“He always does,” Shay said quietly. He reached into his coat and pulled out a small, dented compass. Not the one that pointed north. This one had been modified by Benjamin Franklin—a useless invention that pointed not to magnetic poles, but to the nearest source of Isu energy. It was the compass that had led him to Lisbon. To the earthquake. To his damnation.

Hope’s lip trembled—not from cold, but from the crack in her conviction. “He said the ends justify the means.”

He never saw Hope Jensen again. But months later, a weathered compass arrived at a Templar safehouse in New York, wrapped in a torn piece of white fabric. No note. No explanation.

She had touched the carving. She had felt the tremor. And she had chosen to walk away from the creed, not toward it.

Shay felt the old sting. Assassins. His former family. His new prey.

Shay boarded alone, pike in hand.

The North Atlantic, 1752. Three months since Shay Cormac turned his back on the Colonial Brotherhood. Three months since Lisbon shattered beneath his boots.

He stood, turned his back on her, and walked toward the Morrigan ’s gangplank.

She opened her eyes. Green, defiant, and full of a hatred he recognized—because he had once worn that same look.