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“Yes, Matty?”
“If you can do that, then doesn’t that mean we’re…”
His sentence faded as he stared at the fireplace. His eyes narrowed and he released me gently, walking reverently toward the brick.
“What’s that?” he asked while leaning into the burned brick. “There’s something loose here.”
“You were about to say something.”
He hummed. “Rose, help me with this.”
“What were you going to say?”
“Find me a poker.”
I glared at the back of his head. Was he really doing this right now? He was about to say something and he was—
“Rose!”
I jumped.
“Sweetheart, stop thinking so hard. It’s making my head hurt,” he said. He pointed to the kitchen. “I think I saw a poker over there. Please, get it for me.”
My body moved without hesitation. As I quietly cursed his command of my body, I located a poker in the rubble of what used to be a kitchen table. Broken glass glittered on the wooden floor, crunching under my boots as I made my way back to Matéo.
I held out the poker. “Here.”
He took it without looking at me, transfixed by what was inside the fireplace. “It looks like a metal tube.”
Using the tip of the poker, he picked away at the brick, dust spewing from the ground where pieces of brick landed. Soon, a few bricks tumbled from the spot he was picking and revealed a metal tube.
I held my stomach. “Oh.”
“I didn’t know this was here.” The pokerclangedto the ground when he dropped it. He reached into the miniature hole and pulled out the tube, staring at it with disbelief. “What the fuck is this?”
“Did your parents leave you anything after they…?” I swallowed the words. “Anything at all?”
He shook his head. “Nothing other than this cabin.”
“Well, open it.”
“I can’t.”
I touched his forearm, transferring as much strength as I could into him. While the explanation eluded me, the power remained steady. And I wasn’t about to argue with that. He met my gaze with a grateful grin, his blue eye resembling the wintry surface of a lake at night.
And then he opened the tube.
Inside sat a series of scrolls. They were small, almost innocuous, but clearly having been worried over many times with ink. While he unraveled them, I listened to the cabin around us, waiting for anything that wasn’t birds or critters scurrying around. Satisfied that we were alone, I focused on the page.
“It’s a deed,” Matéo whispered, “to a house just outside of town.”
“That looks like…” I gasped when he revealed the second scroll. “Matty, that’s on the coast.”
He shook his head. “There’s no way…”
“Your father left you a deed to a house. On the coast. Where we’re supposed to look for a fortress.” I licked my lips. “This can’t be a coincidence, can it?”
“Rose, do you think…?”
