“I understand,” I said in a hush. “You won’t outwardly disobey my uncle.”
“Did it ever occur to you that he might want to protect your feelings? Maybe the details would upset you.” He tugged at his wayward hair, clearly torn over what to say to me. “The essentials are the same, Olivera. Your parents are both gone, and nothing you discover will change any of that.”
“So the gate has something to do with my parents.” I ground my teeth in frustration. Annoyance built inside me, one brick at a time. I understood Whit had a job to do, but right now, he stood in the way of the answers I desperately wanted—no, the ones I needed. This was about my family, information on what had happened to them.
How they died.
“Are you always so good at following orders?” I asked bitterly.
He straightened away from me, his blue eyes lit with an anger I’d never seen. “As a matter of fact, I am not.”
“I find that very hard to believe.”
“You don’t know anything about me. I’ve kept it that way.”
“I know enough,” I countered.
“Listen, you fool—”
“Not thirty seconds ago you said I was intelligent.”
“You don’t know me,” he repeated, furious, raising his voice to speak over me. “You don’t know the things I’ve done. You asked me once if I was in the British military—I’m not.” He leaned forward, his face inches away from mine. “Would you care to know why?”
I stubbornly remained silent.
“I was dishonorably discharged,” he said in a haunted voice I didn’t recognize. I’d seen him exasperated and impatient, furious and aloof. But he’d never sounded so bitterly defeated. Not even once. “You know your way back to the campsite, don’t you?”
“Whit—”
“Mr. Hayes, if you don’t mind,” he said with some of his former asperity. “Let’s observe proper etiquette.”
“If that’s what you really want.”
“It is.”
“Fine.”
“Fine,” he said.
“By the way,” I said, lifting my chin. “We’re even.”
Whit stiffened.
“You’ve said my name twice.”
“That doesn’t make us even. It makes us idiots!” Whit shouted. He pinched the bridge of his nose and inhaled deeply, fighting for control. His next words came out measured. “Well, it won’t be happening again, that I can promise you.” He strode away in a huff, his posture rigid, his back ruler straight.
Ugh, ugh, ugh. I pressed my fingers to my temple, trying to unravel the knots in my mind. But nothing made sense anymore.
What did the gate have to do with my parents’ deaths?
Whit
Christ, I needed a drink. I missed the burn in my throat, the way it blurred my memories. Why had I stopped? I’d done it without really knowing. But here was another conversation I wanted to forget.
The silly chit knew nothing about me.
I was tired of her assumptions. Tired of the hurt that bloomed in her changing eyes whenever my voice went sharp. What the hell did I care anyway? I strode quickly, wanting as much distance from her as possible. Ricardo could deal with her for the rest of the day. I signed up for a lot of things when he offered me the job. I was to protect his interests. Putting my life at risk was a given. It meant late nights, and countless hours of waiting and watching in shadowy corners. It meant pulling the trigger of my pistol.
What I didn’t sign up for was his niece.
I was starting to hate the way she saw through me. The military had shaken my faith in humanity, but it gave me a way to protect myself. With my own eyes, I had witnessed the horror that men wasted on the earth. I remembered more than I wished to, remembered, too, the long days afterward, minutes filled with whiskey on my breath and bloody fists and hazy nights. Before Ricardo found me in a Cairo alley, battered and bruised from another senseless bar fight, holding on to a gun that didn’t belong to me.
“You ought to put your brawn to better use,” he’d said. He cleaned me up until my head cleared long enough to realize I had another option available. I had more days spent sober, and with time, I passed Ricardo’s test and became a part of his team.
I didn’t want to ruin the time I had left in Egypt.
All too soon, I would have to leave if I didn’t find what I was looking for. Funny how my fate came down to a single sheet of paper.
I found Ricardo at headquarters, bent over the map, his index finger pressing hard on the paper as if he wanted to smudge away any imperfections. He glanced up at my approach. I wasn’t trying to be quiet. Frustration still churned in my gut.
“Why aren’t you with Inez?”
“I needed a break,” I muttered.
Ricardo’s expression turned sympathetic. “Understandable.”
He misunderstood, but I didn’t bother correcting him. He wouldn’t appreciate what I really meant, anyway. “I know why Basil Sterling hunts for Cleopatra.”
Ricardo slowly straightened, his shoulders tightening as if bracing himself for the worst.
“Why?” he asked through clenched teeth. “Glory? Money?”
I nodded. “Yes, but it’s more than that.”
“Mierda,” he snarled. “What the fuck else does he want with her?”
I curled my lip, hardly wanting to say the words. “He wants her body—her mummy. He believes it holds magical properties. Cleopatra is said to have been adept at magic,” I reminded him. “We don’t have concrete proof she cast spells, but it’s an educated guess based on written accounts.”
The blood drained from Ricardo’s face. “And?”
I sighed. “He’s going to cut up the body and pulverize it. The magic is rumored to heal any sickness.” I paused. “There’s a rumor he’s ill with consumption.”
Ricardo’s eyelids drifted shut. “Damn.”
“What do you want to do?”
His eyes opened, blazing and intense. “We find her first, and then make sure that he never does.”
Capítulo Diecinueve
With a sigh, I sat back down and finished painting until my back was sore, my fingers cramped. I worked until the moon rose high overhead, silvery light streaming inside from the rectangular hole in the ceiling. When I finally finished, I stood, stretching my stiff limbs. I desperately wanted to search through his room, but it’d be foolish to attempt such a thing during my first day here. I’d have to be strategic, and do it when Whit wasn’t hovering near me.
With a last look around to make sure I wasn’t forgetting anything, I made my way past the two pylons and then outside to the large courtyard. There was no one in sight, quiet save for the gentle hum of the Nile flowing on either side of the small island. The song of the river kept me company as I walked back to camp.
As I walked past Trajan’s Kiosk, I felt a peculiar tingle in my fingers. The same one I’d felt earlier. The feeling grew as I drew closer to the immense structure. I was alone, my path illuminated by a million twinkling stars guiding every step. The scene felt ancient and immortal. Magic pulsed in my blood. I took another step, and then another, until I was close enough to touch the platform of Pharaoh’s Bed. My fingers brushed along the limestone.