From what we could discern from the archives, however, it’s the silver from the Canary that has never resurfaced and that the rightful owners put considerable effort into recovering. We can find no further information on what sort of silver it was, but if you can find it, it will be the discovery of the century.

Mabena lowered the page, feeling as though Beth herself had just punched her in the stomach. The first missive had mentioned the Canary too. “Mucknell’s treasure? Is that what Beth has been about?” She shook her head. Tas-gwyn Gibson had been filling their heads with the lore for decades, but surely Beth hadn’t believed his tales.

But then, Beth was always disappearing into crevices and cracks of the island that no one else knew. What if she had found something? Something that led her to contact whoever this was? Someone in London, clearly, who could access archives of the East India Company.

“Mucknell.” Libby tilted her head. “The admiral from Mr. Gibson’s story?”

Mabena set the letter carefully down on the table and flipped through the sheets behind it. Lists upon lists of cargo for various ships. “The pirate admiral.”

Libby sat down again. “I think I need to brush up on my history. What was the John?”

“His ship. According to the stories, it was the flagship of the East India Company, the fastest and best outfitted vessel on the seas. Mucknell staged a mutiny on her maiden voyage and eventually came here to offer the ship and his services to the exiled Prince of Wales. Over the next few years, he gathered a fleet of other pirates and wreaked havoc on the shipping lanes. The East India Company especially was hit hard.”

Libby frowned. “What happened to the ship?”

“Eventually the Parliamentarians commissioned others to stop him. There was a battle just off the islands here, and the John was crippled. No one’s certain anymore if it sank at sea, its plunder in its holds, or if it was beached somewhere and unloaded. Either way, everyone knows Mucknell always kept a bit for himself from all his hauls. And they speculate that it’s still buried somewhere on the islands.”

Libby stared at her for a long moment, mouth agape. “Pirate treasure? Really?”

“So it would seem.” Mabena had always just thought them stories. Fables. Fairy tales.

But apparently Beth had a different theory.

The pounding on the door was loud enough and insistent enough that Oliver was on his feet and running for it long before either of the Dawes even rose from their chairs. That kind of knock on a vicar’s door could only mean one thing—there was an emergency, and someone needed him.

He was already reaching for his hat as he yanked open the door, the question of “Who? Where?” already perched on his lips, ready to fly at whoever had come with the twilight.