Chapter 19
Chapter Nineteen
Alex
The abandoned train coach sat forgotten at the edge of Kantara’s rail yard, its faded green paint peeling like sunburnt skin. Alex squinted as he hurried toward it, keeping a close eye out for watching eyes, even at this early hour.
The savory scent of warm lamb drifted from the sambouseks Alex had carefully wrapped in a newspaper after filching them from a sleepy street vendor. Sweat trickled down his neck as he climbed the warped steps of the coach, careful not to let the rusted door squeal.
Inside, the air was cooler. Broken windows let in the grit of the desert wind and the battered seats were splintered and broken.
They’d slipped out of Port Said by the skin of their teeth—catching a midnight train south along the desert line, hidden in the cheap third-class compartment while the men of the ship searched the city behind them.
Now, Kantara was just another stopover before Cairo.
If they could reach his uncle’s house in Old Cairo, they’d be safe. He hoped.
He held his breath as he slipped further inside the coach, half expecting her to be gone.
He hadn’t wanted to leave Ivy alone, but it was better than taking her with him.
Ivy had a way of standing out in a crowd.
She didn’t know how to sneak around like Alex did, either—which meant that she was more likely to get them caught.
His footsteps echoed softly against the wooden floorboards, then Ivy’s head popped up from behind a broken seat in the back. She gave him a relieved smile. “What took so long? You’ve been gone ages.”
“I was trying to find a wineskin so we could have water, but I didn’t,” Alex said with a rueful look. “There’s a spigot close by. We can get some there if we need.” He stopped in front of her and knelt, offering the newspaper bundle. “And good news—breakfast. Here, I got us one each.”
Ivy pushed her long, dark hair from her shoulders, eyelashes fluttering as she took the food hesitantly. She sank back onto the floor and unwrapped it, then gave a suspicious look at the fried pastry. “What is it?”
“A meat pie.” Alex discarded the newspaper from his own, half reading the headlines upside down.
He liked the way the neat columns of letters stacked, his brain appreciating the order of letters and numbers.
But he was too hungry to think about that and he tore his gaze away, then bit into the pastry.
The taste made his stomach growl, and he glanced at Ivy, hoping she hadn’t heard. “I borrowed them from a street vendor.”
Ivy bit her lip, looking guiltily at the stolen food for a moment longer before she took a hesitant bite. The taste must have done away with her worry—another, larger bite followed.
“Don’t you feel bad?” Ivy asked a few minutes later. “Stealing things from people?”
“Borrowing,” Alex corrected. “As soon as I can get my hands on some money—legitimately—I’ll find a way to pay the vendor. Even if it takes a while. I never forget a face.”
Ivy rolled her eyes. “You’re far too optimistic for someone who was just shot at yesterday. I still think we need to turn ourselves over to the police. They’ll be able to help us better than anyone and keep us safe from those men. They might still be following us, you know.”
“They’re not,” Alex said confidently. “We lost them in Port Said.” That, he was sure of. The men from the ship had given them a good chase at first, but they’d managed to get away and stay out of sight until nightfall.
Alex polished off his pastry and looked regretfully at the discarded newspaper.
He should have taken a few more. A fly buzzed near the closest broken window, the air inside thick with the scent of warm, dusty wood and the ghost of old coal smoke.
The whole coach smelled like rusted iron and secrets lost to time.
“Our safest bet is to go to my Uncle Alastair’s house in Old Cairo.
My father always taught Clara and me that if anything happened to us while we were in Egypt, we should go to him. ”
“But this isn’t the type of situation your father was referring to,” Ivy said, frowning.
“Sure, Uncle Alastair might be able to help if you came up against an antiquities smuggler—but not kidnappers. This is serious, Alex. Who better to help us than the police? Or the consulate. They’ll protect us. It’s their job.”
Alex ran his fingertip over a grease smudge on the newspaper.
“You really think the same people who waved your kidnappers through customs will keep us safe? Those men who took you didn’t look worried about getting caught—they looked connected.
Men like that don’t get caught. They get paid not to.
And then they pay others to keep quiet about it. ”
Ivy finished her pastry and leaned back on her hands. “I guess you’re right.”
Frowning, Alex let his eyes drift onto the inked words of the paper—The Egyptian Gazette, actually—which meant the words were in familiar English. “I just don’t understand why they took you in the first place.”
“They didn’t mean to take me,” Ivy admitted softly. She swallowed hard, her eyes downcast. “They thought I was Clara for a while.”
Oh.
That hit Alex hard, like a fist in the stomach. Outside, a train whistle howled—distant, but sharp and haunting.
His little sister.
He frowned. They would have had their hands full if they’d taken Clara.
No way Clara would have let them drag her into the car or a train without kicking and screaming the whole time.
The men wouldn’t have known that, though.
They’d probably tried to take Clara because they thought she was easier to kidnap than him.
A sick feeling bit his throat.
Maybe it was better that they’d grabbed Ivy. Who knows what those men might have done to keep Clara quiet. They could have hurt her. Ivy’s cooperativeness might have earned her their mercy.
Not that he’d tell Ivy that.
“Well, don’t worry, we’ll find a way to get back home soon,” he said, offering her a reassuring grin.
“Once we’re in Cairo, we’ll be safe. It’s only a few hours away from here by train—I’ll go out again in another hour.
Disguise myself as a local boy and beg for baksheesh from tourists.
Hopefully I can get enough to get us both tickets by the end of the day. ”
“I’ll disguise myself too. Two of us begging will get us the money faster.”
Alex grimaced. “Maybe. It’s hard work, Ivy.”
“I don’t mind hard work.” Her brow furrowed and she scanned his face a moment longer.
A defeated slump settled on her shoulders.
“That’s not it. You think I’ll give us away—don’t you?
That I don’t have what it takes to survive this world.
” A grim, determined look flashed in her face and she twisted the hem of her skirt, knuckles white.
“I’ll have you know, I was thinking of running away. ”
Alex furrowed his brow. “Running away … from the men who kidnapped you?”
“No,” she said, not meeting his eyes.
He didn’t understand. “From me?”
“No, silly. From home.” She continued twisting her skirt in her hand. The garment was far dirtier than anything Alex had ever seen her wear. Which must be killing her. She’s always been like a porcelain doll.
He almost let that last thought distract him enough that he didn’t fully comprehend what she’d said. And then … it hit him. “You were thinking of running away from home?” He gave her an incredulous look.
Never—not once—would he ever have imagined Ivy would consider running away from home.
Clara, sure. She liked her adventures just as much as Alex did.
And Alex regularly hopped on trains and rode his bike past the limits of where his parents had deemed acceptable.
But Ivy?
She had a strong stomach, to be sure—she’d been following Mama around in the hospital for years, helping where she could. She had a genuine interest in medicine and science, even though her own mother likely saw it as a passing hobby.
But beyond that?
Ivy was the one whom Clara and Alex always had to prod to accompany them for anything that might earn her a scolding.
When she returned from her grandparents’ or Aunt Angelica’s house, the clothes and things she came back with were so expensive that Alex worried about walking within ten feet of her and getting her dirty.
Alex’s startled silence must have bothered her, though.
She frowned, meeting his eyes, then said in a rush, “Mama is thinking of sending me to Roedean next term. For the foreseeable future, actually. And—I don’t want to go, Alex.
I want to stay home. With Clara … and …” A lump moved in her throat as she swallowed, still holding his gaze. She didn’t finish the thought.
The news hurt, somewhere deep in his chest, but he gave her a stiff smile. “Roedean’s a good school, though, Ivy. It’ll open lots of opportunities for you.”
She sighed. “Opportunities? For what—a gilded cage?” She shook her head bitterly. “Mama doesn’t think I know about it—she hasn’t even told me yet. Mama wants me to be some society lady, sit pretty for the family fortune. And the thought of it makes me feel sick.”
“There are worse things than being handed a family fortune and an excellent education,” Alex said wryly, lifting a brow. “You’re luckier than you realize. Papa may have done a good job teaching me all he knows, but I won’t get into a good university without a scholarship—”
“Which you’ll earn. Easily.”
“But that’s not the point. The point is that my educational opportunities are limited. Especially right now. Do you know what I wouldn’t give to be able to—”
“I should have known you of all people wouldn’t understand.” Ivy turned her body away from his. “All you ever think about is your books—and how to get your hands on more of them. That’s all you care about. Education.”
He stared at her, mouth open, trying to understand her.
She’s so incomprehensible to me.
She frustrated him in a way he couldn’t quite verbalize. Of course he cared about books. And learning. And why shouldn’t he? It had gotten him out of more than one scrape before—including helping free her from the men who’d kidnapped her.
But he sensed he’d hurt her feelings somehow.
He didn’t know what he’d said that had bothered her so much.
Going over it, everything had been perfectly logical.
Roedean was a good school. She’d be a fool not to go.
“If you think I should have told you that running away is a better option than getting an education, I don’t know what to tell you,” he said at last. “Besides, you wouldn’t last two minutes as a runaway.
Though maybe Roedean would be wasted on you. ”
Ivy’s face paled, then outrage flowed into her eyes and she stood, fury in her stance.
“Why, because you think you’re so much smarter than me?
I was doing just fine on my own in that ship before you came along, you know.
Maybe they kidnapped me, but I wasn’t stupid about it either.
I took the opportunity to listen in on their conversations when they thought I was sleeping.
And I heard lots that I can use to get them in trouble once we get to the police. Which is where we should be going.”
“I don’t think I’m smarter than you,” Alex said lazily. He stretched his legs out, nonplussed by her reaction. “We’re equally intelligent. You just don’t bother trying to learn more than the necessary about anything. And you don’t apply yourself. If you did, you’d want to go to Roedean.”
“Oh, I don’t even know what I was thinking telling you about any of this.” Ivy stamped her feet, turning around in the rusty coach as though looking for an exit. A shaft of sunlight spilled through a hole in the far corner of one side, revealing glimmering cobwebs.
Why is this making her so upset?
“What did you expect, Ivy? You’re like a sister to me. If you tell me nonsense about preferring to run away over going to school, I’m going to tell you the truth. I’d do the same thing if Clara came whining to me like this.”
His words made her stiffen. She turned back to him, slowly, then gave him a long, hard stare as if scrutinizing him for the first time. Her hands flexed into fists at her sides, as though she was contemplating pummeling him, then she relaxed them, a defeated, sad look darkening her eyes.
“Why do I bother with you?” she whispered, then sat once more, further away than before.
“Because we’ve been friends since birth,” he said with a pointed look that he hoped would calm her for once and for all. Then he grinned. “And I can be awfully persuasive. And charming.”
Despite her apparent anger, he seemed to break through to her resistance, and a soft smile tugged at the corner of her mouth.
“Charming is one word for it.” She sighed and scooted closer to him.
Her hand brushed against the discarded newspaper on the floor between them, her fingertips traveling over the letters.
His mind traced the ragged edges of the words without meaning to, taking in each letter.
Little details no one else noticed—that was how his brain worked.
A single beam of sunlight cut through a crack overhead, catching on Ivy’s hair and the newsprint in her lap. Dust motes danced in the light, drifting like ash in the stillness.
They sat in silence for a few minutes, then she drew a shallow breath. “Alex … I need to tell you—”
“Wait a second,” Alex said, tugging the newspaper from her. His gaze had snagged on the lines right where a sliver of sun hit the ink. His brain caught the hitch before he knew what it was—a hiccup in the neat rows of type, like a wrong note in a melody he’d always known by heart.
She gave him a startled look. “What?”
He brought the paper closer to his face, eyes narrowing. Letters lined up like obedient soldiers—but every fourth one stood out to him, breaking the formation, deliberate in its defiance.
What on earth?
He counted under his breath, heart pounding now, hot and wild in his chest. He almost thought he’d imagined it. But, no—there it was. Clear as day.
A null cipher, written right into the article. Out in the open where no one would think to look. Patterns were second nature to him. This one wasn’t a mistake.
He looked at Ivy—her startled face, the flecks of pastry on her skirt, the longing for a safe world to run back to—then blinked away, back toward the cipher.
He pulled each fourth letter, but he had already figured out the message before he finished spelling it.
His throat went dry.
HELP ME