Mister Impossible, Maggie Stiefvater [uplifting novels txt] 📗

less aggravating. Declan said, “Because you’re two different people. I’m not going to copy-paste a conversation.”

“You just think I’m stupider than her,” Matthew said. “You save all the smart things to talk about with her and then just point out people walking dogs to me.”

“Do you or don’t you like it when I point out dogs?” Declan asked.

Matthew groused. “I don’t only like when you point out dogs. I want to know what you’re doing. What you’re, like, you know, thinking.”

“Fine,” Declan said. “I was wondering if these paintings are sweetmetals. If that’s why they were stolen.”

The green-wallpapered Dutch Room in the Gardner was notable for many things, including a Rembrandt self-portrait, a few Rubens, and some very excellent historical furniture, but it was now probably most famous for the things that weren’t there.

One cold March several decades before, two thieves dressed as policemen had stolen thirteen works, including a Rembrandt and a Vermeer. It remained the largest unsolved art heist in history. Any crime of that size would have been notable, but the loss was felt even more acutely because the Gardner museum was both small and unusual, unable to rebound in the way any other museum might have. Isabella Stewart Gardner had overseen every inch of the intimate museum’s creation. She’d acquired and placed every piece, micromanaged down to the building and tearing down of walls and other architectural features, and one of the requirements in her will was that nothing in the museum be changed after her death. Even widening one of the doorways a few inches for accessibility had required petitions and paperwork. This mandate meant that the museum couldn’t acquire new works or rearrange old ones to take the place of the stolen works. Instead, the empty frames had been hung back up where the pieces had been. In essence, the loss itself was now displayed—and what more universal piece of art could there be?

“Sweetmetals, why? Because they were weird choices? The stolen stuff, I mean?” Matthew asked, which, again, displayed slightly more focus than Declan had come to expect from his brother. He’d been paying attention on their many visits.

“Because they were weird, yes. Because there were more expensive pieces hanging just feet away and they left them. Because they took that bronze finial, of all things.”

“The bird thing,” said Matthew.

“Yes,” Declan echoed drily. This was more of what he expected from his brother. “The bird thing.”

For decades experts had been trying to understand why the thieves had taken the pieces they had, and why they had treated them the way they did. They’d hacked valuable canvases right out of the frame. They’d pocketed disparate works on paper. They’d taken the Shang dynasty bronze beaker that had been on the table in front of the Rembrandt they also stole. And of course, as Matthew noted, the bird thing—they had stolen a bronze eagle finial off the end of a random flagpole. Was it personal? Experts wondered. A random grab? What did these works have in common?

“I was thinking if they were sweetmetals, the randomness would make sense,” Declan said. “Or at least as much sense as any other explanation. It wouldn’t have been about traditional value or artistic merit. Just energy.”

“But why didn’t they take the dancing lady, then?”

“El Jaleo.”

“That’s what I said. Dancing lady with her arm on backward.”

Declan resented the somewhat accurate description of the painting but let it pass. “I don’t know. Maybe they ran out of time. Maybe it was too big. Maybe they had been told not to.”

“By who?”

“Powerful people are interested in these things,” Declan said. “Powerful people control a lot of them. It’s why we’re working very carefully.”

“Wouldn’t that mean if Jordan made one, she’d be powerful people?” Matthew asked.

Declan looked sharply at his brother. “Yes, I guess it does.” But what he didn’t say out loud was that unguarded power was actually weakness. If you had something someone else wanted and no way to stop them from taking it, you were vulnerable to exploitation. Jordan and her sweetmetal. Ronan and his dreams. It was why the spiderweb was so important, though he wasn’t about to get into that with Matthew. The web was to protect him, not involve him.

Jordan appeared in the narrow doorway then, and as she joined them, Matthew said, “Was that so hard? We had a conversation. It wasn’t just copy pasta.”

“What’s the conversation?” Jordan asked. “Was it a good one? Was it about me? That would be a good one.”

“These guys,” Matthew said. He pointed at an empty frame.

Putting her hands on her hips, she studied it as intently as she would if there had still been a painting in it. “Do you reckon these were sweetmetals? Is that what we’re thinking?”

Matthew leapt gratefully into the conversation as Declan looked at the two of them. He felt so content in that moment, watching the two of them lightly bat around theories, that it turned right back around into uncertainty. He liked this life so well. He liked the people in it so much. It felt as if the other shoe must drop eventually.

“By the way, you’ll never guess who I had a lovely wake-up call from,” Jordan told Declan. “Our good friend Boudicca came in on the tails of my nudey landlord to let me know that their sweetmetals are going fast and they’re waiting to hear from me … and also had I ever thought about getting together a portfolio for a gallery?”

“Bribery is new. What did you tell them?”

“I appreciated their diligence and I was still having a bit of a think if I even really needed one these days. Would they let me know when the last one was on the line?”

This was perhaps what Declan liked the best about all of this, about Jordan Hennessy: She could handle herself. He’d never had anyone in his life who didn’t need him to manage, guard, chastise, protect. He’d never had an equal—he’d never even known he wanted an equal, and