Page 170 of Tomb of the Sun King

Constance rolled her eyes. “It’s not treasure, you dolt! It’s history!”

“Why can’t it be both?” Julian protested, looking a little hurt.

He had changed into a khaki sporting suit like a gentleman heading out for a spot of game hunting—save for the oddity of the old leather scabbard he wore around his hips. A bone hilt protruded from the sheath, the material gently yellowed with age.

Julian cheerfully surveyed Neferneferuaten’s grave goods as though he had turned up to shop at an exceptionally good rummage sale. His thugs filed into the room behind him. Ellie counted five Al-Saboors, variously armed with knives and—most worryingly—a pair of rifles.

“How are you even here?” Constance demanded impatiently.

“One of the Al-Saboors climbed the ridge to—er, answer the call of nature—and spotted your rope,” he replied. “Though he rather took his time getting the word back to us.”

He cast an irritated look back at the cluster of menacing cousins as though trying and failing to pick out which of them had been responsible for the lack of alacrity.

The men glanced at each other in confusion. The one with the big ears shrugged, then quickly stepped aside as a shadowy figure approached the doorway.

Jacobs entered the room, his hand twisted into the back of Jemmahor’s cloak.

He shoved the apprentice midwife to her knees and swung up her stolen Enfield, pressing the barrel to the back of her neck as the young woman’s dark eyes flashed with frustrated fury.

Julian grimaced awkwardly. “Look—I am sorry it’s come down to this. The whole situation seems to have gotten entirely out of hand, but I’m sure we can settle things like reasonable people.”

“Reasonable people don’t generally point guns at each other,” Adam noted in a deceptively lazy tone. The blade of his machete gleamed in the lamplight as he held it ready at his thigh.

“This is just a precaution!” Julian protested with a wave at Jemmahor, who glared at him like an angry cat. He whirled to Constance. “This has all been a wretched misunderstanding. I don’t know what these people told you, but I’m not the villain here! We’re all on the same side!”

“We are not on the same side,” Zeinab spat back, her green eyes flashing with quiet rage.

“Well, maybe notyou,” Julian amended. “But the rest of you are civilized people. That’s all we’re doing here—protecting civilization!”

Ellie took in the pleading expression on Julian’s face—framed as it was by the skeptical, bored, or greedy expressions of his hired mercenaries—and realized that the fool actuallybelievedwhat he was saying.

A familiar voice rose in self-important tones from behind the clustered thugs. “Excuse me! Coming through! Let the expert through, please!”

Dawson shuffled into the room, squeezing past the bulk of an enormous, thickly muscled Al-Saboor. “Please refrain from touching anything—this must all be left to the professionals,” he ordered. “A little-known pharaoh and the entirety of his grave goods is a find of unprecedented importance!”

Ellie’s patience burnt out like a fuse. “Not ‘his.’” She jabbed a finger toward the gilded woman in the sarcophagus. “Hers!”

“Ha ha ha!” Dawson laughed. “What a silly notion.”

“We can split the rest of it. Fifty-fifty.” Julian cast another greedy look at the glittering funerary hoard. “Or sixty-forty, maybe—just so long as we get what we came here for. Where is the staff?”

“Haven’t found it yet.” Adam’s tone was casual—but a ready tension quietly infused his frame.

“Search them,” Jacobs flatly suggested. A thin thread of impatience wove through the words.

“Well, I… I suppose that would be a sensible precaution,” Julian admitted.

Zeinab lifted her hands. “No one move! If the powder in this sarcophagus is disturbed, everyone here will die in a mess of vomit and convulsions!”

Julian stiffened with surprise. “What’s that?!” He cast a bewildered glance at Dawson. “Is she serious?”

“There is no such thing as booby traps,” Dawson authoritatively retorted.

“Right,” Julian concluded with a weary sigh. “Best get on with it, then.”

Jacobs’ eyes narrowed thoughtfully. “Best not.”

Ellie’s pulse skipped. Nothing in Jacobs’ expression had changed. He still held the rifle to the back of Jemmahor’s neck as she knelt on the ground before him, her hands clenched into fists.

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