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I gestured to the ragged opening. “Shall we go through?”
“As you wish.”
I led the way, stepping over a pile of rocks, Whit at my heels. Within seconds, we were standing in yet another plain room. This one smelled even mustier and more damp, but it, too, opened into another room. Whit gestured for me to continue until we stood in a third room, just as plain and ordinary as the previous ones. I stepped closer to the walls, but there was no ornamentation, or hint that there had ever been, of any kind. The steady presence of the magic was my only guide.
It sensed something beyond the walls.
“Another ruse,” I murmured. “But what about…” My voice trailed off. From the little I could see, my uncle and his team were working on the right side of the room. There were half a dozen round and square pointed shovels, pickaxes, and helmets propped against the stone.
“What aboutwhat?” Whit said, watching me closely. “Feeling any tingles? Vibrations? An annoying buzz much like a pesky mosquito?”
“I wouldn’t sayannoying—wait a minute.” Those were the exact ways I felt the magic pulse through me. I narrowed my gaze, struck by a new possibility I hadn’t considered. “Have you felt it before?”
“Notmepersonally, no.”
“Then who?”
“Your father.”
I stepped closer, desperate to know more. “Tell me everything.”
“It isn’t much,” he said. “He was curiously private about certain things, your father. But he’d picked up something—”
“What was it?”
“Well, I didn’t know at the time, butnowI think it might have been the ring he sent you. Your father said he also tasted the magic, but he never said it was roses.”
I thought hard, trying to connect all the pieces in my cluttered mind. I remembered what I’d overheard the night I had snuck aboard theElephantine. “Did my uncle know about Papá?”
Whit paused. “He did.”
I opened my mouth, but Whit held up his hand. “No more questions. It’s late, and we have more to explore. I don’t fancy having your uncle find us down here.”
I blinked. I’d completely forgotten about the world above, and the people who slept unaware of what we were doing dozens of feet underground. The knowing of it sent a delicious thrill to my fingers. Was this how every archaeologist felt?
Whit dug his hands into his pockets. “Well? Anything?”
But I still had one more question. “Does my uncle believe he’s found Cleopatra’s tomb?”
Whit hesitated, his brows puckering. Every muscle along his jawline jumped. I waited, but he remained stubbornly silent, his moral compass refusing to point anywhere but due north.
Except for when it was inconvenient forhim.
“You can’t answer, can you?”
He smiled ruefully. “I can’t talk aboutanyof your uncle’s excavations. Do you feel anything in this room?”
Trust didn’t come easily, but I sensed that we’d circle around each other, getting nowhere, if one of us didn’t bend a little. I could do this on my own, come back while he slept, but I was tired of carrying the foreign magic by myself. It was too big, too powerful of a notion to shoulder. Aidwas within reach; I only needed to ask for it. I pointed to the left side, and gave him one truth. “Yes, and I’m sorry to say that my uncle is looking in the wrong spot. There’s something on the other side of this wall. That’s where he ought to excavate.”
“Are you sure?”
I nodded.
Whit grinned approvingly. “Good work, Olivera.”
I stared up at the tarp gently rustling against the ruined stone walls of my makeshift bedroom. Everything confirmed my suspicions about my uncle’s bizarre behavior: they were incredibly close to finding Cleopatra’s final resting place.
My mind reeled. Such a find would rock the Cairo community, and scores of foreigners would travel to Egypt wanting a piece of history. The Antiquities Service would hasten to Philae and take over the excavation, the last thing my uncle would want. What I still didn’t know was what his discovery had to do with my parents. Why had he deliberately led them out into the desert?
