Kenneth strolled over to the wall. Most everything Jake said went over his head. Trying to look intelligent, he studied the symbols and drawings etched into the stones. "I'm not an expert, but doesn't it seem like these pictures show some of the things Tessa has?"

Jake barged in for a closer look. "Where do you see that?" he demanded.

Kenneth jabbed a finger. "Here, look at this. What does she appear to be wearing?"

Tessa moved closer for a better look. She hadn't really examined the drawings closely. It might have been her imagination, but it looked like a soft glow lit the drawings from behind. She blinked hard, clearing her blurry vision. "It looks like a sort of collar," she ventured.

Jake nodded. "Close, but think again."

Kenneth answered. "The choker."

Jake's hand moved to another portion. "Right. And this hovering ball must be the orb." He looked from Tessa to the wall, and back again. "You certainly seem to have several of the items that represent a powerful female in this society."

The archaeologist moved on to a third depiction of the queenly figure. "But here she seems to be holding a scepter of some kind. Look how the rays beam out of it. What appears to be a sky and mountains are cracking open."

"Didn't see anything like that in your treasure box," Kenneth said.

Tessa's mouth turned down into a small frown. She shook her head. "If Mom ever had anything vaguely resembling a scepter, I never saw it."

Jake sighed heavily. "Too bad. It seems to be a very powerful piece."

Tessa held out her hands. "Sorry. You're s.h.i.t out of luck. If I had something like that, I'd know it."

"What about your aunt?" Jake shot back. "Is it possible she might have it?"

Tessa's brow wrinkled. "Now that you mention it, I do vaguely recall her and Mom arguing over what they called the *family jewels.' My grandmother settled it by saying to divide everything."

"So it's feasible the scepter might have gone with your aunt?"

"I don't know for sure." Tessa made a knee-high gesture with her hand. "You have to remember, I was this big when all this was going on."

Jake set to postulating out loud. "If your family as a collective truly held all the items shown around this deity female in the hieroglyphs, do you know what that could mean?"

Tessa threw up her hands. "That some thieving ancestor of mine knocked her in the head and stole her stuff?"

Pressing his palm against the wall, Jake shook his head. "I believe it would mean you could be a direct descendant of this person. And judging from the details, I'd say she was a queen."

Hearing his words, Tessa suddenly went very pale. "No s.h.i.t."

Noticing her lag, Kenneth slipped a worried hand around her waist. "What is it?"

Accepting his support, Tessa gratefully leaned into him. Such a revelation was incredible. Who could believe it?

If he's even right. Jake's speculation had been known to be liberally laced with a lot of bulls.h.i.t.

Tessa pulled in a weary breath. "When I was a kid, no older than five or six, my grandmother would tell me and Gwen stories about a great queen named Nyala."

Jake stared at her through narrow eyes, as though he suspected she'd deliberately withheld vital pieces of information. "What kind of stories?"

She laughed shortly. "About how we were descended from Nyala, how she was the last to wield a vast and terrible power. I always thought they were just fairy tales."

"That matches up with what we have here," Jake observed after a brief pause. "Hypatia's account calls the females of Ishaldi a warlike race. And most accounts in legend brand the Mer as unfriendly toward humans."

Tessa rolled her eyes. "That's not true."

"In a way, it is," Jake countered. "Every country in the world has some story about mermaids and most of them are the same."

"Yeah, I know. We lure ships onto rocks and drown the crew." Tessa gave a quick thumbs- up sign with one hand. "Yeah, that's exactly what we want to do. Drown you humans and take over the world."

Jake returned her glance with one of his own. "Don't kill the messenger, please. I'm just referencing what I've learned from my research. It's nothing personal."

Crossing her arms over her chest, Tessa shot him a scornful look. "I'm not so sure about that."

The two set to bickering, slinging a series of personal insults back and forth.

Kenneth winced, stepping between them. "Let's get back on track," he suggested. "What if Tessa is somehow descended from this queen?"

Tessa gave him a quick jab with her elbow. "Stop it. Those were just stories. I'm not royal."

Tucking ruffled feathers back into place, Jake shifted back into know- it-all mode. "Think about it, please. The powerful objects depicted in these hieroglyphs would only be entrusted to a person of very high rank, most likely someone the people considered royal."

Kenneth looked down at Tessa. Even though she wasn't doing anything, he could feel the energy emanating from her. A lot of power boiled beneath the surface of her skin.

A chill skittered through him. All she has to do is think it, and it'll happen . . . It vaguely occurred to him there might have been a time on this earth when humans had a reason to fear the Mer. He'd learned enough from Jake to know most legend had some basis in fact.

He quickly squelched the negative thoughts and focused on what the moment meant for Tessa.

"What if it's no fantasy, Tess? Who else would have held such important symbols of power but a sovereign? As incredible as it sounds, you might be a descendant of royalty."

Chapter 14.

It took every bit of willpower Tessa possessed not to snort a laugh back in Kenneth's face. "Come on. Don't be stupid." She made a gesture, circling her finger near her temple. "Both of you have lost your minds. The air must definitely be thinning if you think that's true."

Both men stared back at her, two sets of eyes holding absolute conviction.

"I think it's true," Kenneth said, a note of wonder in his voice.

"I'd second that," Jake added. "The pieces we've put together certainly make the scenario seem plausible."

As much as she wanted to deny it, Tessa had a nagging feeling the guys hadn't lost their minds. Based on the stories she'd heard in her childhood about a powerful queen, the idea wasn't so far-fetched. It was entirely possible her grandmother wasn't weaving fanciful tales for her granddaughters; rather she was pa.s.sing on some kind of an oral history.

Still . . . Believing she was one of the highborn felt utterly ridiculous. "It just can't be."

Losing the look of superiority, Jake's eyes a.s.sumed the cast of wonder. "Except for the scepter, you have most of those items in your keep, Tess," he said, interrupting her sinister contemplations. "Your mother and her mother before her and even your great-grandmother all worked to carefully preserve those pieces."

Deep inside, Tessa felt her stomach loop into tight knots. Tension tightened her shoulders even as a feeling of nausea crept up from her stomach. "What for?" she demanded. "These things aren't of any real value. The stones aren't even precious."

"But they are a part of your Mercraft, correct?"

Tessa nodded. "That's true. But what am I supposed to do with them?"

"Command your people," Jake said. "Holding such objects would make you the figure of power."

Tessa lifted her hands, pressing her fingers into her temples. All of a sudden pressure was ranging behind her eyes, beating against the confines of her skull. "All this is starting to give me a headache," she said with a sigh.

Jake ignored her exhaustion. Leaving the hieroglyphs behind, he walked toward the arch. Lifting his arms, he pressed his palms against the solid layers of opaque crystal, sealing it shut. "This is a quite interesting way to seal a tomb," he remarked. "It's like the stone has been woven into webbing. I wonder how we'd get through it."

Tessa's hands dropped. "You mean, like, open it? Now?"

Jake glanced over his shoulder. "No time like the present." Stepping back, the archaeologist eagerly rubbed his hands together. "The logistics are going to be difficult given the depth we're dealing with, but we're going to have to figure out a way to get equipment down to begin recovery."

Kenneth shot him an incredulous look. "You can't be serious."

Jake immediately cut him off with a huff. "I'm very serious. It's what we do. Remember?"

"You don't even know if that's what it is," Kenneth shot back. "Right now all you're doing is guessing."

Jake just stared, affording Kenneth all the interest he'd give an insect he was about to crush. "Hands-on research is part of the recovery," he snapped nastily, pointing toward the sealed area. "If we find a chamber of any kind, we open it. If there are bodies inside, we pull them out."

Kenneth immediately rejected the idea. "The dead should rest undisturbed. What you've found so far is enough."

Jake turned to Tessa. "Explain to this moron the meaning of search and recovery. If we find it, we bring it up."

Tessa put her hands on her hips.

Though she understood the side Kenneth was taking, she'd also worked enough recovery missions with Jake to understand the intention behind archaeological expeditions. The mission was simple: Uncover and record the findings.

An unbidden chill swept down her spine. Sometimes the findings included remains. The coast of Maine was littered with wreckage from ships and airplanes that had gone under when misfortune struck. The last wreck she'd worked on with Jake wasn't a ship, but a WWII fighter. Surviving family members had been elated when the wreckage was located and identified. And though the bodies of the crewmen trapped inside had been reduced to bones, she'd worked to bring them to the surface with the few personal effects she could locate.

Closing her eyes, Tessa inhaled a deep, calming breath. Should it be any different with the Mer? Her throat worked as she swallowed back the bile rising from her stomach.

Licking dry lips, she turned to face the two men. "I think it should be opened."

Jake's icy blue eyes lit up with the fervor of a fanatic finding true religion. "Excellent decision. We're on the edge of a historic discovery."

Kenneth didn't look as convinced. "It feels like sacrilege to me."

Tessa rubbed her hands across her face. "Why don't we argue one step at a time?" She eyed the crystal seal. "Right now we have no guarantee we can even get the thing open."

Kenneth snorted. "Oh, give Jake a hammer and he'll get through."

Jake scoffed back. "I am not a philistine. Our mission is to preserve and protect, not bash and carry. The less damage we do, the better."

Kenneth threw up his hands in frustration. "I don't like it, but I suppose the two of you will outvote me on this one."

Tessa cleared her throat. "I'm not siding with Jake when I say I want to keep going with this," she said, choosing her words carefully. "But this is a significant find and we can't ignore its value. The Mer deserve to have their place in history, too."

Kenneth's expression was wary. "I understand that," he said. "I just don't understand the hurry."

Jake shot him an angry glare. "This stupid argument is costing valuable time. Now let's figure out how to get this show on the road."

Kenneth shook off his partner's nasty look. "If you're going to try it, better do it fast." He drew a deep breath. "I don't know about you two, but it seems to me the air's starting to thin."

Jake processed the information. "We are working with a limited resource." His gaze swung to Tessa. "I don't suppose you would know anything about opening a Mer tomb?"

Tessa eyed the crystal webbing. "I'm not sure, but I think it's been energy spun."

"Which is?" Jake asked.

"If you take a crystal and apply enough heat, you can turn it molten, literally weave it into other shapes and forms," she said, attempting to explain. "I've tried it a few times, but I'm not really good at getting it to take shape yet. It takes an incredible amount of psi-energy to do it."

Jake glanced back at the hieroglyphs. "Those drawings depict the choker and the orb as emanating a great energy. I don't suppose you happened to tuck those in your back pocket?"

Tessa laughed. "Of course not." Those things were back in Maine, safely hidden away. She'd had no reason to pack them for a trip out to sea.

"We could have them flown in," Jake started to suggest, then stopped himself. His gaze sparked. "Or Tessa could whip them up here."

She raised a brow. "Whip them up?"

Jake snapped his fingers. "Why not? You whammied us straight to the bottom of the sea. What's so hard about bringing down a few trinkets?"

Tessa rolled her eyes. "You were on a ship just a few miles away. Those things are half a world away. I doubt I could fetch them from that far. It might have been a fluke that I could bring you guys down here in the first place."

Kenneth paled. "G.o.d, I hope not."

Sensing his growing discomfort, Tessa looked at him and frowned. "Don't worry. I'll get you out of here. If we run out of air, I'll swim you out." She pointed to her lips. "I've got the magic kiss, babe."

"I'd take one of those," Jake said. "Teleportation makes me sick."

Tessa shot him a middle finger. "You'll take this and hope you can hold your breath long enough to reach the surface."

Jake pouted. "You sure have gotten touchy since you've learned to do all that s.h.i.t."

She narrowed her eyes. "Better watch it, or I'll send you to the far side of the moon."

Kenneth brightened. "Can you do that?"

Jake threw up his hands. "G.o.d, sometimes it feels as if I'm dealing with Tweedledum and Tweedledee. Can you get the items or not?"

His request instantly sobered her.