Page 73 of Nobody Told Me Thrift Shops Sell Stolen Dragon Heirlooms

Ms. Sorel looked at me once over the rim of her champagne glass, and there was a trace of apology in her face. Or maybe it was calculation. Perhaps both.

“Mr. Virelli,” she said at last, when a guest on her other side began speaking to the trustee, “do send my assistant a note. Truly. I’m happy to have Elaine find time for us to discuss your concerns properly.”

“My concerns have already been sent to Elaine.”

“Yes, and she is very good. She’ll get you sorted.” Her attention shifted to someone approaching with an eager smile and a hand already extended. “Forgive me. I’ve been trying to speak to the lieutenant governor all evening.”

And then she was gone, drawn two steps away and immediately surrounded again.

I stood there a moment too long, my hand empty at my side, the failure clean and public enough to taste.

I turned back toward Quinn.

She was still where I’d left her. She’d been watching the exchange closely, reading the room from across it. Max sat beside her, plum tie centered, gaze moving between me and the crowd as if he too had assessed the mission and found the approach lacking.

Quinn’s expression changed when she saw my face.

Not pity. Good. I could not have endured pity.

Understanding, perhaps.

That was worse in a different way.

I made my way back through the room, every polite nod costing more than it should’ve. The ballroom had felt briefly interesting through Quinn’s eyes: the photographs, the staff, the small human mechanics beneath all the ceremony. Now the familiar weight of it returned. The people who had never needed to argue that they belonged because the room had been built around their arrival.

By the time I reached her, my mood had cooled into something hard and useless.

“Well?” she asked.

“She told me to message her assistant.”

Quinn glanced toward Ms. Sorel’s cluster. “Your legal team already messaged her assistant.”

“Yes.”

“That is impressively circular.”

“It is evasive. She’s not going to give me time tonight.”

Quinn’s gaze stayed on the crowd. “Not that way, no.”

I heard the qualifier and looked at her. “Quinn.”

She turned back to me, all innocence. Too much innocence.

“I can fly across the city in minutes,” I said quietly. “I can track legal ownership through two centuries of incomplete records. I can place a claim in front of every person responsible for that sword, and still, none of it matters if a woman in an expensive gown decides the conversation is inconvenient.”

Quinn didn’t answer right away. Then she said, “It matters.”

I looked at her.

“It matters,” she repeated. “It just didn’t work yet.”

Max leaned against her leg.

Quinn looked down at him, then back at me, her mouth tipping into the smallest smile. “Will you trust me for ten minutes?”

“No.”