Chapter 15
“Can I speak to you, Ronin?” Tempi asked the next morning as she sidled up next to him at the bakery counter.
He nodded. “Yeah. Of course.”
She tilted her head toward the archway that connected the bakery to Emory’s coffee shop. “Let’s step over to Emory’s side for a minute.” Her eyes drifted to the table by the window where everyone else was seated and still eating scones and muffins. “We’ll have more privacy there.”
He followed her through the archway and into the coffee shop, which was empty and quiet. It was Sunday, and both Adeline and Emory had their shops closed on Sundays.
Tempi turned to face him. She’d rehearsed what she’d say on the drive over, but now that she was standing in front of him, every practiced word seemed to have left her head.
So she said the first thing that came to her.
“I’m sorry. I’m so very sorry for what I said last night.
All of it. Both the professional and the personal.
” She took a breath. “In fact, I spent the entire night wishing I knew a spell to erase our minds so we could just forget how ridiculous I was.”
He laughed. “That might be a bit dramatic, Tempi.”
She shook her head. “I don’t think so. You offered me a fair business venture together, and I turned it into an insult because that’s what I do.
I hear someone trying to help, and I assume they think I can’t do it myself.
That’s my problem. It has nothing to do with you.
” She closed her eyes briefly before continuing.
“And I’m especially sorry for telling you that everything comes easy for you, even after you told me a little about your childhood.
That was just cruel. I knew what you’d been through.
I knew what you’d built and how you’d built it, and reducing all of that to charm was...
” She shook her head. “It was unfair and petty of me. And I’m ashamed I said it. ”
Ronin leaned against the counter and studied her. “Well, I owe you an apology too.”
“No, you don’t.”
“Yeah, I do.” He looked down at his hands.
“What I said about your grandmother’s money was out of line.
I was angry, and I used it as a weapon, and it was wrong.
” He met her eyes. “The truth is, I was resentful. Part of me has always been jealous of people who had safety nets, because I never had one.”
Tempi pursed her lips. “I probably could whip us up a forget potion if I looked through my book of spells.” She scoffed. “But it would be my luck I’d mess it up and give us a short-term-memory-loss spell.”
“Yeah, that might not be good,” he joked.
“In all seriousness, Ronin, I don’t know how to fix this. I don’t want to fight with you anymore.”
“I wouldn’t say we’re fighting. I’d say we’re getting to know each other. And sometimes that means rough starts.” He shrugged. “So we just pick up and move forward from here. We can do that right?”
She grinned. “Right.”
His hand came up to the side of her face, and his thumb traced her jaw. She leaned into his palm, then closed her eyes as their lips met.
When she pulled back, he was smiling.
“So,” he said, “are we partners for today’s excursion, or are we still co-chairs but with kissing perks?”
She laughed. “Partners.”
A slow, muffled clap came from the archway.
They turned to find Princess Muffin Top sitting in the center of the opening, her tail curled around her back paws.
“Splendid. You’ve kissed and made up. Literally.
” She stood and stretched. “I’ll alert the media and maybe Miss Moody can write a piece in the paper.
Moonlight Bay’s longest-running cold war has officially ended.
Casualties? One mermaid dress and my patience.
” She turned and sashayed back into the bakery.
“Now, get in here. We have a treasure to find.”
* * *
Tempi, Ronin, Adeline, Mason, Emory, Cassie, and Princess Muffin Top were gathered around the large table near the front window. The old maps and clues were spread across the table between the plates.
“Did DuBois really do all this just days before he died?” Emory mused, leaning over one of the old parchments. “Setting up clues and carving messages into cave walls? How did he manage it? He was a vampire, right? Did he hire a witch to help him?”
Ronin took a sip of his coffee. “I have a theory on that. I spoke to Lucinda early this morning, and I asked her if she was sure DuBois was full vampire. Could he have been a water elemental? She told me there were rumors of him being half vampire, half sea witch...but she always assumed that was just rumor.”
Mason frowned. “Why would his being half vampire, half sea witch be something to hide?”
Ronin smiled. “Because DuBois’ parents were both vampires.”
Tempi and Cassie both gasped.
“Oh, yeah,” Cassie said. “I can see why that might be hushed and kept quiet. Especially back then.”
“But it makes sense,” Tempi said. “Every clue Ronin and I find has to do with combining water and air elements. It could be with DuBois’ wife, he had the freedom to embrace his non-vampire side. That’s why he made sure there are two elements that are needed to solve these clues.”
Cassie smiled at her. “It’s almost like DuBois only wanted a water elemental and an air elemental to find the Crimson Heart.”
Tempi stared incredulously at Cassie. She’d never thought of that.
But it did explain a lot. “Yeah, maybe that’s exactly what he wanted.
” Tempi pulled out her phone and showed them the photo she’d taken of the carving in the sea cave.
“It also explains how he was able to do the carvings. Using magic would allow that to go quickly.”
“And all these years,” Adeline said, “that clue and carving has been inside that cave. How has no one seen it?”
“Maybe they have,” Mason said. “But on its own, it doesn’t mean anything.”
“And even at low tide,” Ronin said, “there was still water in that passage. Unless you had a reason to go in and the ability to move the water, you’d never get to the back chamber.”
“I’m just amazed he had the strength to do it,” Adeline said, slipping her hand inside Mason’s. “Carving messages into stone while he was dying. He must have really loved his wife and wanted someone special to find what they spent their entire lives searching for.”
“He was definitely doing it for Eleanora’s memory,” Tempi said. “All his clues point that way. Even this one. His wife. His first mate. He wanted her to be remembered.”
Mason tapped the photo on Tempi’s phone. “So what does the final clue mean?”
Tempi read the clue aloud. “My Dearest Eleanora. I will see you soon, Wind Talker. Where the water and the air crash and meet, so, too, shall we. There, also, will our Crimson Heart be.”
“He calls her Wind Talker,” Ronin said. “Tempi and I think she was an air elemental.”
“So it’s a place where water and air crash into each other.” Emory leaned back in her chair. “That’s so broad. That could be anywhere. The marina. The harbor. Any beach on the island.”
Mason shook his head. “I don’t think the marina or harbor.
We need to remember that DuBois set this up hundreds of years ago.
Not only were a majority of these buildings not here, but the coastline has changed since then as well.
He would have thought of that. It would be something that’s more permanent. ”
“There’s that big blowhole out at Shepherd’s Cave,” Cassie said. “Remember? You go inside and the waves crash against the rocks, forcing water through that narrow hole and shooting it straight into the air. I used to love watching it.”
“What about the whirlpool by Ghost Rock?” Emory mused. “Where the currents create that vortex. Remember how we used to swim out there as kids and play in that thing?”
Tempi laughed. “What were we thinking? We could have been seriously hurt.”
“We were invincible,” Adeline said. “Or stupid. Same thing at fifteen.”
They kept tossing out different locations the final clue might be. There was the north jetty and the tidal flats. Tempi listened, turning each one over, but none of them felt right. A blowhole was water and air, sure. So was a whirlpool. So was every breaking wave on every beach in Moonlight Bay.
Sighing, she looked up from the table and her gaze drifted to the bakery window. The morning sun was streaming through, and it caught one of the small glass cupcakes Adeline had hanging from the window frame. The light passed through the glass and scattered into a prism of color on the tabletop.
Tempi froze.
Prisms of light.
“Oh my goddess,” she whispered.
Ronin looked at her. “What?”
She grabbed his arm. “The jar. Alden’s jar. Last night at Grandma’s house, you told him to put the ruby in water with a light behind it and it would glow. You said he’d be able to see prisms of light.”
Ronin frowned. “Yeah, but that was just—”
“On Friday,” she continued, cutting him off, “when we were at Crystal Cove, you pointed out the way the sun hit the waterfall. You said it sent prisms of light across the rocks.” She tightened her grip on his arm.
“Everyone’s always noticed it. I even think it’s how Crystal Cove got its name years ago.
Most people assumed it was just the way the sun hit the water.
” She looked around the table, so giddy with excitement, she almost danced a jig right there.
“What if it’s not just the sun doing its thing?
What if it’s the Crimson Heart? What if somehow the sunlight passes through the waterfall and hits the ruby right at a certain angle in the water or something like that?
The same way the flashlight made Alden’s fake heart glow through the jar last night. ”
Everyone spoke at once.
“It’s been here the entire time?” Adeline demanded.
“I can’t believe this!” Emory clapped her hands. “It really is a crystal cove!”
“Well, what are we waiting for?” Ronin stood up.
“No one is going to believe this,” Cassie said, shaking her head.
Princess Muffin Top stood and stretched.
“Let me get this straight. You’re telling me that a priceless ancient ruby has been sitting behind a waterfall for three hundred years, glowing red every time the sun comes out, and the entire town for centuries just thought it was a nice view and even named it Crystal Cove?
” She blinked slowly. “Humanity is doomed.”
Mason laughed. “Let’s go.”
“We can take my six-seater,” Ronin said.
Tempi smiled at him. “Sounds perfect.”