I’m glad she rested with her family. Glad, too, that everything that had been provided for her journey through the underworld was accounted for and recorded. Years from now, Abdullah’s careful recordings would be a guide for those studying the last gasp of her life on Earth. Time slipped by and I forced myself to turn away from Cleopatra’s sarcophagus. My gaze lingered in the treasury, wishing I could place the ring back where it belonged.
The ring had started everything.
He’d sent it to me for a reason. I might never know it, and the thought nearly killed me. I felt as if I were saying goodbye to him all over again. What had happened to him?
I wished I had the answer.
My thoughts returned to Elvira, and I knew it was time to go. I passed Kareem on the way back to the campsite. I called him over with a quick wave.
“I’m leaving, and I wanted to say goodbye. It was wonderful meeting you.”
He smiled. “Don’t be sad, sitti. You’ll be back.”
I blinked back tears. I hoped that was true, but that depended on what had happened to Elvira. It also depended on my uncle.
“Ma’ es-salama,” he said.
I made my way down to the water, where the Elephantine waited. All of our belongings were grouped together on the bank, and Tío Ricardo and Whit were in deep conversation. The former appeared stern, the latter frustrated. Then my uncle boarded the dahabeeyah as I joined Whit on the sandbank. He looked as rumpled as ever, wrinkled shirt untucked, boots worn and scuffed beyond the help of polishing, and his hair windswept, falling at an angle across his brow.
We stared at each other, Whit’s hands deep in his pockets, and my own nervously clasped behind my back.
“What were you two discussing?” I asked finally. It hadn’t looked like a friendly conversation.
He stared down at me. “I never wanted you to feel anything for me,” he said. “I’m sorry that you do.”
“I’m not,” I said. “But I understand why you feel that way.”
“I’m coming with you to Cairo.”
My heart lifted, practically soaring upward like a bird with outstretched wings. But Whit read the apparent joy in my face, and he shook his head. “I have to go back to England.”
I crashed back onto solid ground. “You’re going back?”
“After the military, I was a mess. Maybe parts of me still are. But Ricardo gave me a job, purpose. Direction. It helped to straighten me out a bit. But I can’t continue ignoring my responsibilities. My parents expected me to return a year ago. I can’t keep putting it off any longer.”
It being his marriage. We were going to be a world away from each other, me in Argentina, him in England. And he would have a wife. His days in Egypt had always been numbered. Regret filled me slowly as I thought of our time on this island together. The way we had worked together, cataloguing every discovery, no matter how small. We had been a team and now we would be nothing at all. Not even friends.
“I’m sorry you didn’t find what you were looking for,” I said softly.“What was it?”
He remained quiet for a long beat and then shrugged. “Cleopatra had an ancestor—also named Cleopatra—who was a renowned alchemist and Spellcaster. I was looking for a single sheet of parchment she’d written on before she died.”
A memory flickered in my mind. Elusive and hazy. “What did it say?”
He laughed humorlessly. “I was chasing a rumor, Olivera. It probably doesn’t exist, or if it did, it was destroyed a long time ago.”
“What did it say?” I repeated, the memory becoming sharper. Cleopatra had been preparing something, reading a . . . had it been a scroll? Or a sheet? I couldn’t remember.
“It’s time to go,” Tío Ricardo shouted down at us from the dahabeeyah.
All thoughts of Cleopatra and her ancestor scattered. Neither of us reached for the other. I didn’t think I could, disappointment clouding my vision. Whit remained silent, too, as if he couldn’t bring himself to say anything else.
I joined him on the deck, the distance between us stretching, as if he’d already gone.
*
We arrived in Cairo on a sunny afternoon, the last day in December. The rest of the journey had been slow, and there had been trouble with the Elephantine which kept us from sailing for a few extra days. The hours were filled with long evenings spent alone. My uncle had kept to himself, writing letters and sending them off when we stopped in Thebes for food and other supplies. Whit was friendly when we had to be around each other, but he never sought me out for conversation and he often retreated to his room after dinner. I knew it was for the best. But my heart was still broken and my emotions swung wildly. I was anxious to be on my way, to help find Elvira. I was desperate to stay and help them find my traitorous mother. I promised myself I’d make things right, but now I was leaving.
Back and forth the pendulum swung, leaving my nerves raw and wrung out.
“I’m going to book your passage to Buenos Aires,” Tío Ricardo said as we walked up the steps leading to the front door of Shepheard’s. The front terrace was as crowded as on the day I’d first left it. Travelers enjoyed tea and catching up with old friends. The street below bustled with its usual familiar activity, hackney cabs clamoring up and down the main avenue.
I’d miss Cairo, and grief gripped me like a too-tight dress clenched around my ribs.
I was making the right choice. Elvira needed me. But a part of me wouldn’t let me forget how badly I’d failed—everyone.
“Would you like to send a telegram?” Tío Ricardo asked, jarring me from my thoughts. “It’s faster than regular post.”
“Sí, por favor,” I said in Spanish. I’d gotten in the habit of conversing with my uncle in English, but now that I was leaving for Argentina, my mind had already made the switch. “How early do you think I can depart for Alexandria?”
“That depends on you,” he said. “Would you like to hear word from your aunt? It’s possible that Elvira might have already been found.”
“I thought of that as well,” I said, waiting for my eyes to adjust to the dim lighting of Shepheard’s lobby. People milled around in small groups, chatting gaily, while others were seated in the various couches along the walls. The granite pillars stood tall and imposing, reminding me of the ones found in Philae. I missed the small island, an ache that tore at my skin, my breath, heart. I had no way of knowing when I’d ever see her again. “There might even be a letter waiting for me.”
We hurried to the front desk and Sallam’s familiar smile greeted us. “Hello, Se?or Marqués, Se?orita Olivera, and Mr. Hayes. It’s wonderful to see you again, and in time for the New Year’s Eve ball, too.”
He gestured to several hotel attendants carrying vases of beautiful blooms to the ballroom. They were a riot of colors, bold reds and pinks and purples. I would most likely be missing the night’s festivities, but I returned his grin with a faint smile of my own. “Sallam, is there a letter here for me?”
He immediately began checking the drawers, and rummaging through stacks of paper and letters. After he looked though everything, he checked again and then looked up at me. “There’s nothing for you. Were you expecting something?”