Chapter 25 #3
Nour didn’t look surprised. She didn’t try to turn the reed boat around either. She kept paddling forward with the wand, calling over her shoulder. “I cannot promise to hold the gate open for you, Celia Sinclair. If you want to make it back to life with your friend, you must hurry!”
Right. No dillydallying. Not that this barren landscape was a place Celia would’ve elected to lounge about anyway.
Why in the world had Biz decided to pull her boat off here?
There was nothing but silky orange sand that made tiny avalanches when Celia huffed uphill.
George didn’t seem to struggle nearly so much.
He glided alongside her in silence. Celia wasn’t exactly sure how to breach it.
So, what’s it like being dead? Didn’t seem like the ideal icebreaker.
Nor did: I’ve visited your memorial stump. It seems nice. A bit rotten, though.
In the end, George spoke first. “Why are you doing this?” he asked as she paused to take a drink from the faience hippo. Handy little thing.
“Beats me. I probably read too many Greek myths as a girl.”
The ghost grunted. Celia realized she was starting to see him more clearly. Some color had made its way into his complexion, and there was gold in his hair. He looked so young—cut down at the cusp of manhood. It made sense that he’d want to linger close to life.
“Why are you here?” Celia asked as she trudged on. “I mean, why didn’t you storm the gate with the other ghouls?”
“Do you have any siblings, Miss Sinclair?”
She shook her head.
“The last time I saw Biz, she came up to here.” George tapped the middle of his torso.
“Her hair was in pigtails and she was so excited to see Ezra and me off at the train station. She told me I looked like a chocolate-box hero in my uniform. I told her I’d be home soon…
I was going off to save the world. To keep her safe.
” He shook his head. “Nothing turned out the way I believed it would. The war was wretched. It broke all my promises to my little sister. I couldn’t keep her safe.
I couldn’t even watch her grow… but still, I recognized her when she boarded her boat.
” George’s voice went hoarse. “The gate broke open before I could reach Biz at the river. Ezra appeared. He didn’t seem to care that he was dead, only that he needed to find our sister… Can they really be resurrected?”
“Nour has done it before,” Celia reasoned. “If we can get Biz’s soul to her before she raises Ezra and seals the gate, then I believe there’s a chance.”
“And… me?”
Celia wasn’t exactly sure about the mechanics of bringing George back to life without a body… but that was a problem for later. Much later. “It’s all Biz and Ezra could ever talk about.”
They’d nearly crested the hill. The river below looked like a strand of tarnished silver.
Celia could no longer see Nour’s boat. Her heart started ticking harder as she scrambled to the summit.
More hills rippled into view: an endless ocean of sand, broken up only by Biz’s footprints.
There! Celia cried out when she spotted her friend halfway down the slope. George echoed this joy.
“BIZ!” she screamed, her legs windmilling down the hill.
“Oh! Hello!” Biz’s soul looked a great deal like herself—she was even wearing the white linen dress. “Took you long enough! For all you gripe about room service, you sure appreciate a good lie-in. I’ve been searching by myself for hours!!!”
“Searching? For what?”
“The treasure, silly!” The young woman looked out over the crescendoing dunes. “It must be here somewhere.”
“You do know where we are, don’t you?” Celia strung each word carefully. It occurred to her that Biz might not realize that she was no longer in her body. She certainly wasn’t acting like a dead girl.
“Egypt, of course.”
“Not exactly.”
Biz turned to look at Celia, her stare faltering farther up the dune, where George was climbing down. He was now solid enough for sand to spill from his footsteps. Solid enough for his sister to understand exactly who she was seeing.
“George.” A hand flew to Biz’s mouth. It didn’t quite catch her sob as she threw herself up the hill. The siblings collided. Biz’s face buried into her brother’s shoulder, while his arms seemed to melt into her back.
“You’re here!” Biz kept crying, but her tears had a joyful tinge. “Actually here! I’ll be the cat’s whiskers—Ezra really did bring you back to life!”
“Biz…” Celia began, but George had already stepped back from his sister.
“That’s not what happened, Bitty.”
The young woman’s shoulders went rigid. “What do you mean?”
“This isn’t Egypt,” Celia said as gently as she could.
The blow still landed. Biz spun, scanning their surroundings with wild green eyes. Then she stared back down at her dress, her hands coming to rest over her chest. Exactly where Celia had placed the ankh over her bullet wound. There was no blood there now, but it didn’t seem to matter.
Biz pawed at the spot, growing paler by the second.
Her edges began to waver.
Wispy.
“He shot me,” she whispered. Then, louder, “He actually shot me! I know we didn’t love each other, but by God… to be murdered by one’s own fiancé…”
“Vincent?” Shock filled Celia’s veins like liquid ice. She’d assumed that the wound had been inflicted by Hugo or Everett—they seemed far more likely to pull the trigger. “Vincent killed you? Are you certain?”
“It all happened so fast.” Biz pressed her hand harder into her sternum.
“I remember now. We fought Hugo and Everett. We won. And then we were trying to find a way to open the gate, but there were too many sphinxes. Ezra said it was suicide. He seemed to be having second thoughts and then Vincent raised his pistol and shot me.” She grimaced down at her gown. “I died. I’m dead…”
“But why?” It made absolutely no sense to Celia, why the bullet-heir would go and do something so vicious. Sure, he’d called her a gold digger, but to shoot someone? And Biz, no less. It seemed about as thoughtless as ripping the wings off a butterfly.
Why? Why? Why?
Her question faded through the dunes.
None of them had answers, and waiting here was only wasting precious time. Nour had made it quite clear that she wasn’t going to keep the gate open any longer than she had to.
“Never mind.” Celia sprinted uphill and grabbed Biz by the elbow.
“You’re dead, yes, but you won’t stay that way.
Not if I have a say. Let’s get back to your boat and row upriver.
Your body is waiting for you. Ezra’s mother will be too.
If we reach the gate in time she can perform resurrection magic. ”
“Ezra’s mum? Really?” Biz let herself be pulled along.
George kept pace with the women.
“She kidnapped me, back in Luxor,” Celia explained as they crested the dune and started racing back to the river’s edge.
The rowboats were still there, thank goodness.
“She wanted to warn us against opening the gate. There was never a relic behind it, only hordes of the dead. Ezra’s life was the only thing keeping them at bay. ”
“But…” Biz frowned. “What about the clues she left for us to follow?”
“The treasure hunt wasn’t Nour’s doing.”
Ever since Ezra’s mother had revealed this detail, it had been nagging the back of Celia’s brain. Crucial. Clawing. Close to breaking something open…
Why? Why? Why?
“Biz.” The hairs on her neck bristled with slow horror. “You said you found the pyramid in Ezra’s bedroom.”
“That’s right. Vincent wanted his crown back, so I went searching—oh.”
Oh, indeed.
Nausea roiled through Celia’s stomach, tilting like the dune she’d just climbed.
She stared back at the top of this hill.
The Apex. Vincent was the magician Nour so feared.
He was… He couldn’t possibly be… Had she been sitting beside her father’s murderer this entire time—trading gibes and sharing snacks and oh shit, she was going to be sick.
Celia bent over and let it all out.
There weren’t enough toothpicks in the world to erase the taste in her mouth. Sick, sick rage. Oh, that bastard thought he could murder Biz in cold, gelatinous blood? He thought Celia was holier-than-thou?
Hell hath no fucking fury.
A few boat lengths away, massive scales broke the dark water.
“Are you all right?” Biz hovered, quite literally, in the shallows. She was still, subconsciously, clutching the spot Vincent’s bullet had struck.
“Hardly.”
Celia wiped her mouth with the back of her fist and hurried into the boat, grabbing the oars.
The craft wobbled slightly as Biz took her seat.
George pushed them off, hopping into the bow as the boat glided deeper into the rainbow river.
The enormous crocodile creature had vanished underneath the current, which was far stronger than Celia remembered.
“So it was Vincent, this whole time, playing us like a tenpenny whistle. I always did wonder why he chose me,” Biz said from the opposite seat, staring at her very bare ring finger.
“Why not Rose or Minnie or any of the other Elizabeths? They were eager enough. But Vincent insisted on courting me, and I was just so relieved that I’d finally be able to help Papa repair Thornhill… ”
“Is Thornhill broken?” George’s question drifted up behind her.
“Everything is.” His sister’s chin wobbled. “After the war my life was in pieces and now even that’s gone…”
“Not if I have anything to do with it,” Celia said through gritted teeth.
Fire worked up her biceps as she rowed. Harder and harder.
The shoreline inched by. By the time they’d reached the series of giant columns, her entire face was drenched with sweat.
Her arms felt like overcooked noodles. But if she stopped to rest, even for a few seconds, they’d be swept right back to where they started.
She thought of Papa’s withered black hand, crushing all the breath out of him.
My death is not worth your life.
So what was Celia Sinclair’s life worth?
The answer—as always—eluded her.