“What else indeed.” Jordan took one of the brochures from the little lion-footed table at the beginning of the display as Fisher retreated into her screen. She admired once again the cohesion of Boudicca’s graphic design (black background, white painted cross on each page, cleanly numbered sweetmetals, sold pieces blacked out with a Sharpie), matching the sweetmetal with the listing as she walked down the aisle. It didn’t take her long to realize they must be listed in general order of value or power, weakest to strongest.

24. Landscape, with Sheep by Augustus W. Fleming. It was a very good painting. The way the light played across the fields made the viewer feel the painter must have loved those fields very much. It was also enormous—ten feet long—and didn’t give Jordan much of a buzz, which was probably why it was considered the least valuable piece here. No one was going to commute to work with Landscape, with Sheep tucked under their arm.

23. Self-Portrait by Melissa C. Lang. According to the brochure, Lang’s portrait had been done with cosmetics directly onto an antique mirror with half its frame artistically ripped off. Jordan could feel its effect a little more than the landscape, but it was both very fragile and very ugly.

13–22. Ten vintage matching silver spoons with handles shaped like swans. Presumably there had once been an entire set of them, and together they must have been quite potent. The brochure informed Jordan that together they now had enough energy to raise a single dozing dependent or individually lend some strength to another weakening sweetmetal. These things didn’t last forever, after all.

12. The Duchess Urn. The brochure listed two—one from either side of the entrance to a Yorkshire estate. When Jordan asked Fisher what had happened to the other one, she was told it had been stolen by a woman in London and then been recovered ten miles away from London. Both the urn and woman had been broken during the chase.

11. The Damned Prince by A. Block. This abstract painting was both powerful and handsome, the brochure murmured, suitable for hanging in either a bachelor’s bedchamber or in your front hallway, depending upon who the owner wanted to keep wakeful. Jordan had told herself she would not fret over whether Declan Lynch had gotten her postcard or whether he was going to do something about it, but she was annoyed to find herself imagining what his reaction would have been to this painting, which was much like those he’d kept in the secret art space at his townhome.