Elena didn’t blink when the red tracer sparked across the wave crest.
She braced her boots against the grooved oak floorboards of the wheelhouse. A six-foot swell caught the stern of Marrow-Zero-Nine, throwing forty tons of steel sideways. Cold salt spray slammed against the windshield like gravel.
“Hold the frame, Clara!” Elena yelled.
Clara Vance stood wedged in the doorway of the engine companionway. Her fingers locked onto the brass grab-rail until her knuckles turned white.
Her eyes stayed shut. Her head tilted toward the howling wind, listening to sounds nobody else could hear.
“Two hundred yards to the stone opening,” Clara said. Her voice was steady.
“The air is changing. The granite has a ring to it. Exactly forty-two hundred hertz.”
“Good,” Elena said. “Because the guy behind us wants to put a hole through my sternum.”
