Pausing to tread water and catch her breath, Vice glanced back at Knigh surfacing beside her. His eyes were wide, and his chest heaved.

“It—did you see?” He glanced down as if he expected it all to disappear. “So many colours—I’ve never …” He shook his head, a soft laugh huffing from his lips.

So it had hit him, too. She grinned. “I told you.” Raising her eyebrows, she sculled away. “This is only the start—wait until you see …” Sharks, turtles, rays—there was still so much more they might encounter if they were lucky. “I don’t want to spoil it. Come on, follow me—let’s take a closer look.”

She drew a long breath and dived, long kicks carrying her deep and further from shore. A glance over her shoulder revealed Knigh following, eyes bright.

They passed between two columns of coral, Vice spinning as she’d seen dolphins do and smiling when she saw Knigh follow her lead by not touching anything. Beautiful as the reef was, there were dangers too, including spines, poisons, and sharp teeth.

They took their time working their way towards the wreck, diving, coming up for breath and laughing with wonder at what they’d seen before diving again. She brought up an abalone shell just over an inch long. Its oval shape was rough and unremarkable on the outside; inside it gleamed in a hundred mother-of-pearl colours.

“Small but perfectly formed,” Knigh said when she showed him.

She laughed and pressed it into his hand. “Perfect, eh? You’d better keep it then.”

After he tucked it away in his pocket, they continued exploring. They swam with a loggerhead turtle almost as long as Vice was tall, its large form made graceful by the weightlessness underwater. Its scaled flippers swept slowly, propelling it above the reef with ease.

Knigh’s eyes widened at the sharks and rays. When they surfaced and caught their breath, Vice reassured him that they were only small blacknose sharks, and although stingrays had a deadly reputation, they were safe. “Don’t bother them, and they won’t bother you.”

They went on that way for almost an hour before she led him to the wreck. She narrowed her eyes at the weed-coated hulk.

The sorry-looking thing sat on a rocky outcrop of the reef as if it had run aground. From the size and remaining sections of two masts, it looked like a brig-sloop, the same as The Morrigan.

With the tide in, the water over the reef was around ten feet deep—enough for the draught of such a ship to pass over if it wasn’t fully laden. Maybe a storm had blown it in, dashed it against these rocks.