Page 94 of Night's Reckoning
“Would you like me to examine it?”
“You may, of course. We would be grateful for the help. I would be happy to assist you myself tomorrow.” He pointed to Lin. “Each section is a two-person job.”
Lin pushed the button on her microphone. “I am taking tomorrow off.”
“Good.” Fabia pointed to the wrecked hull. “I’ll take a look today, but I’ll make sure I don’t move anything without taking notes.”
Jon gave her a thumbs-up and got back to his work. Ben and Fabia swam over to Meili’s section of the wreck.
The whole of the wreck had been thoroughly photographed, but Fabia still took out her notebook and began diagraming each coral formation and outcropping of sediment. Ben watched a small yellow fish poke out from the coral and look at them with round eyes. The little creature darted away when they moved closer, churning up a small puff of sand that had gathered on the coral and revealing a glint that caught Ben’s attention.
“Fabia?”
She moved closer. “Hmm?”
Ben held his finger up to his mask. Quiet. Then he took his hand and waved it over the section where the fish had fled. The water surged over the coral, revealing more of the color Ben had noticed.
Fabia held up a hand and moved her pencil rapidly over her notebook. She showed Ben where she’d made a note of the artifact before she gave him a thumbs-up again.
Ben pushed more water toward the lump. It had small growths on it that must have been various types of coral, but it wasn’t secured to the reef. He reached under and grabbed the edge of the small glass bar, sliding it from under the piled rocks and corals.
He held it up, and Fabia reached for her pencil.
It’s like the one Mr. Lu found.
What?
He found another bar like this with writing.Ben pointed to the wrecked hull and piled rocks.We may find more glass in this section.
And more glass means?
Harun worked in glass and metal.
Understanding, Fabia took the glass artifact from Ben and tucked it in the small net pocket on her belt before she gave him the sign to surface.
They swam up, then over to the ladder fixed to the side amidships. Climbing up, they handed up the notebooks on frames first, then took the hands of the crew who helped them on deck and removed their tanks and masks.
Once they’d dropped their equipment, Ben and Fabia walked over to the tanks where Fabia wrote up a tag and placed the glass bar in the correct tank.
“So you’re saying there might be more glass in that section?” She kept her voice low.
“More important, that might be where the sword is,” he said. “Harun worked in glass and in metal. He made the sword. He made the glass pieces. Tenzin translated the other bar Mr. Lu found. It was a manifest of items from Harun’s workshop. He wanted Zhang to know which things came from him, I guess.”
Fabia rolled her eyes.
Ben asked, “Do you know what this means?”
“Artists have egos no matter what century it is?”
“No, Fabi—I mean yeah, obviously—but that means Meili was working in the section where Harun’s glass tablet was found. Meaning—”
“Whoever killed Meili might have taken the tablet from her.” Fabia’s face went pale. “But why? It was a list. Just a list.”
“I don’t know,” Ben said. “But I do know I’m going down there without the university team. Tonight. We need to figure out what Meili found.”
24
Fabia was helping Ben suit up. “I don’t like the idea of you going down by yourself.”
