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fit four. One of us has to stay.”
    The little girl, busily playing, said “Night, night” and patted the doll.
    Brand looked at his daughter and then his wife. Thesecond pistol wavered in his hand. “Come here,” he repeated to his wife.
    She bent to gather her daughter.
    â€œNot her,” Brand said. “You.”
    Mrs. Brand made a terrified, choking noise. “Alfred, what are you saying?”
    Granite met Monk’s eye and cut his gaze first to the sea and then to the ship. He made the subtle motion of a fish with his hand, and Monk understood. He peered into the darkness, nodding. It was a terrible risk, but they had no other choice.
    â€œCome,” Brand said.
    â€œGather your child as tight as you can,” Granite said under his breath to Mrs. Brand as he passed.
    Shaking, Mrs. Brand lifted her daughter into her arms.
    Brand ran toward his wife and tore the child away. Then he grabbed his wife and yanked.
    Granite charged and swung. He connected with Brand’s jaw and pulled Mrs. Brand back to him. The pistol spun toward the seam. Collingswood dived for it.
    â€œNow!” Granite yelled, and Monk grabbed the girl. Granite shoved Mrs. Brand hard and jumped, and Monk flew out after them, headfirst, clutching the child, whose cry exploded in his ear.
    He hit the water, as hard as rock, and the cold battered his lungs.
    Hold the girl. Hold the girl.
    He crushed her to his side, kicking hard to bring himself upward. Nothing in his life had ever seemed so important or so hard. It was like he was swimming in molasses, and there was nothing but heavy, smothering cold.
    A lighter dark hovered above him. He pumped harder and harder. At last he popped above the surface, gulping air like it was grog. The girl cried. She lived!
    A shot lit the night, sizzling past his ear before the water swallowed it in a gurgle. He jerked to the side, and Brand called, “You will pay for this, Captain! I will hunt you till my dying day, and you will pay!”
    The night was pitch. Monk had a vague sense of the ship in the distance but nothing more. He saw nothing and could hear only the roar of the sea and the girl’s terrified cries. He tucked her tightly under his arm and began to swim.

C HAPTER O NE
 
    Once upon a time there was a beautiful mapmaker. She made maps for kings and travelers and landowners. She loved her work because making maps made her dream of the world outside her shop. Many men courted her, but none won her hand, for they loved her for her beauty, not her maps.
    â€”The Tale of the Beautiful Mapmaker
    B RAND O’ MALLEY M AP C OMPANY B OARDROOM ,
P ITTSBURGH , P RESENT D AY
    â€œWhat is it men see in maps?” Joss O’Malley asked fondly as she watched her friend’s four-year-old son, Peter, staring intently at a framed antique map from his not-quite-steady perch on the top of the credenza.
    Diane Daltrey, the former chief financial officer of Brand O’Malley Map Company and Peter’s mom, lifted her eyes for a moment from the quarterly cash flow statement over which she was poring. “Key to the past?”
    Joss thought of her own fascination. “Hints of the unknown?”
    â€œDoes this have a Skull Island?” Peter said enthusiastically, scanning the hand-colored paper. “I want to fight Hook to the death!” He growled and thrust his light saber in the direction of the conference table. Marty, the map tech, who had just unfolded himself from plugging in two laptop projectors, ducked to avoid being skewered.
    â€œOr perhaps something slightly less poetic. Speaking of which”—Di let her fingers come to rest on the calculator—“things aren’t looking so good here.”
    â€œI know we’re a little strapped for cash,” Joss said, biting a nail, “but that’s not so bad, right?”
    â€œRight. How important is money?”
    â€œI’m heading up to see Rogan. I need a