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"I quite enjoy the walk, actually."
Because I can walk and walk now without fear of ever tiring. Much as your father is probably walking now, clear across Europe.
"Very well, then," he said.
But all she said was "It was a pleasure to see you, Alex. And I mean no offense when I say it is also a pleasure to see you somewhat changed."
He reached up and slid the glasses off the bridge of her nose, exposing her blue eyes to passersby. Then he folded them and placed them gently in her hand.
"The feeling is mutual, Julie."
And then she was gone, and after a few minutes, she decided to keep the glasses exactly where Alex had placed them.
14
"Alex must leave London at once!" Julie cried.
She burst into the drawing room without regard for who might be in it. But she could sense Ramses very nearby.
The doors to the adjacent library opened, and he emerged, alarmed by her cry.
The conservatory beyond was a riot of blossoms he'd planted before they'd left for Egypt. Blossoms which had exploded to fullness in a matter of minutes after Ramses had sprinkled them with only a few drops of the elixir. They would never die, these flowers, and soon the maid, Rita, would grow suspicious of their vitality and life, and Julie would have no choice but to drop them into the Thames and hope they floated away forever. And it was through the conservatory's stained-glass windows that the sun's rays had awakened Ramses months before.
But now all of this seemed menacing, somehow, even the low, insistent gurgle of the conservatory's fountain. Overwhelming, laced with darkness. She'd known a return to London might be less than blissful. But it was grief for her father she had feared once she was surrounded by his belongings again; not this overwhelming concern for someone who still lived. Perhaps her immortality gave as much strength to her emotions, be they joyous or grim, as it did to her grip.
Even after Ramses curved an arm around her, she still felt if she were standing on the deck of a keeling ship.
"He is obsessed, Ramses. He is utterly obsessed. I never could have predicted it."
"With you?"
"No. With Cleopatra." A wolf's growl, the way she said the woman's name. The queen's name. The demon's name.
Quickly, Ramses guided her into her father's old library off the drawing room, the one they called the Egyptian Room. The handsome bookcases had heavy glass doors to protect the precious volumes within from dust, and small statues and relics lined the top of each. Ramses closed off the drawing room, a sure sign that Rita was still about, preparing platters of food, no doubt.
They were alone now with her father's old journals and books with his notes scrawled in the margins. None of these things was a comfort. Not in this moment.
"We will tell him to cancel the party," Julie said, her words coming out of her in a rush. "We'll say you're being called to meet with contacts in India. Then we'll arrange for Alex to take a trip around the world. I can fund it, of course. Perhaps he can go to Paris with his mother. And Elliott's sending home all sorts of money. From every casino in Europe, it sounds like. So it should be a--"
"But why, Julie? Why now?"
"You want to see India, don't you? You've said so many times."
"I want to see the world and I want to see it with you. But to cancel the party? To send Alex away this abruptly? I don't understand what drives this."
"Don't you see? He's been shaken to his core by what's happened. And if we aren't to tell him the truth about it, he's just going to pine away for that awful, hideous creature."
"You didn't speak of her with this anger when we learned she was still alive. What has changed?"
"I didn't think we had anything to fear from her."
"And now we do?"
"Yes. Don't you see? Alex...He hasn't done what he vowed to do. He hasn't returned to the business of living, or some tepid definition of it. He's unrecognizable, Ramses. He's a new man, but he's a new man who pines only for her."
"And you feel jealousy?"
"No! It's fear, Ramses. I fear for him. For if she has his heart, imagine the damage she can do to the rest of him."
