Page 11 of How to Steal a Galaxy

We could be anyone; we’re just two people in a museum.

“Imagine what?”

“This man was born three thousand years before any human ever left Earth’s gravity, and now his organs are on an entirely different planet.”

Rian’s eyes skim over the gilded shrine, the alabaster chest. The chest is carved with four openings at the top, one each for Tutankhamun’s lungs, liver, intestines, and stomach. The number beside the chest blinks out, then goes up as a new high bid is placed. I could sell my own organs and still not be able to afford his.

“Ada, I—” he starts, but when I turn to him, his lips press closed. He watches me a moment, and I want to ask. I want to know.What do you see?

But it’s not fun if he just tells me.

Rian turns back to the canopic shrine.

“No, it wouldn’t fit in my purse,” I say. The gilded wooden box is almost as tall as he is, and combined with the alabaster chest, I doubt I could even pick it up. “If I was going to steal this, it would require some planning.”

I gaze about the room, noting the angles and positioning of the display, the way the cam drones hover nearby, the crowd. I bet the recessed edges at the doorframe hide a lockdown gate triggered if someone does so much as nudge the heavy chest.

I shake my head. “No, I don’t think I could steal this from here.”

Rian’s eyes go wide. “Ada Lamarr, giving up?”

I snort. “No, not at all. If I wanted this? I would take it.”

“But you just said—”

“Not from here. I’d talkyouinto buying it, and then I’d steal it from you.” It’s the best plan. If you can’t take an object from one location, you just have to get the object moved somewhere else andthentake it.

“Maybe I have better security than the museum.”

I laugh. “Is this a theory you want to test?”

Rian moves closer to inspect the current high bid. A weird noise croaks out of his throat. “Well, it’s moot anyway. My blood’s not rich enough for this auction.”

I shrug. “Then I just have to talk someone rich into buying it and then steal it from them.” There are, after all, plenty of people mingling in the crowd who are the exact combination of rich and idiotic for a plan like that to work. Although, to be fair,richandidioticis a shockingly common combination in people. Inherited wealth is a hell of a stupefier.

Rian huffs a little laugh. Nearby, two people point out the carvings on the chest, the goddesses etched in stone and gilded wood, arms upraised. I’m reminded of the gala’s motto.

History as art.

There’s art here, yes. Undeniable.

I swallow hard, my throat dry. Just because art exists, should it be seen? I can almost hear a reply, a voice in my mind with a Rigel-Earth accent:Of course. Art exists to be experienced.And I don’t approve of gatekeeping. For all my goals today, I actually quite like museums.

But not all art is for all people. And this art? It was meant for the dead. I inhale, exhale.

“You’re angry,” Rian says softly, watching me.

My heart leaps in response, further proof that I should not appreciate the art in front of me, the art not made for warm blood, attached organs.

“Furious.” My tone is light, my rage as soft as breath.

He doesn’t ask why, but I know the question sits on his tongue. Rather than give him a direct answer, I go to the wall, away from the canopic shrine and chest. “Did you know,” I say, pointing to the display, “that people in Victorian England had unwrapping parties?”

“Unwrapping?” Rian starts, and then he sees the little informative graphic on the wall, showing an illustration of white men in stiff collars and women in swaths of taffeta standing around a table upon which lies a mummy.

“Some of them would eat pieces of the corpse,” I continue. “They thought it was medicinal.”

Rian’s expression goes slack, but it’s not enough. Because even in the image on display, the people dressed in gowns and tuxedos are portrayed as civilized. After all, the cutlery is placed precisely, napkins arranged just so.

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