Rune
FOUR
The smell of old paper and preservation chemicals had always steadied him.
Then Lark Coleman opened her store, and the anchor started dragging.
It had been five days since the grand opening.
Five days since she’d called him Your Majesty and smiled the smile that short-circuited his prefrontal cortex.
Five days of her music thumping through the shared wall like a heartbeat he couldn’t regulate, her laughter carrying through plaster at unpredictable intervals and detonating inside his chest.
Five days, and his hair had not cooperated once.
“Mr. Sterling.” Gerald Fontaine, a seventy-three-year-old Silver Age collector who’d been purchasing from Sterling his temple had been profaned.
The door closed. Rune stood motionless behind the counter. The R his peripheral awareness simply registered the duration).
Emerged carrying a small purple bag and crossed the three feet of sidewalk to Sterling & Mane’s entrance.
The bell chimed. The kid stepped in, eyes wide, adjusting to the shift from neon chaos to gallery silence how a diver adjusts to pressure changes.
“Whoa.” He turned in a slow circle. “This is like… the opposite.”
“Welcome to Sterling & Mane.” Rune stepped forward. “Can I help you find an edition?”
“I’m looking for anything Joker. Old stuff. Like, vintage.”
Rune guided him to the DC section. Pulled a graded 1975 Joker print—not a first edition, but a strong example, appropriate for a young collector building a foundation.
The kid handled it with bare hands. Rune’s eye twitched.
He produced a pair of cotton display gloves from his jacket pocket and offered them without comment.
“Dude.” The kid held up the print, gloved now, angling it under the gallery light. “This is incredible. How much?”
Rune named the price. The kid winced, did internal math, and pulled out a debit card. A collector’s instinct overriding a teenager’s budget. Rune respected it.
As he wrapped the print in acid-free tissue, the kid set his Villainette bag on the counter. The purple bag gaped open. Inside: a villain-themed eyeliner in a shade called Unhinged and a Celestial Ronin sticker pack.
Villain-themed eyeliner. From the store next door. On his counter. Next to a graded 1975 print that deserved better proximity.
“The store next door is sick,” the kid said, oblivious. “The lady in there recommended your store for vintage stuff. She said you have the best Joker archive on the East Coast.”
Rune’s hands paused on the tissue paper.
She said you have the best Joker archive on the East Coast.
He absorbed this. Did not examine the heat that spread through his chest at the knowledge that Lark Coleman was sending customers his direction and describing his archive as the best on the East Coast.
“She has good judgment,” he said, and handed the kid his wrapped print.
Dekel, who had been shelving inventory four feet away and heard every word, said nothing. His silence was louder than any commentary.
The kid left. Rune stared at the door. Through the glass gap, he caught a sliver of movement inside Villainette—dark hair swinging as she crossed her store floor, a flash of gold at her ear, the confident stride he’d cataloged in ninety seconds and replayed at involuntary intervals since.
“She recommended us,” Dekel said. Casual. Too casual. A verbal grenade with the pin loosely replaced.
“She recommended our Joker archive. It’s an accurate assessment. We do have the strongest Joker holdings on the East Coast.”
“She figured that out before you did,” Dekel said, and shelved the volume.
Rune opened his mouth. Closed it. Straightened a stack of authentication brochures that was already straight.
Gerald Fontaine returned half an hour before closing.
Rune was in the back office reviewing third-quarter consignment reports when the bell chimed. He didn’t look up. Dekel was on the floor. Then Dekel appeared in the office doorway with an expression Rune hadn’t seen before—amusement drained out, replaced by a flat alertness.
“Gerald’s back.”
“Does he need another edition?”
“No.” Dekel tilted his head toward the shared wall. “He went next door.”
Rune stood.
Through the glass, the sliver of visibility showed Gerald Fontaine in the middle of the store, overcoat buttoned to the throat, reading glasses perched, delivering a verdict from a bench he’d appointed himself to.
Rune moved to the gap. Dekel followed.