

They were wrong. At least partially.