Page 83 of Nobody Told Me Thrift Shops Sell Stolen Dragon Heirlooms

Good.

“I’m not the lead attorney,” I said. “I don’t want to overstate details or make promises Mr. Virelli hasn’t authorized. But I do know the family has provenance records, oral history, and a documented line of inheritance. I also know they tried to contact the museum through formal channels before tonight.”

“Formal channels exist for a reason,” Dr. Sorel said.

“They do,” I agreed. “But sometimes they hamper fairness.”

Miriam’s thumb moved over the back of her wife’s hand.

Dr. Sorel glanced at her, then back to me. “You’re suggesting my process is unfair?”

“I’m suggesting your process may be treating the sword as an object first and a family wound second.”

Rafe peered at me as if I’d placed my hand on his chest again, only worse, because this time I’d touched something he’d kept under armor for years.

Dr. Sorel’s face had gone still, but not cold. The distinction mattered.

“The museum cannot simply hand over an artifact because a claimant speaks movingly about loss,” she said.

“Agreed.”

Rafe shifted. “The claim is not only emotional.”

“He has legal standing, or we wouldn’t be here. But if we start with the legal standing, everyone gets trapped in their own defensive positions, and we forget we can work together toward resolution.”

Dr. Sorel’s mouth tightened, but not with displeasure. “And what do you propose instead?”

I took a breath.

This was the moment that decided whether a door opened another inch or shut with your fingers still in it.

“A structured return,” I said. “Or at least a discussion of one. The sword returns to the Virelli family as owner of record, but the museum can retain access through a temporary loan for the current exhibit period, with revised language on the display plaque acknowledging his family’s claim and the circumstances under which the sword was separated from them. After that, you discuss replicas, rotating loans, high-resolution imaging, educational partnership… whatever makes sense once the ownership issue has been settled.”

Rafe was very still beside me. I hoped that meant he didn’t object.

Dr. Sorel looked at him. “Is that acceptable to you?”

His jaw worked once before he answered. “The sword belongs with my family.”

“I understand.”

“No,” he said, not harshly, but with enough force that the air changed. “You understand that I want it. That’s not the same.”

My stomach dipped. Miriam’s expression softened, but Dr. Sorel didn’t retreat. If anything, she looked more present.

Rafe looked past her for a moment, toward the photographs on the wall. His voice lowered. “My great-grandparents fled a war that nearly erased our species. They arrived here with less than they should’ve had and more grief than they could explain to a child born after the escape. My grandfather knew pieces. My mother knew those pieces as well, before the Fog began taking the order of things from her.” He stopped, and his fingers flexed once at his side. “I am trying to put pieces back before no living person remembers where they were meant to go.”

I was certain it was far more than he’d planned to say, because I doubted Rafe would ever spill his heart in a hotel alcove because four people and a dog were looking at him.

The museum polish eased out of Dr. Sorel’s expression. Her eyes moved to Rafe’s tense hand, then back to his face, and for the first time it looked like she understood this was not just a collector asking for a prize.

I looked at Rafe. There was pain in his expression, but also surprise, as if he hadn’t expected to say it either.

I wanted, stupidly and fiercely, to stand closer to him.

Instead, I did my job.

“You’ve preserved the object,” I said. “No one is dismissing that. But preservation without context can become another kind of loss. His family is part of that context, and right now they’re the only part not being protected.”