“Stay on the west side of the ridge so the current doesn’t throw you into the reef,” I said between breaths. “And watch the eddies. They’ll get stronger.” I tipped my chin up to the right angle of water in the distance, where the sea was already starting to pucker. By the time the storm hit us, the eddy would be a maelstrom, pulling anything that touched it into a whirlpool.

Koy and West both nodded, working their breaths almost in tandem. My chest stung as I sucked in the last of the cold air, and I plunged below the surface.

My arms drifted up over my head as I let myself sink, reserving my strength for the current. It touched my feet first, and my hair whipped away from my face as it swept around me. The reef ran beneath us as we floated over the ridge, the pink silk flags fluttering. But the sand was already clouding the water, casting everything in a green haze that would make it difficult to see. Koy caught the edge of a rock when he reached the place he’d left off the day before, and he sank into the thick sediment, barely visible as we pulled away. West was next, kicking from the current when he spotted the next mark.

He was swallowed by the haze and when I reached the last flag I swam down, letting myself fall to the reef. The sounds of the sea had already changed, deepening with the roar of the storm that was still miles away.

I took the mallet from my belt and chose the largest chisel, tapping in swift strikes to chip the crust of coral. As soon as the rock beneath it was exposed I pressed a thumb to its edge, watching it crumble. The stone was a strange one, the feel of it thick in the water around me. If it was what I thought it was, it had been missed because of the unusual rock formation that had hidden the shape of the cache. Elestial quartz was rare and valuable, but it formed in feldspar, not basalt, which was exactly what this reef looked like. No one had come looking for elestial quartz here, and no one had stumbled upon it. And if the quartz had managed to hide, maybe midnight had too.

When I could see the faded orange face of the basalt, I dropped the chisel back into my belt and switched to a pick. It only took a few drives of the mallet before the purple gemstone appeared, but five dives later, there was no midnight to be found. I chipped the last of the feldspar from the ridge, my teeth clenched. But as the sand cleared, my hand tightened on the handle of my mallet. Nothing.