Her heart was pounding in her chest. From she who made the box. The golden box. Hailey was about to read the words out loud again, when she noticed that there was something else in the box, beneath the paper. She carefully moved it aside—and saw a piece of narrow metal, carved and polished, longer than her hand and wrist. The shape seemed vaguely familiar.

“I think it’s a clapper,” she whispered. “Or part of a clapper. From a bell. A very big bell.”

“There’s something written on it,” Nick said.

Hailey realized he was right. There were words inscribed along the edge of the clapper. She had to squint to make them out.

Proclaim Liberty

Hailey stared at the words. It took a moment, but then she recognized them.

“What does it mean?” Nick asked.

“It’s part of a longer inscription. ‘Proclaim liberty throughout all the land unto all the inhabitants thereof.’”

She shook her head, her mind whirling. Was it possible?

“Nick, this clapper, I don’t know how—but I think it’s from the Liberty—”

She never had a chance to finish her thought. There was a flash of motion from behind her and then something hit Nick from the side, yanking the backpack out of his grip and then sending him toppling backward to the deck. He landed, sprawling, next to the coil of rigging rope as his head hit the heavy copper tying post with a terrifying crack.

Hailey leapt to her feet, trying to pull the tomahawk out from her waistband, but the woman with the pitch-black hair was too fast. Her foot, still in heels, came up and the tomahawk spun away, harmlessly. Hailey took a frightened step back and felt cold iron against the small of her back. She glanced behind her and saw the curved base of one of the heavy black cannons, its barrel pointed out toward the ocean. Then she turned forward again to see the woman facing her, just a few feet away. She’d dropped Hailey’s backpack—but now the eagle, which she’d retrieved from inside, was in her left hand. Her right hand, still at her side, held the gun.

The woman looked at Hailey, then at the golden box on the deck between them.

“You’ve got what you want,” Hailey said. “Let us go.”

The woman’s expression changed, just a fraction. Hailey had never read a face so cold, so controlled, so practiced. There was pity there, but it was overwhelmed by something else: the needs of her mission.

“Unfortunately,” the woman said, “that’s not how this works.”

She raised the gun. Hailey pressed back against the iron of the cannon, felt the wheels beneath its frame give a little, but she knew there was no time to do anything, nowhere to run. She thought about closing her eyes, but decided she needed to keep them open.