The tunnel narrowed until it became a fissure barely wide enough to force them sideways through it. A thread of underground water ran at their feet—icy, black—catching the tremor of the lantern Sammy carried at the front. Strangely, she felt safer with Mr. Nightingale at her back than she did with several of the pirates aboard the Garnor, whose loyalty she doubted because of their closeness to Trumper.

  “Doesn’t it strike you as a contradiction,” Pete murmured, “to find these cold torrents in a place where the weather is a proper furnace?”

  “Not a furnace,” Sammy said. “A hell. And I swear we’re walking through one of Dante’s circles.”

  They pressed on through the passage, where at times the ceiling dipped so low they had to go hunched, shoulders scraping stone.

  “Does this ever end…?” Sammy whispered without turning.

  “Everything in this life ends,” Pete replied.

  They went like that for several minutes that felt like an eternity until, suddenly, the floor gave way. Sammy dropped hard, plunging into dark water. Panic flooded her for an instant—but Pete’s strong hands caught her by the arms and hauled her up at once. By some miracle, the lantern didn’t go out.

  Sammy coughed, shivering from the shock.

  “Th-thank you, Mr. Pete… I didn’t see it coming…”

  “Don’t worry. It could’ve happened to either of us,” he said, helping her to her feet before lifting the light around them. “I think we’ve reached the cistern.”

  The cistern had been cut straight into the rock, and at one end a set of steps climbed toward a passage where a faint line of light seeped through—the moon’s reflection in the night sky.

  Pete snuffed the lantern.

  “From here on… absolute silence.”

  They moved with care to the steps and began to climb, one by one. Pete went first. Sammy followed close behind, fingers numb with damp.

  When they edged up to the opening of the cistern, both of them held their breath.

  They were inside the cliff temple.

  They slipped out into a courtyard bordered by a low building of pale stone—arches and columns eaten by salt and wind. They glided along a corridor that opened onto a second, wider patio ringed by an old colonnade. There they crouched, motionless, taking care not to make the slightest sound. Only the sea could be heard, pounding at the base of the cliff.

  Pete signaled, and they began to slide down the passage. They entered a chamber that connected to other rooms and, at last, reached a storage room stacked with crates and barrels. They hid behind them while Pete cocked his head, listening.

  A moment later they caught the murmur of voices.

  Pete signaled again. Sammy’s heart hammered.

  They tiptoed across the hall and peered out onto the terrace where the battery stood: two cannons watched the mouth of the estuary. Beside them were the pirate gunners—prisoners—under the attentive gaze of two Spanish soldiers with muskets.

  The guards talked without much attention, confident in the captives’ apparent docility.

  Pete pointed.

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  “Worthy, stay here. I’ll circle and hit them from the other side. We’ll take them by surprise.”

  Sammy nodded.

  Pete melted into the wall’s shadows. Sammy felt her pulse thud in her temples. She moved to the opposite end without losing sight of him.

  “For Cody,” she repeated to herself.

  Pete lifted his hand. When he closed his fist, they struck.

  They burst from cover—and even so, the Spaniards, hardened by war, reacted fast. They fought back with muskets, swinging buttstocks and jabbing with bayonets. The pirate gunners froze, not knowing what to do.

  Pete neutralized his man quickly, but the soldier facing Sammy resisted harder and, with a clean blow, sent her sprawling. Using the moment, the Spaniard bolted to raise the alarm.

  “Keep the gunners in check!” Pete shouted. “I’m going after him.”

  He launched himself like a predator after prey.

  Sammy forced herself up, aiming her weapon at the two pirates, who immediately raised their hands.

  “Easy, lass… we’re victims here,” one of the gunners said with weary disdain.

  “We’ll see,” Sammy replied. “You—tie up the Spaniard. And you—don’t move.”

  One of the pirates went to the unconscious soldier and began to bind him.

  Then a shot thundered.

  Sammy went pale.

  “Lad, pray to Saint George it wasn’t the Spaniard who fired,” one of the gunners remarked with nervous irony.

  Without lowering her weapon, Sammy leaned toward the inner corridor. A second later Pete appeared.

  “He put up a fight,” he said, flicking blood from his knife.

  “So… there’s no danger?”

  “You can sing if you like,” he said with a tight smile. “Now. Fire the flare. The others should be waiting in the jungle.”

  Sammy fumbled for the blunderbuss in her bandolier and tried to load it—only to find the powder soaked through.

  “We’ve got a problem…”

  “Where’s there dry powder?” Pete asked.

  One of the pirates nudged a barrel with his boot.

  “As much as you want,” he said.

  “But that won’t help us signal,” Pete snapped. “We need the jungle team to see it—and the Garnor’s crew too, so they can enter the estuary… Mr. Kwame might already be inside preparing the internal uprising, but without a signal… none of it happens.”

  The two pirates exchanged a look, but neither volunteered a word.

  Sammy swallowed.

  “What choice do we have?”

  “The powder you need is in a room farther in,” one of the pirates said. “How’d you come up?”

  “Through the cistern.”

  Both pirates looked at each other again.

  “Go back the way you came—as if you’re headed for the cistern,” the first one said. “Don’t take the colonnade passage. Turn into a corridor. You’ll pass a room you’ll recognize by the smell.”

  “It’s the patrol’s shitter,” the other pirate added.

  “Thank you for the clarification, Roy,” the first pirate said with dry sarcasm, then turned back to Sammy. “As I was saying… where was I?”

  “We were at the shitter,” Sammy said.

  “Right. From there, keep going. It’ll lead you to a storeroom where we kept provisions. There’s powder there you can use to launch flares they’ll see all the way to London.”

  Sammy looked to Pete. He met her gaze and nodded.

  “Everything’s under control,” he said with a faint smile. “Take the lantern.”

  Sammy ran into the dark corridors, lighting her way as she crossed ancient chambers whose frescoed figures seemed to watch her flight.

  At last, a strong stench of urine and filth reached her. Good. She stepped into the room—and recoiled at the sight: the pirates had turned what might once have been sacred to the ancient Maya into a vulgar latrine.

  She meant to hurry through, but as the lantern’s glow swept across a wall, the painted fresco stopped her cold.

  A procession moved there: warriors, caciques, nobles, commoners bearing offerings. But what struck her was the king-priest, dressed in a feathered headdress and ceremonial robes, his right hand raised—three fingers extended.

  “The ghost,” she breathed, remembering the specter on the deck.

  Then her eyes fell on the figure facing the cacique: a man in a vivid tunic and cloak, wearing a helm and holding a sword—dressed in a way that didn’t belong to the time or the place. Around him, three symbols formed a triangle.

  Uneasy, Sammy stepped closer. On instinct she pulled the journal from her pack—the one she’d somehow kept safe from the water—and began to flip through until she found a page with those same signs.

  There it was: three outlines that could have been islands, surrounded by indecipherable notes—yet the characters looked eerily like the ones painted on the wall.

  Sammy leaned in, breath caught. She lifted her eyes and whispered, quoting The Legend of the Uncharted Island:

  “And then… just as the map had foretold, three islands rose on the horizon…”

  “From one of them they would recover an artifact that would mark the exact point to find the island that appeared on no chart…”

  She slipped the journal back into her pack without taking her eyes off the mural. Slowly, she reached out and touched the paint, mesmerized.

  That was when she heard a faint sound.

  She turned—but she didn’t have time to react. A brutal blow flung her to the ground and dropped her into darkness.