Chapter 27
Anders heads deep into the Archive without argument, disappearing behind one of the towering stacks.
I gesture around me while he’s away. “Is all this from the Library of Alexandria?”
Bes follows my attention. “Most of the texts, yes. The library was already in decline before Caesar’s war, and although the fire his soldiers set didn’t burn it down completely, it barely limped on for the rest of its days.”
Cec huffs. “If it weren’t for that blighter Ptolemy VIII expelling the foreign scholars from Alexandria, it might’ve held onto its greatness.”
Bes ignores his cousin. “After the order was formed, they brought much of its contents here for safekeeping, and the rest was smuggled out through the secret tunnels built there once it was clear it could no longer stay open.”
I shake my head. I can’t believe the order is keeping all this knowledge and history to themselves.
“This is also where we store all our artifacts,” Bes continues. “In recent years, we’ve been collecting those not currently in museums so the Nazis don’t steal them first.”
Suddenly, I realize something I didn’t have the wherewithal to fully appreciate before. “Didn’t we steal the Amulet of Amun from the Egyptian people?”
Neither of them reply.
“It doesn’t seem right for you to play God only to stop someone else from doing it. Why can’t you leave the artifacts in the country they’re from?”
“We would if we could, but we can’t risk the Third Reich getting their hands on them.”
“Sounds like an excuse.” I look around the room with fresh eyes. “You’re glorified private collectors.”
Cec swings his head in Bes’s direction, grinning and holding out his hand. “I told you she’d say that. Pay up, mate.”
Bes fishes out a coin from his pants’ pocket, grimacing.
I see this is not a conversation I’m going to win. Instead, I place my hands on the table and regard the cylinder.
“What’s inside?”
“We’re not sure,” Anders admits from the nearest stacks. Hobbling up to the table, a small wooden box is wedged between his hand and a hefty pile of books. “But, based on where it was catalogued in the Library of Alexandria, we can deduce the location and time period of its making.”
He sets the books carefully onto the table and opens the box, the amulet resting gently inside. “In order to figure out the code to this cypher, though, we need to learn all we can about Seti the First.”
I fold my arms across my chest. “So, it’s not all about punching Nazis, chartering boats, and dancing in secret night clubs?”
“Unfortunately, no.” Bes grabs the top leather tome and opens it to the table of contents. “We are required to read a book from time to time.”
“Right, then.” I pull out a chair and settle in. “What are we looking for?”
Anders places his long-fingered hand thoughtfully on the leather cover of one of the books. “Given we’re working with Egyptian hieroglyphics, something that could be a numbered or lettered sequence.”
I laugh once. “That’s not nearly specific enough.”
Bes opens another book and sets it in front of me. “It’s as specific as we can be, given the limited information.”
He takes a seat beside me then, pulling his own book with him. Cec has already chosen a chair on Bes’s right, and Anders hurries off, probably to find more books.
“One last thing before we begin.” Bes runs his free hand through his black locks before cupping his neck and regarding me.
“After what Ansaldo imparted upon you this morning, I would understand if you still wanted to run once you take the blood oath. We’d help you do it, given the circumstances.
However…” He bows his head. “Forgetting for a moment what might happen if the God Men catch up to you: if there’s the smallest chance you want to be here—with me, with us, to consider being part of something more—I beg you to stay. ”
My eyes shift to his lips. I beg you to stay. God, he’s persuasive.
I decide something here and now, though: to stop letting others dictate my choices.
“I’m going to regret this, but I’ll stay, for now. I haven’t decided when I’m going to take that damn oath yet, but I won’t leave either. Not until we finish this.”
Cec grins. “Fantastic!”
Smiling, Bes places his hand on my exposed forearm, warming the skin there. “We’ll find some way to stall your initiation with the order. You have our word.”
I stare into his dark eyes, warm in the lamplight. “That’s all I need.”
Cec clears his throat after a moment. “So, how did the rest of training go?”
An unwelcome heat rises up my neck from the memory of Bes and I on the floor. With all the excitement, I’d nearly forgotten about it.
“Fine, thanks,” I mutter. “Better than whatever it was you were trying to do.”
“I heard it was more than fi—aye!”
Bes reaches over and smacks Cec on the back of the head.
“What was that for?” Cec complains, rubbing the spot where Bes struck him.
“You gossip too much,” is all Bes says before going back to his book.
Cec flips a page with unnecessary force. Not like he can even read it. “It’s not my fault you and Hawkins are all anyone wants to talk about.”
Bes cocks his head back toward Cec. “It’s not ours either. And you don’t have to fan the flames by participating.”
“I wasn’t participating, I was eavesdropping. There’s a difference.”
“Is it any better, though?” I wonder.
Cec shrugs. “Depends on who you ask. But you might want to consider more discretion in the future.”
“We were training, Cec, nothing more.”
Something pricks at my heart. Bes’s dismissal of what happened in the training room stings more than it should. I know he’s only trying to defend my honor, and probably preserve his own in the process, but still.
Bes and I spend the next few hours reading book after scroll after scrap of ancient paper about Seti the First. Bes reads aloud the tidbits he finds most interesting so Cec can give his thoughts, but it’s few and far between.
All this time spent, and we’re no closer to figuring out any semblance of a sequence.
I slam my fifth large tome shut once I reach the end. “If I have to read that scholars have no clue how long Seti’s reign actually was one more time, I’m going to scream.”
Bes presses his fingers into his forehead. “Honestly, the most fascinating thing about Seti the First was his son.”
His son… the mention of him triggers a memory of something I read back at the university.
Cec stands up. “Might as well get some food. Looks like we’re going to be here all night.”
I wave him on. “You go on ahead, bring me back something appetizing.”
He grins as Bes joins him. “We’ll bring ourselves back, don’t worry.”
I throw an empty leather container from one of the many scrolls sprawled out on the table at him; it bounces off his arm and clatters to the floor.
“Aye, watch it, I have delicate muscles.”
“Idiot,” I mutter.
They scamper off in the direction of what I have to assume is the front entrance to the Archives, talking in low, unintelligible murmurs.
Finally alone, I jump up from my chair. Time to test out another theory about how deep Nonna’s connection to the order goes.
“Anders!”
He peeks his head over a haphazard stack of books.
“Does the Archive happen to have a journal from the Petrie and Caulfeild discovery of the Osireion in 1902?”
Confusion pinches his brow. “That’s an odd request.”
I glance around at the shelves. “I’d wager that’s an average ask in a place like this.”
Without replying, he quickly rummages through the short stack in front of him before heading my way with a book the appropriate size of a journal in his hand.
“It’s not the request itself that’s odd: someone else signed out this journal a couple months or so ago, though they didn’t write in the name of anyone here when they did.”
I grin as he hands it to me. “That must mean we’re on the right track.”
The only reason someone here wouldn’t want their name to be recorded for checking out this journal is if they didn’t want anyone to know their true identity.
My guess is, Ansaldo came in here at my nonna’s request, copied the journal word for word, and had it sent to her.
I wouldn’t have been able to open the Osireion without it, and the order wouldn’t have the amulet.
The question is: did Nonna know that was his plan all along? Or did she simply know the order possessed something that could help me?
Who cares? Excitement thrums through me as I flip through the old pages until I get to the part I’m looking for.
Eagerness colors Anders’s words. “You’re on to something, aren’t you?”
I nod, flicking to the next page. “My nonna, who I just learned was once a member of the order, had me read through a copy of this journal for research before leaving for my expedition to retrieve the Amulet of Amun.”
I thumb through the next few pages carefully, looking for the name I know is there.
“It was written by an unnamed assistant to Petrie and Caulfeild,” I explain, “who was able to figure out the code needed to get into the Osireion. Something must’ve happened to him before he could put it into use, though.”
“Little did you know,” Anders mutters.
I shake my head, muttering, “Oh, I think my nonna knew all too well.”
I’m almost to the page; my fingers start to shake.
“Near the end, when his ramblings become practically unintelligible, he talks about Seti the First’s short reign, and how his son—Ramesses the Second, or Ramesses the Great—had to complete most of his projects.
Seti knew his son would be greater than him and, according to this journal, Seti’s last gift to his son was the Amulet of Amun. ”
There! On one of the last pages, I find the single mention of the Amulet of Amun, where the riddle is. It’s on this very same page that Ramesses’s name is capitalized, underlined, and drawn over so many times, you can’t help but notice it.
I hurry over to the golden cypher.