Mia M Dre's Arc

Chapter 12 of 13

They found a side trail that hugged the rocks and kept their heads low. Marina walked ahead, the comb pressed close beneath her shawl. Mia's eyes swept every passing figure for the watch with the trident crown. Near the shore, sunlight caught a small brass shape swinging from a stranger's belt — a sea star, bright and unmistakable. Mia's breath stopped. The key to the sealed passage was walking toward the buyer's door. The stranger followed a line of dragged footprints up from the tideline, where an old rowboat sat tipped against the rocks, vines trailing from its hull. He had just come in from the water. Mia tracked his path with her eyes and saw where it ended — a heavy wooden bench tucked between two stone slabs, set just back from the sand. A man waited there in a low hat. Not the buyer himself. A runner, sent to take delivery. Mia pressed the comb into Marina's hands. "Keep walking. Don't look back." Marina's jaw tightened, but she went. Mia cut down through the grass, fast and quiet. The stranger paused to tug his belt loose where the key swung. She closed the gap in three steps, bumped him hard at the shoulder, and caught the brass star as it slipped. She murmured a stumbling apology and kept moving. Behind her, his hand went to his belt and found nothing. A shout broke the air before she reached the rocks. The runner at the bench was already standing. Mia ran. The key bit cold against her palm, its five arms sharp as cut shell, its stem grooved with tiny waves — a lock made for water, for a door below. She caught up to Marina at the path's bend, breath ragged. "I have it," she said. "But they saw." Marina's eyes went past her to the shore, where two figures now moved fast in their direction. The key was theirs. The quiet was not.