Chapter 17. Six Shares and One Map

Settling the question of rights to the find took another three weeks of negotiation, during which the Kestrel sat idle in the port of Esperanza-Norte, and the crew, finally able to exhale after months of unbroken tension, faced for the first time in the entire expedition the unfamiliar sensation of ordinary, unhurried life.

The final agreement, worked out with the active participation of all three archipelago governments — considerably more cooperative now, united by a shared wish to close an awkward international incident as quickly as possible, than they had been divided by their old territorial dispute — established joint jurisdiction over the find zone and official recognition of Eva's crew as discoverers, with a corresponding share of the now legally appraised portion of the cargo, run through proper museum and commercial valuation instead of the earlier shadow-market channels.

The question of the church relics Morten had warned about back in chapter eight resolved itself more peacefully than expected: the portion of the cargo whose archival research confirmed as originally belonging to colonial temples was, by unanimous decision, handed over to a joint museum fund of the three states rather than sold privately — a decision the crew reached unanimously, for the first time in the expedition guided not by calculations of profit, but by what Morten called "basic decency toward the dead, who can't argue back."

"This will meaningfully reduce the final sum for each of us," Saskia warned, presenting the final figures to the crew gathered around the table, for once not in tension but in relative calm.

"We already climbed out of the ocean floor and lived," Leyla answered. "I'm willing to live with a somewhat less impressive number in exchange for sleeping soundly, knowing we didn't sell stolen temple relics to the first anonymous buyer who showed up."

The question of Saskia's own share proved harder to settle than the question of the relics. The formal contract signed before departure entitled her to a full twelve percent, equal to the rest of the crew, but after everything that had happened — the confession, the risk her connection to Hale had created for the entire crew, even softened by her later cooperation — no unanimous agreement followed to leave her share untouched.

"I propose withholding a third of her share," Rafael said, "not as punishment, but as compensation for the real risk we were all exposed to because of the beacon business. She keeps the remaining two-thirds in full, including the right to take part in future operations like this one, if any come up — but not with a clean slate this time. With a probationary period of trust she'll have to earn all over again."

Saskia accepted the decision without objection, with the same sober practicality she'd brought to every decision throughout the expedition — relieved that the reduced sum was still more than enough to close out the debt that had started this whole affair, and, probably even more important to her than the money, that the crew was leaving her a place among them at all, rather than crossing her off for good.

"Thank you," she said simply, and in that short word there was more sincerity than in all her earlier, carefully worded phrases combined.

That evening, once all the formalities had finally been settled and the Kestrel was preparing for its last transit of this expedition — back to its home port, where the crew was set to scatter, each to a life this voyage had changed — Eva found Rafael at the bow, in the same spot where they'd stood together that very first night, watching the darkness above the sunken galleon.

"Remember you asked me back then what happens to people once the gold's actually in their hands?" she asked, coming to stand beside him at the rail.

"I remember," he said. "You said back then it's easier to think about the dead than the living."

"Turns out I was wrong," Eva said. "The living aren't so hard, if you know who you're doing it for."

He gave her a long look, one that for the first time in the whole expedition held no calculation, no anxiety for the ship or crew's fate — only the simple, long-delayed admission neither of them had ever found the right moment for, amid the chases and searches and betrayals.

"What if," he said quietly, "we don't part ways at port the way we originally planned? I'll admit I've accumulated plenty of reasons to look for an excuse to stay close to you a while longer, beyond the professional ones."

"So have I," Eva answered, and what happened between them in the following minutes remained the only thing not recorded in the ship's log, which had so meticulously documented everything else that had happened over these eventful weeks.

Their moment was interrupted by footsteps on the gangway — Morten, climbing onto deck with the look of a man who'd seen something requiring immediate attention, regardless of whatever private moment he might be interrupting.

"Sorry to intrude," he said, clearly noticing he'd walked in on something personal, but not letting himself feel awkward enough to delay the news. "But I just got off a call with Rafael's old contact, the one who put us in touch with the forger in Castelblanco. He sent something interesting — a fragment of a chart, found a few days ago in the same archives where we went looking for documents on the Santa Clara's cargo origins."

He held out a tablet with a scanned image — a yellowed fragment of an old nautical chart, covered in notations in archaic Spanish, its edge partly torn away, where once, judging by the remaining lines, a continuation of the route had been drawn, leading far south of waters the crew knew, into a region marked by a brief but telling note in the margin: "cargo three times the size — do not report to the crown."

Eva took the tablet, studying the old lines with the same feeling she'd had months earlier, first examining the Santa Clara's ship's log before this expedition began — a mixture of an archaeologist's professional curiosity and that particular, inexplicable premonition which, as she'd learned firsthand, was rarely wrong.

"Three times the size," she repeated aloud, looking at Rafael, whose face was already lighting up with the same mix of apprehension and excitement that seemed to be an inseparable part of his nature, despite everything they'd just survived together. "And waters that, judging by this chart, no one's even begun to dispute yet."

"One more reason not to part ways at port," Rafael said, with a shadow of a smile, though he sobered quickly after. "Though I suspect before we decide whether to chase down another fortune, we'll have to answer a considerably less romantic question: who's going to lend us a submarine this time, knowing our reputation."

Eva laughed — for the first time in many weeks, a laugh free of tension and calculation — and, handing the tablet back to Morten, caught herself thinking that the ocean, which had taken her university career from her and nearly taken the whole crew as well, had just offered something in return she wasn't, after everything she'd been through, ready to turn down.