THE HEIRESS THEY BURRIED
An eighth Founder.
Somewhere. Still hidden. Still unnamed.
At the top of the stairs, in the fading light beside the empty grave, Isaac lifted the small brass compass to check their bearing toward the hotel.
The needle spun.
Not gently. Not the careful, deliberate rotation it had shown before.
Violently, wildly, as though something inside it had finally been let loose until, all at once, it stopped.
It didn’t point back toward the hotel.
It didn’t point toward another Key, another city, another grave waiting somewhere to be found.