Corvus (Stars and Sails, Book 1)

Forty-eight (Part 3 of 3)

Amelia Rose crossed her arms and looked at Holden. He looked so serious, but she hadn't an idea what he was saying. "What safe?"

Holden's eyes drew closed to slits and he rolled them, she saw the whites of his eyes. "You have the code? Your mother's?"

Amelia Rose stepped back, bumping into the screen. It tottered and she pulled it steady. A code? "Minkar?"

"No, no. The tattoos, they have numbers." He explained, frustrated. She had seen them before, though. "What were her numbers?"

"They open a safe?" She asked. "At my house? At my—"

"They open a safe at the lighthouse." Holden rubbed his eyes in frustration. He turned his head, nose wrinkling. "You don't know anything, do you, Payne?"

Aiden shrugged. "Lost my memory."

"We all lost our memory, you brick." He looked back at Amelia Rose. "That's what the safe is for. Somebody wants to help us. Whatever's in that safe could—it could save us. Do you have the code?"

"I already know all about my mother before Aydesreve," she said. "What more do I need to know?"

Holden closed his mouth and angled his body away from her. There was a darker look to his eyes. "You need to know what happened afterward," he replied. "And I'm afraid that I don't know the whole truth yet either."

The dizziness started in Amelia Rose's forehead. It was like she just disconnected for a moment. She swallowed back and pressed her fingernails into the screen. "What do you mean? Everything was just ordinary. She married my father. She had me and it—it killed her."

Holden looked sad for a moment but shook the look off his face. "Do you have the code or not?"

She thought back to all those memories of her life before she ran away. Before she got married. Back when she was blissfully living like things didn't matter so much, like Aiden wasn't leaving or she wasn't engaged. Back before Runa died.

She had given Amelia Rose that piece of paper with six numbers on it. Maybe. "I do."

"And?"

"111620," she said.

Holden spun back around to his dresser and opened a drawer. He pulled out a small cloth parcel. He held it tightly. "Go get your horse. We're leaving," he said.