I hadn’t planned to stay long because stacks of briefs were calling, but one of the new arrivals was a wonder. There, in the center of the center work table, sat a three-foot-long recreation of the Egyptian sphinx. Only this one was covered in stylized scales that looked like real gold, had huge sapphires for eyes, and wasn’t missing its nose.
“Is that real gold?”
“Aye,” Maggie said. “The good stuff. No’ that droch mix o’ cheap metals modern humans try to pass off as gold.”
“Hmmm. I’m no connoisseur, but there’s no question that it looks different. It’s so…”
“Pretty. Is it no’?’
“Oh, yes. It certainly is. For one thing the color is more coppery, less yellow.” I was thinking that I could almost understand why wars had been fought over the stuff. It was beautiful enough to mesmerize. “And it’s a magical artifact?”
“Aye.”
“How old?”
“Old.”
“So, was the sphinx at Giza a copy of this or the other way around?”
Maggie looked amused. “’Tis the big one in the desert that’s the copy.”
“So, what does it do?”
“Do?” Maggie sounded confused.
In a rare vocal moment, Dolan treated us to a rush of words. “She means does it get up and dance or grant wishes or guard against hauntings or such.”
Maggie and I both stared at Dolan for a few beats.
Finally, Maggie looked at me and said, “Is that what you meant?”
It was a fairly good description of what I meant, but it sounded so stupid I was reluctant to own up to it.
“Well…”
“The thing about magical artifacts,” Dolan interrupted, “is that it’s nigh to impossible to know what they’ll do, if anything, until they do it. They don’t come with an instruction manual.”
That was flawlessly sensical.
“Of course. I will withdraw that question and pose another. That being the case, how do we know that a new piece doesn’t have something unwanted attached?”
“Like doom?” Maggie asked cheerfully.
“Um. Well. I was hoping for something less catastrophic. Is doom a possibility?”
Dolan looked at Maggie. “She’s been here for months and is just now wondering that.”
“That’s true, Dolan,” I said. “What is also true is that you didn’t answer my question. And that you’re talking about me like I’m not here.”
“Well,” Maggie began, “though ‘tis true that we’ll usually no’ be knowin’ the nature of a thing till it decides to reveal itself, ‘tis also true that we’ve been keepin’ the shop and acceptin’ deliveries for a good, long while. The fact that we’re still here is a ripe good indication that the sender of antiquities has no malice in mind. Ye might say we’ve established a…”
“Track record?”
“Aye. Track record. But o’ course ye ne’er know. Every new day is a…”
“Leap of trust,” Dolan said.
My gaze jerked to his. “Trust in the totally anonymous, totally mysterious person or persons who sends us things to sell without expecting anything in return?”
“Just so,” Maggie said with a satisfaction indicating she believed the matter was neatly sewn up and tied with a bow.
“Right. Why would we question that?”
I had to place Maggie’s cavalier perspective within the context of a person who was perhaps immortal and, at the very least, hard to kill.
Then she went on, “But ‘tis no’ entirely accurate to say a thing ne’er arrives with an instruction manual. A few times there have been notes attached. Brief and cryptic, they are, but suggestin’ caution when needed.”
“I just realized that our customers enter into this Russian Roulette game with us, don’t they? When a piece such as this is acquired, they take it home not knowing its nature, what it’s capable of, or what might be the trigger to set off who-knows-what.”
“Exactly right! Part of the fun of it, I suppose,” Maggie said brightly. “It’s our day for lunch at your house. What are we havin’?”
Dolan had lost interest in the conversation and gone back to work.
“I didn’t ask,” I said absently while doing a mental inventory of items I’d taken home. “Do I have any of the magical pieces in my house? The ones that we trust are not ticking time bombs, but might still go boom?”
“Just the love god statue.”
“Eros.”
“That’s the one.”
“And we have no idea what it might, um, do.”
“We have no reason to think ‘twill do anythin’. Unless that might be to bring you happiness.” She leaned in conspiratorially. “In a romancin’ kind of way I mean.”
Ignoring that, I said, “What about the hobknobbit? It didn’t come with a warning.”
“No. It did no’,” Maggie looked more serious. “But our conclusion, our sense of the thing, was that it did no’ originate with our primary source.”
“Someone slipped it in and made it seem like it was a normal shipment from your regular mysterious and anonymous source.”
“Aye. The hobknobbit was a goat tryin’ to pass itself off as a sheep.”
“Are you saying goats are bad? Sheep are good?”
I heard Dolan laugh out loud all the way from the workroom and wondered if his ears were good enough to have heard what was just said.
“Noooo.” Maggie drew out the word like she was exercising patience with a child. “I’m sayin’ the item was different. We do no’ have enough reason to pronounce the thing evil. Just a niggle of a suspicion. The fact that ‘twas buried under a mountain of salt in the vampire’s basement was just a precautionary measure.”
“Right.” I inhaled deeply, deciding that I’d spent enough time in the shop. “I’ll leave you to it and go back to reviewing cases for the Solstice Court.”
“Oh, sure. How’s that goin’?”
“It seems far less bizarre than the first time. Maybe the fantastic is becoming my normal.”
“There you have it then.” Her eyes lit up. “Any interestin’ cases you’d be wantin’ to share?”
I laughed. “Maggie. It wouldn’t be in keeping with my office to discuss the cases ahead of court. And you know it.”
“Aye. But you can no’ blame a lass for tryin’.”
I stopped by Esme’s just to say hello. As usual she acted like she wasn’t excited to see me, but I knew it was pretense. She loved my visits, no matter how brief.
“Esme. Do you know something about how the Hallows gets its inventory?”
“I know some… thing,” she said cautiously.
“What I want to know is, do we have any reason to be worried about artifact deliveries?”
She looked curious, which was noteworthy, because any display of emotion was unusual for Esmerelda.
“Why do you ask?”
“Because it occurred to me this morning that our wares don’t arrive with a certificate of authenticity or a history of any kind. We really don’t know anything about them. Not what they are, where they came from, line of ownership, or how they might affect the owner or their surroundings.”