Epilogue

Three months later.

Cameron stood in front of a piece of history—the treasure chest from the Siren Lorelei. They were at the Star Harbor Historical Society, in a special room Bran had tricked out with light and humidity controls. Some of the most special pieces from his collection were here. They were about to add another—a mildewed chest that held, according to Nathaniel Jacobs’s verse, a treasure “worth more than gold.” Nigel and Bran had dated it to the late 1600s, and thanks to Boston College’s resources, had already done some cross-sectional analysis of the materials used to make it.

Though the exterior looked like it was about to fall apart, the trunk itself was surprisingly solid, holding up through the recovery and transfer to the Historical Society. According to her uncle, the trunk was a superior example of a barrel-stave Saratoga-grade trunk. Its interior was wood, likely oak, and had metal banding on each of the vertical wooden slats. Each edge was also covered in metal. Regardless of whether the protective covering had preserved any of the artifacts inside—if indeed there were any artifacts—the trunk itself was an incredible find.

Surrounded by friends and family, not to mention a bevy of archeologists, they were about to unlock a piece of history.

Val cleared his throat. “Are you ready?” he asked, his hand on her shoulder.

Cameron nodded. “Nigel? Bran?” she asked, and they nodded too. Once they’d gotten approval from the Massachusetts authorities and decided to proceed together with the exploration, they’d given themselves a name to set up the nonprofit corporation through which all the work would be done—ESW Consortium, after the first initials in each of their last names. They’d asked a famous explorer experienced in this type of salvage work, a man named George Findley, to lead the expedition. George had connected them with one of the cable history channels, which had purchased the rights to do a documentary. The cameraman and the producer had set up shop in the corner and were ready to go. Cameron gave them a nod, and they began filming.

From his pocket, Nigel pulled out a velvet bag and removed the keys. “Ladies,” he said, addressing Julie, Lexie, and Avery, “without you, we wouldn’t have kept our hope alive that this trunk actually existed. Nor would we have been able to solve this mystery so elegantly.” Her uncle was right. Smashing open the trunk wouldn’t have been nearly as amazing as this. Cameron smiled at her friends, and they smiled back. She loved the fact that they were as much a part of this as she was.

Carefully, Nigel arranged the keys so that the bows were in order. He held them up to show everyone how they fit together perfectly to make one big key, the Roman numerals I, II, and III in alignment. Still holding them together, he slid the big key into the trunk’s keyhole and turned.

Though she was certain the trunk would open, since Nigel had done a test run of just the lock prior to the shoot, Cameron held her breath. Beside her, she felt Val do the same.

There was a click, and Nigel smiled. Slowly, he lifted the lid. A distinct aroma of decay filtered up to them. Nigel waved his hand in front of his face. “Whew!” he said. “Do you have ventilation in this place?”

Bran flicked on an overhead fan, the smell dissipated a bit, and he peered in. “Honestly, I’m surprised the decay’s not worse. The interior appears to be very well preserved, all things considered. And look,” he said, gently lifting one of the tray compartments to reveal another underneath. “Classic styling. Just beautiful.”

“Now what do we have here?” Nigel said, reaching in with a gloved hand. He placed a beautifully engraved wooden box on the sanitized table.

“Don’t open that now,” Bran said, peering at it. “I think it’s a spice box.”

“I wonder what kind,” Lexie murmured, gazing at it with interest.

Nigel placed the box on the table and Theo took a photograph of it. “If the spice is destroyed, I bet we can still do a chemical analysis of the remaining residue to determine what it was.”

“Would you like to do the honors next, Cameron?” he asked.

Cameron pulled out a bottle of wine. “The label has faded and is kind of smeared, but I can make out an ‘e’ with an accent on top.”

“Maybe it’s French,” Bran said. “Most wines at the time were shipped in vats, because bottling was so expensive. Only the best wines were bottled.”

“It may have had some sentimental meaning,” Nigel suggested.

“We should have it tested in a laboratory,” Bran said. “Let’s move on to the next item.”

Cameron placed the wine on the table while Nigel pulled out a locket. Carefully, he cracked it open. “Intact!” he cried. “It depicts a young girl. Someone’s daughter, perhaps?” He set it down on the table.

One by one, she, Nigel and Bran pulled items from the chest. A crumbling map. A letter sealed in a glass bottle. Some sort of journal wrapped in cracked leather. Theo snapped photographs of all of them as the cameraman got his shots.

“These are beautiful,” Avery said, “but I can’t see how any of these could be considered a ‘treasure worth more than gold.’ ”

Bran spoke up. “At the time, these were probably the most valuable things the person—I’m guessing the captain—owned.”

While they were talking, Cameron eyed the bottom of the trunk. “Wait a minute,” she said, reaching down. There was one more panel that didn’t quite look right. She lifted it up, and her breath caught in her throat.

Sitting there was a knife—a curved dagger with the most exquisitely jeweled hilt and sheath she’d ever seen. The stuff of legends. She picked it up and held it in her hands reverently. There were three enormous emeralds on the gold hilt, the center one cushion cut, while the ones directly above and below it were pear cut. Small diamonds were set in between the emeralds. Another enormous emerald was embedded at the end of the handle. The dagger’s sheath was also made of gold, and was encrusted in diamonds and inlaid with mother-of-pearl. She flipped it over. The back was mother-of-pearl, too.

Nigel broke the silence. “Is that … can it be?”

“The original Emerald Dagger,” Bran announced to the room. “I have heard of it, but I never thought I would see it.” He recited, as if from a textbook: “Believed to have been lost to raiders when a Turkish sultan was assassinated crossing back into the Ottoman Empire in 1632, the Emerald Dagger surfaced only once, in 1671, when a treaty between the Barbary corsairs and the Europeans was broken and fighting again broke out. A second Emerald Dagger, the Topkapi Dagger, was supposedly modeled after the lost original and now sits in the Topkapi Palace Museum in Istanbul.”

“Didn’t the Lorelei travel to Algiers?” asked Nigel.

“Yes. In 1709!” Theo exclaimed. “I researched this for my last Crowley novel.”

“And I thought Nathaniel Jacobs was just taking some creative license with ‘The Legend of the Lorelei,’ ” Bran murmured. “After all, the treasure chest surely wasn’t found in a cave, as the poem suggested.”

“This trunk is just the tip of the iceberg, Cameron,” Nigel said. “When it went down, the Lorelei was supposed to have been carrying tons of gold and silver in its hold.”

“We’ll have to wait for George Findley to get here to find out,” she said with a smile. “He’s due here in a week.”

“Will this be on display at the Historical Society?” Cole questioned. “I’d hate to think about the security I’d need to pull together to manage that.”

Bran shook his head. “No way. I can’t keep this here. Besides, this was clearly stolen and will likely need to be returned to Istanbul. I have a friend at the Museum of Fine Arts in Boston who can walk us through the issues involved with getting this back to the Turkish government.”

“But the rest is ours,” Nigel said with no small amount of glee.

“Nigel, remember what we promised the state of Massachusetts,” Cameron said. “It’s all for the public. Once we excavate and salvage the wreck, we intend to set up everything we find on permanent exhibit at the Star Harbor Historical Society. And we’re putting in a proposal to expand the Society from its current building, and make an addition that will house the exhibit.”

“Yes, yes,” Nigel intoned, “the ship and its contents are a part of Star Harbor history. It belongs here for everyone to enjoy,” he said. “Just let me have my fun.”

“I will, Nigel,” she said with a smile.

From their seats, her mother, father, and Cici beamed at her. Even West looked happier than he had in a long time. She took off her latex glove and reached for Val’s hand.

When she looked at him, his eyes were warm. “I’m so proud of you, Cam.”

She smiled. Things in Star Harbor were heating up, and with autumn closing in, she’d have the time to devote to the Lorelei project. And to Val—her strong, solid, quiet man with eyes the color of the sea and a heart worth more than all the riches from any pirate treasure.

Though the camera was still rolling, she pulled his head down and kissed him. He kissed her back, his lips melting into hers.

And it was perfect.