“We may not be alone as it is,” she whispered back toward him, as she worked. “There’s a story that a ghost lives on board. A nineteenth-century sailor, by the name of Neil Harvey. Supposedly, he’d fallen asleep during his watch. The captain had him stabbed in the stomach, then tied him over one of those cannons. Blew him into tiny pieces. Now he haunts the decks.”

“Really encouraging,” Nick hissed back. “You should hire yourself out to kids’ birthday parties.”

Hailey smiled as she descended the last few feet, and then her focus was entirely on the white, ornate object affixed to the stern. Up close the thing was huge, much bigger than it looked from the water below. Painted in glistening white, with a bright red eye and a shield across its chest, red and white stripes beneath thirteen little stars. A Revolutionary-era American flag, on a Revolutionary-era symbol—a great eagle, wings unfurled, affixed to the stern of the greatest warship of the time.

Hailey ran her eyes over the eagle’s wings. She knew it wasn’t part of the original construction of the ship; like the rest of the USS Constitution, this part of the hull had been retrofitted many times. This particular wooden decoration dated back to 1907. But the ship’s relationship to the powerful symbol went back much further than that. In fact, the USS Constitution’s first nickname had not been Old Ironsides. Before that, it had been known by another name.

“The Eagle of the Seas,” Hailey whispered to herself.

Before this eagle had been affixed to the Constitution, there had to have been earlier versions, Hailey felt sure. Maybe dating all the way back to Revere. He had, after all, made the copper that lined part of the bottom and sides of the ship, as well as many screws and bolts and wedges throughout. He’d also made the giant bell that had once stood on its deck, before the bell was shot to pieces by a British frigate.

And maybe he’d crafted one final item, placed it aboard as well, somewhere only he—and whoever he meant to send it to—would find it.

Hailey pulled the tomahawk out from her waistband and jammed the edge of the ax blade between one of the eagle’s wings and the planks of the stern.

“La cloche sous l’aigle,” she whispered. The bell beneath the eagle. She wasn’t fluent, but she recognized enough words to make the translation. If Adrian was right, this was the place to look.