Chapter 16 #2
Biz’s gasp echoed through the entrance. She lifted her skirts and stepped across the threshold, eyes wide enough to match the malachite green of papyrus painted in the first scene.
Two small children played among the reeds.
There, at the edge of the river, was an object that looked like a tusk, white and covered with strange symbols.
They were only steps from discovering it.
The children appeared again in the next relief, this time holding the tusk between them.
Wings had started to sprout from their shoulders.
The scenes that followed were just as magical—the children tamed wild beasts, they flew to the stars, they grew into a shining young man and woman.
Her masque was as blue as turquoise, while his was gold. Actual gold hammered into the stone.
Biz reached out to touch this.
Vincent grabbed his fiancée’s wrist just in time. “My dear, did you not hear what Miss Sinclair said about curses? I don’t think it’s a good idea to go grabbing stuff willy-nilly.”
The look that crossed Biz’s face reminded Celia of Calamity—whenever the cat got caught pulling feathers out of her prized boa.
“What happened to me being the better archaeologist?” she said through gritted teeth as she wrenched her hand away.
“I’m just trying to keep you safe, darling—”
“And I would appreciate that, if your efforts had ever actually worked. I don’t remember you ever holding me back from the Seek and Find. I don’t remember you in the magical parts of the party at all…”
“Hugo must not have wanted to watch me dance. Who can blame him? It’s not a particularly pretty sight.”
Celia could sense an argument brewing in the silence that followed. It was too cramped in here for such loudness. Too sacred, after so many centuries of silence. If Biz and Vincent wanted to have it out, they could do it outside the pyramid.
“Who do you suppose these children are?” she asked quickly, nodding at the paintings.
“A brother and sister.”
Ezra’s answer was just as swift. He, too, wanted distance from the couple’s quibble. He’d placed himself on the opposite side of the tunnel, studying a scene where the young man was flying up to the sun, grasping at its rays. Real gold had been used in this relief as well.
“What makes you say that?” Vincent whipped around. “I don’t see any hieroglyphs about them.”
The scholar kept studying the carving. He wasn’t staring at the gold-leafed parts, Celia realized, but at the masque of the winged woman on the ground below. Blue. The expression on his face suggested the color meant something to him.
“Ezra… is that… your mother?” she ventured.
A scoffing sound came from Biz. “These paintings are thousands of years old. How could that possibly be Ezra’s mum?”
This question echoed down the long corridor, making it seem even longer.
Ezra didn’t tear his gaze from the blue masque.
“My mut used to tell me bedtime stories when I was a boy. She told me this one: about a man who flew to the sun, but he didn’t fall like Icarus.
He managed to catch some rays, so many that he looked like daybreak himself when he returned to earth.
He shared as much light as he could with the people around him, helping their crops grow, for he and his sister were once the children of farmers, and they knew what it was to grow up under the gods’ mercy.
He shared his light, and they worshipped his goodness.
But this made the other gods jealous. Especially the ones who ruled in the dark… ”
He looked farther down the tunnel, where walls faded into colorlessness.
“These jealous gods joined together to steal the brother’s shadow.
They tore it to pieces and placed what was left of him on a boat, bound for the Duat.
The sister sailed after him. She used magic to bring her brother back to life. ”
There was a heavy, hot silence.
“Sounds like the story of Osiris and Isis,” Vincent said, after a beat.
“Or Orpheus,” Biz added.
“I always thought so too,” Ezra said softly. “For the longest time, I thought she’d copied them—made up her own versions to put her son to sleep. But now?” His features sharpened as he turned to face the rest of the tunnel. “Now I’m starting to think it was the other way around.”
A breeze wound its way down the tunnel, causing all of Celia’s body hair to stand on end. Her father had told her stories too—men became gods, gods became myth, and the myths tell us that even death itself became undone.
“Resurrection,” she whispered, looking back at the pair of masqued siblings.
“If there truly is a relic that’s capable of such a thing…
” Papa had always hoped for such a treasure.
Every single magician in the Order had. With power like that, you could be invincible.
If some jealous bastard tried to kill you with a curse?
Well, you’d just walk straight back out of hell to return the favor.
I can bring Papa back.
The thought jolted Celia’s heart. She couldn’t tell if it filled her with hope or terror. Everything about this was too big. Not only could she bring her father back, but she could avenge him as well.
She could face the Apex.
Bloody hell, with power like that in her arsenal?
Celia could take his place.
She could take everything, become the most powerful magician in Britain.
“Could that be the treasure Ezra’s clue is leading us to?” Biz’s question sounded staticky.
Celia took a spiky breath. Ezra’s clue. It was Ezra’s treasure too, in the end.
She mustn’t forget that.
Mustn’t overstep.
But, oh, what a fine edge it was… Ezra’s jaw stayed clenched as the scholar stared at the turquoise masque.
Is that really his mother? Was this truly her tomb?
More of Celia’s skin crawled as she remembered the claims shouted by Lord Blackwood.
I dug her out of her grave. Had Thomas Ellington used a relic to resurrect Ezra’s mother?
If so, why was he living in squalor instead of heading the Order?
Had he overstepped? Magic, her own father had once warned her, always has a cost. Power comes at a price, dear Celia.
That is why the most successful magicians prefer to steal it.
Not ten yards into the pyramid, the shaft broke into two paths.
This, Vincent informed them, was meant to trick looters.
Us, Celia thought ruefully as he explained that dead-end passages were commonly built into the other grand pyramids to make grave robbers believe that the pharaoh’s treasures had already been picked through.
Biz fidgeted with her skirt, eager to keep moving. “How do you tell the difference between the right passage and the wrong one?”
“Style, my dear.”
“I don’t see any bespoke suits here,” she answered dryly.
No, but Celia could see a subtle difference in the two choices.
The corridor that forked off to the left had higher ceilings.
Both passages held reliefs, but the carvings to the right weren’t painted quite as brightly.
Although, that could have been because they showed scenes of shadow-stringers—or whatever their ancient Egyptian equivalent was called.
The brother and sister seemed to be battling them.
In the girl’s hand, Celia noticed, was the ivory tusk from the very first relief.
A wand? When she stepped forward to get a closer look, something farther up the passage moved as well.
The wild image of a mummy shuffling out of the darkness—rags hanging from desiccated flesh—filled Celia’s mind.
She wanted to scream, but her throat was too dry.
Too dry. And suddenly there was a small beetle scurrying toward her.
A scarab. What the hell is an insect doing in a sealed tomb?
How could it survi—oh. The creature was made of stone.
Amethyst, to be exact. It scuttled past her boots without pause, rounding the corner to the opposite passage.
“How darling!” Biz knelt to study the lively carving.
Ezra also tracked the beetle. Some distant memory crawled across his face as he watched the tiny statue disappear down the left passage. “I never thought I’d see one again. The amulets in museums are so still…”
More scrabbling. Celia turned to see two more scarabs—faience blue and feldspar—following the path of the first. Something about the way they moved formed an urgent lump in her throat.
This only grew as a fourth, fifth, and sixth statue crawled out of the shadows.
More were coming. The sound of their small stone legs built to a hum.
Obsidian black. Dried-blood hematite. Turquoise.
Carnelian. Amethyst again. Suddenly the floor looked as if a treasure chest had been tipped over—a rainbow of semiprecious stones sparkling under the light of Celia’s locket. It was beautiful. And dreadful.
One statue was darling.
Hundreds?
Not so much.
Biz had gone from an admiring crouch to a defensive slant against the far wall. Scarabs were starting to climb there too. She whipped her straw hat from her head and beat the stones back.
“What.” Swat! “Is.” Smack! “Happening?”
“Damned if I know. We didn’t cover this in our introductory classes!” Even though Vincent was shouting, Celia struggled to hear. There were so many scarabs thundering by. “Perhaps the professor-to-be can enlighten us.”
The stone bugs were giving Ezra a wide berth, taking care to avoid the glowing edges of the scholar’s boots. He shook his head. “I’ve never seen so many at once—”
He was cut off by a bloodcurdling scream.