Page 67 of Tomb of the Sun King

Which seemed like a wretchedly cowardly thing to do.

Nor could Neil forget that they were setting out after a possible clue to the identity of the most mysterious and intriguing pharaohs of the Eighteenth Dynasty—one that lay at the center of Neil’s own passionate research interests. The allure of learning even some small part of the truth about Neferneferuaten—never mind any possible connection to Moses—was powerful, tugging at Neil like a fishing line even though he felt as though he were being swept out into a wind-tossed sea.

He hated it, and yet he couldn’t possibly walk away.

Sayyid was still waiting for his answer.

“I wish you hadn’t encouraged them,” Neil returned tightly.

Sayyid’s mouth thinned, his eyes flashing with a quick snap of emotion that left Neil wondering what he was trying not to say.

“Goodnight, Dr. Fairfax,” Sayyid replied—and then left Neil to the deserted office and his own uncomfortable thoughts.

??

Fifteen

Morning sunlight spilledover the scattered villages that punctuated the green ribbon of fertile land outside the windows of the train. Ellie watched them pass from her seat in another first-class compartment, paid for with bills from the pile of money in Constance’s corset.

Their departure early that morning had been uneventful. There had been no sign of pursuit as they trotted along the paths through the fields on the backs of Sayyid’s neighbor’s donkeys. Ellie felt confident that they had slipped away from Professor Dawson and his hired guns—and yet she knew better than to let her guard down. Jacobs had been conspicuously missing from the group that attacked them at Mutnedjmet’s tomb, but it would be a mistake to assume that meant he was no longer a threat.

With nothing outside the window to distract her, Ellie cast an uncomfortable look over the rest of her traveling party.

Sayyid sat nearest to the door. He was dressed in a tailored gray suit with a bright red fez crowning his head, which made him look very much the part of a refined Egyptian effendi as he browsed an Arabic newspaper. He was there because Ellie had asked him to come—but did he truly understand the risks of their journey? The scarred and bearded Al-Saboor cousins that they had encountered in Horemheb’s tomb had been bad enough, but they were nothing compared to the terrifying competence of Mr. Jacobs.

Ellie thought of the intense, unreadable look in Mrs. Al-Ahmed’s eyes as she stood on the path outside the house and watched Sayyid ride away with them that morning. She felt an uncomfortable twist of guilt.

Constance sat beside Ellie and was practically bouncing with excitement in her seat. Yesterday, they had set out from Cairo on a straightforward mission to beg Ellie’s brother to withhold a little information from his employers. Since then, they had been shot at, nearly buried alive, and were now headed halfway across the length of Egypt in pursuit of a clue from a three-thousand-year-old inscription.

None of that had deterred Constance in the slightest. Ellie wondered whether even a run-in with Jacobs would make Constance truly understand the risks she was taking.

At least Adam fully comprehended what he was getting into… but he came with a host of his own complications. Even with the others sharing the close confines of their compartment, Ellie could feel her pulse skip at the easy way his legs sprawled across the floor as he crossed his arms over the broad expanse of his chest. Every quiet minute where she found herself near him, her brain snapped back to the vivid, tantalizing memory of what his hands felt like on her skin.

He was still acting unusually quiet, his mouth creased into a thoughtful frown when he didn’t think anyone was looking at him. Ellie knew she needed to find a way to talk to him about whatever was making him act so strange—but she found herself uneasy about where that conversation might lead.

Finally, there was Neil. He sat between Adam and Sayyid on the opposite bench like a prisoner in the middle of an unwelcome transfer, his shoulders slumped in his uncharacteristically rumpled tweed suit.

For a moment that morning, Ellie had actually wondered whether her brother had reached his limit and simply deserted them. Ellie noticed that he’d vanished right around the time they were all loading onto the donkeys that Sayyid had borrowed from his gouty neighbor. For a beat, her heart had sunk in her chest, weighed down with the knowledge that she must have pushed her brother too far.

Then he had rounded the corner, hurrying back toward the house along the path. When Adam asked him where he’d been, Neil had flushed and bit out something about needing a walk.

Ellie couldn’t blame him for wanting space. Neil hadn’t asked for any of this and clearly wasn’t happy about having it forced on him. Even the tantalizing possibility of solving some part of the mystery of Neferneferuaten wasn’t enough to overcome his obvious frustration and dismay.

The only bright note was that Neil had done away with that embarrassing excuse for a mustache. He really ought to have known better than to even attempt it. After all, the man was nearly thirty. Surely he should have realized by now that he was fundamentally impaired when it came to the cultivation of facial hair.

“Ellie, you are missing another batch of pyramids.” Constance poked her in the arm.

Ellie forced herself out of her guilty reverie. Outside the window, another cluster of dusty, weathered lumps of stone drifted past them, punctuated by a fringe of date palms.

“Dahshur,” Ellie concluded distantly, recognizing their forms from books she had read in the past.

The pyramids of Dahshur were of immense scholarly importance… but Ellie struggled to muster interest. She was simply too bogged down by worry and uncertainty.

“Well, then,” Constance offered brightly. “Who wants to play charades?”

?

It was well into the afternoon when the call Ellie had been waiting for finally sounded from the corridor outside their compartment.

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