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I was about to continue my way to the temple when my uncle suddenly turned around from the party and stomped back to us, his face set in apronounced scowl. He threw himself back onto the bit of rock he’d been using as a makeshift chair. Two letters poked out of his tanned fist.
Curiosity kept me in place. “What is it?”
Abdullah grinned. “An invitation?”
Tío Ricardo visibly weighed his response, his frown becoming more pronounced as the seconds ticked by. If someone were to carve him, this would be the expression. My uncle in his most natural state.
“I deplore it when you’re smug,” my uncle grumbled back.
I sat down on a rock. “Who is the invitation from?”
“The New Year’s Eve ball held at Shepheard’s every year,” Abdullah said cheerfully. “Your uncle never goes.”
“Why don’t you want to go?” I interrupted.
My uncle shuddered. “Because, Inez, it means tearing myself away from here, when there’s so much work to be done. I won’t announce our findingsever,and while I trust the majority of our team, I know it’s naive to believe our discovery won’t go unnoticed for long. It’s imperative that we record everything we’ve found with proper and distant objectivitybeforethe incompetent gentlemen who call themselves archaeologists descend onto Philae. Idiots, all of them.”
He had almost convinced me. But I remembered the harsh lines of his face when he talked about Papá, remembered how he’d led me to believe that both my parents had died, lost in the desert.
My uncle ought to be on stage. He’d make a fortune.
“No one will come looking here during the ball,” Abdullah said mildly, picking up the thread of conversation. “Don’t forget that I’ll be here to maintain order, as I haven’t been invited.”
“Like I said. Idiots,” Tío Ricardo said. “Most are glorified treasure hunters, stealing anything that can be moved. And I do mean anything—coffins and mummies, obelisks, sphinxes. Literallythousandsof artifacts. There are a very few,” my uncle said, “who care about keeping proper records, who understand the necessity of knowledge and safeguarding Egypt’s past.”
“But as they are Egyptian, they are often excluded like I am,” Abdullah said with quiet fury. “And until I’m not at a disadvantage from the field of study, none of what we excavate will be shared with the Antiquities Service.”
My heart broke for him. My uncle’s deception would shatter him.
“Ricardo.” Abdullah held out his hand. “Give it to me, please.”
Wordlessly, my uncle handed the second letter to Abdullah, who read it once, then twice.
“I don’t understand,” Abdullah said. “Maspero revoked your firman? But why?”
Anger etched itself onto my uncle’s face. “I suspect Sir Evelyn had something to do with it, the bastard.”
“Youmustgo to the party,” Abdullah said. “And make it right. You know what’s at stake.”
“Zazi hated the Cairo set,” Ricardo protested.
“She did,” Abdullah agreed.
“But she came with me.”
Abdullah was already shaking his head. “My coming would make things worse. You know this.”
“But—”
“I know my sister, and she’d tell you to go.”
Ricardo groaned. “We can cover—”
“It won’t be enough to fool a seasoned archaeologist.” Abdullah leaned forward, brows furrowed. “Think of what Zazi would want, Ricardo.”
My uncle stared mutinously at his brother-in-law. But in slow degrees, he softened under the weight of Abdullah’s quiet firmness. “Fine, I’ll go. The day after Navidad.”
Somehow, I’d forgotten all about Christmas fast approaching. We never celebrated as a family on the actual day. My parents were in Egypt every year, and so we exchanged gifts when they returned. This past exchange had been my last with my father. I wish I had known. I had been closed off and surly, annoyed that I was given a consolation holiday duringwinterwhen everyoneelsein Buenos Aires celebrated properly during our summer in December.
