Page 99 of Tomb of the Sun King

The horse huffed in protest, and Ellie quickly skipped away.

Zeinab appeared beside them. “We need to talk.” Her gaze drifted from Ellie and Adam to Sayyid, who was standing off to the side, looking forlorn and bewildered. “Follow me.”

Jemmahor detached herself from the abbess to join them as Zeinab led them into the cool, dim interior of the building. Umm Waseem strolled at their heels with her black satchel slung over her shoulder.

They emerged in a quiet chapel lit by narrow windows set in thick walls. Tidy rows of worn wooden pews faced a stone altar, while the dome overhead was decorated with time-worn paintings of colorful saints.

Zeinab dropped into one of the pews. For a moment, her facade of authority fell away, revealing the tired, overwhelmed woman who hid beneath it. “Can we be certain we were not followed?”

“I saw no one on the trail,” Jemmahor reported. “If they did mean to follow us, they would have to see our tracks, and the wind is blowing. The mountains won’t leave any sign that we came through.”

“Then let us get down to business,” Zeinab concluded.

“No!” Sayyid burst out.

He had not taken a seat, but had rather remained standing, pacing uncomfortably across the narrow space between the pews and the steps to the altar. Tension radiated off of him.

“We aren’t doing anything until you tell me what is going on!” he continued. “Why are you ambushing villains? Threatening dangerous people with scalpels? You help people have babies! You don’t maraud around the countryside like some kind of bandit!”

A flash of hurt flickered through Zeinab’s expression. It was quickly swallowed by a cold, simmering anger. “You don’t approve?”

“Approve?!” Sayyid echoed with a wild laugh. “Of course I don’t approve! I’m absolutely terrified! What if you had been caught? What if one of those men hadshotyou?!”

“They could not shoot her,” Jemmahor cheerfully interjected. “One of Umm Waseem’s cousins pinned down that fellow with the big ears, and I stole the other gun.” She lifted her rifle and gave it a little wave. “Not that I would actually shoot anyone with it. I am not a barbarian.”

Her explanation did not seem to relieve Sayyid. “And now your apprentice is stealing guns!” he exclaimed, throwing up his hands. “Guns, ya habibti! This is… Any one of you might have… Have you no sense of… of…”

The rest of whatever he intended to say was choked off by a rising panic. With a grumbling sigh, Umm Waseem pushed up from her seat and crossed over to him. She shoved him down into a pew.

“?ot rasak ben rokbetak,” the older woman ordered authoritatively before pushing his head down over his lap.

Sayyid more or less collapsed under her ministrations, dropping his head onto his arms. “I think I might be sick,” he groaned.

“But whydidyou come?” Ellie demanded.

“To watch you,” Zeinab returned shortly with an uncomfortable glance at her husband. “To see whether you succeeded in finding the Staff of Musa.”

“And if we did?” Ellie prompted with a thrill of suspicion.

Zeinab’s look was hard. “To take it from you, if it should prove necessary.”

“What would’ve made it necessary?” Adam asked.

He had taken a seat beside Ellie, draping his arm comfortably over the back of the pew as he stretched his crossed legs out in front of him.

“She means if you intended to use it to keep Egypt under your boots,” Jemmahor piped in helpfully, her dark eyes glittering.

“And is that something you do often?” Adam prompted dryly. “Menace bad guys and rescue magic artifacts?”

Zeinab looked to Umm Waseem, who chuckled darkly as she settled herself back into one of the pews.

Jemmahor plastered an innocent expression on her face—which only succeeded in making her seem entirely suspicious. “We are part of an informal ladies’ association devoted to protecting the interests of the Egyptian people. Ostazah Zeinab is our leader, and Umm Waseem is our…”

Jemmahor’s voice trailed off awkwardly as she flashed a guilty look at Sayyid.

“Munitions expert,” Zeinab filled in tiredly from where she sat slumped in her pew.

Sayyid made a choked sound. He lifted his head from his lap, staring at his wife and her friends with dismay.

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