Bash stood, but I quickly grabbed his arm and yanked him back down.
“Seas, Bash, she didn’t say she was going to kill me.” I snapped.
Tension coiled throughout his muscles, but he let me wrap my arm through his. I knew it wouldn’t hold him, but I was grateful for the contact.
Morwenna leaned back, heaving out a great sigh.
“Only one chosen by the sea stands even a chance of retrieving the Abyssal Conch,” she eyed Dilly, who was practically salivating. “It is all that is left of the knowledge Atlantis once coveted. To hold it is to know. Its whispers will answer any question that the holder wishes to know, but should one listen too long, they will find madness in the wake of that knowledge.”
“Incredible,” Dilly whispered.
I was half certain Dilly would have listened until madness claimed her, and just like that, I understood why Morwenna was wary of those who wished to simply know.
“My kidnapper believed that knowledge was the greatest power, and he passed that belief down to our son. He will not know peace until he knows all, and I fear what he will do with that knowledge. He will bend this world to his will. He craves power just as much as knowledge.”
“Does he know where your sea-skin is?” I asked.
Morwenna pressed two fingers to her lips and closed her eyes.
“That cursed binding in your bag once held that knowledge. He wrote everything down just like you do. In his madness, he gave it to our son. I do not know if the pages were gone beforeor after, but by the time death claimed him, those pages were gone.”
“I’ll find it for you if Edmond’s knows. I’ll use the shell as leverage.” I said, without thinking.
“Rosamund,” Bash challenged.
I’d done more than I would like to admit in my life already, some of which haunted me when I closed my eyes. Yet I knew when something was right. I felt it in my bones and knew it with the way my blood flowed through my veins.
“You will have to survive much before that day,” Morwenna said.
I forced my boldest smile and met her eyes.
“I’m pretty hard to kill,” I said.
She had the decency not to call me a liar.
Chapter thirty-five
The Pillars of Hercules
Bash
Sea-born divination predates all human augury: before there were leaves to steep or cards to turn, the ocean read itself.
Its currents wrote the future in spirals, its tides tallied the dead, and its monsters carried prophecy in their bones.
— From The Mysterious Deep: A Comprehensive Understanding
She was confident in a way that was unsettling. No hint of doubt or second-guessing. She walked with purpose, andit was terrifying. It wrapped its claws around my throat and squeezed like it would see me dead.
“It isn’t a place, Rose, it’s a pocket in the ocean; even with Morwenna’s input and the journal, it will be difficult to find,” Dilly said.
“She said it cannot be reached by latitude or sail. It must becalled,and it only answers when the moon lies black, and the tide lies hungry.” Rose said, undeterred.
My cabin was ungodly full tonight.
Rose and Dilly stood at my desk with maps outstretched, as well as the cursed journal. Oscar and Inu stood nearby, the former quieter than usual. Val was already raiding my liquor cabinet, and Emille sat in a chair in front of the desk, rubbing at his chin.
I busied myself by pacing, which earned me several disapproving looks from my wife, but she was responsible for this unease that ran through me like ice waters. All I could hear was Morwenna saying that Rose was just as likely to die. Yet I knew that mark on her arm meant she would die all the same if we didn’t try.
