The sea rose in the night and never went back down. By dawn the mountains were islands, and the cities everyone remembered were just rumors now. Iyla rowed to her father's old boathouse, where her brother Sefu was already waiting. They hadn't spoken in three years. But the will named them both, and it named one thing: the diving bell. It hung from the rafters, heavy brass and green with age. Folded inside it were a waxed map and a single key.

Sefu grabbed the key before Iyla could reach it. "I'm not chasing some treasure hunt," he said. "There are people starving on the high ridge. We should sell the bell, buy supplies, and help them." Iyla crossed her arms. "Dad left this to both of us. You don't get to decide alone."

Sefu pocketed the key and stormed out to sell the bell himself. But on the dock he froze. A girl from the ridge sat there, thin and hungry, watching him. He thought of his father, then of his sister still inside. He turned around and walked back in. "Okay," he told Iyla. "We do it your way. Together."

They dove together and brought up the seeds, then shared them with every island in reach. The thin girl from the dock grew the first field. Years later she ran the whole seed bank. Sefu liked to say selling the bell would have been the worst mistake of his life. Iyla never let him forget it.