This.
Eleanor abandoned the tea, to join Anubis before the rings. “Tell me, what of it?”
Anubis’s hand closed abruptly around Eleanor’s throat; he did not squeeze, only held her this way as the hotel around them vanished. Eleanor could not say where they were—everything melted into darkness, even the rings. The floor dribbled out from under their feet and she became aware of a great and powerful rush of air; the air was warm, Egyptian night enfolding them, as they moved toward lights that flourished overhead.
These lights were suddenly all around them, as if bubbles in water, hot and streaming blue-white fire against the velvet blackness. Eleanor could not take a breath, but found she did not need to; if she stayed calm and kept the jackal down, she found she could breathe, could even move within the cage of Anubis’s fingers.
She turned within that hold to regard the broad expanse of space that spread around them. The world curved beneath them, gleaming gold where the sun had begun to rise. The light fragmented across the Mediterranean and down the Nile, like a fuse being lit, like the world was soon to explode. She picked out Giza from high above and watched the pyramids spin as Anubis guided them ever up.
Eleanor looked up to the stars they rushed through, not certain what Anubis was showing her. From this angle, she recognized no specific stars—astronomy was not a thing she had studied with any depth, though she knew the Egyptians had. She knew Eratosthenes, and Ptolmey, and his brilliant book Almagest, but she did not know—
As quickly as they had risen, they began to fall. Eleanor clung to Anubis now, and was certain she was screaming, but beyond the rush of stars and air, she could not hear herself. Warmth enclosed her and she fancied that she was falling apart, little pieces of her trailing through the sky. From the ground, she perceived herself in Anubis’s grasp, the bright explosion of light and heat they made as they crossed the night sky.
Comet, she thought, then discarded it. Comets didn’t enter the atmosphere. But—
“Meteor.”
It came out as a whisper, her throat strained and charred. At her side on the sofa, Anubis pressed a tea cup between her hands. The china cup still radiated heat from the freshly poured tea. Eleanor drank it down, finding it blissfully cold compared to the heat of the stars, the heat of reentry—
She looked around the hotel room, uncertain as to how they had returned. Had they left at all? She expected a sooty smudge to mark the ceiling, expected the windows to be blown open, but nothing was disturbed, as if they had never moved from the room.
Anubis lifted his own cup of tea and drank from the cup as a dog might, his shockingly pink tongue lapping at the tea. Eleanor stared, unable to fit this image with those she had just experienced. She set her cup down and crossed to the balcony doors, to open them wide and peer outside. The stars were as she remembered, bright and constant. Back inside, she picked up the box of rings and lifted the one of corroded iron.
“Are you telling me this ring comes from the stars?”
Anubis only stared at Eleanor until she began to wonder if she had hallucinated the entire thing. What if Anubis was not Anubis, but merely a server and she was dreaming still?
She reached out, to press a finger against Anubis’s broad nose. He did not move. Sleek black fur covered him as it might a Labrador Retriever, and his nose was wet as any dog’s would be. His whiskers were prickly, his mouth damp from the tea. She smoothed her fingers upward, toward his eyes. They closed and he leaned briefly into her touch as her fingers rounded his velvet ear. How like a dog, she thought, she drew her hand back.
“Not dreaming.”
Never dreaming, daughter. You are as I am—not a god, but of this body, of my children. And that ring, not mine, but of this land, of those stars. It will carry you.
Eleanor closed her hand into a fist. “Carry me? As did your rings?” When Anubis made no reply, she said, “And the ring left in Paris? Don’t tell me there are four rings I must find. I am well and truly tired of questing for rings.”
Anubis’s laughter was like falling stone.
This is not that, daughter.
Anubis stood and walked toward the open balcony door. Eleanor followed, latching the ring box as she did, but when his feet crossed the threshold to the balcony, it was as though the pre-dawn sky swallowed him entirely. He did not vanish so much as he became the lapis-dark sky, stretching over the whole of Alexandria. If she looked closely enough, she thought she could pick his eyes out of the stars. Eleanor clutched the ring box against her chest, certain she would never grow accustomed to his arrivals or departures.
It was strange, how the jackal within her calmed in his presence, how it became more a part of her with Anubis near, and not a separate entity trying to claw out of her throat. She exhaled and turned to the empty room.
There came a knock at the door.
Eleanor did not startle, only glared at the door, wondering if it was Anubis again, come with a fresh tray of tea. Opening the door, she couldn’t help show some caution; she peered out between door and jamb, relieved to see Cleo’s face. But hers was the face of a person who had not slept well; Eleanor knew this look, given that she wore it as well.
“Good morning,” Cleo said with an anxious smile.
“And to you, though I can only actually confirm it being morning. My mind isn’t yet decided as to the quality of the morning.” Eleanor opened the door to allow Cleo entry, latching it once she was inside.
“I don’t mean to interrupt…”
Eleanor followed Cleo’s gaze to the table, where the teapot and its two cups sat, one cup still half full of steaming tea. Eleanor bit the inside of her cheek. It was a small room and they were plainly alone, unless Mallory were secreted away in the bath or under the bed.
“That… Isn’t exactly easy to explain,” Eleanor said.
She wasn’t sure where to begin, in fact, given that Cleo didn’t know that Eleanor could shift into a jackal. Eleanor had found no good way to share this information; it wasn’t that she believed Cleo would think any less of her once she knew, it was rather that it was a difficult thing to explain. Cleo had traveled backward in time with them, thanks to the rings of Anubis, but learning that one’s friend was also a jackal? Eleanor continued to hesitate. In that moment she completely understood Mallory’s own difficulty in telling his family about his dual nature.
“It isn’t my place to ask,” Cleo said, “so long as I’m not interrupting.” She looked around the room, and much as Eleanor might have in her place, began to walk around, as if looking for intruders. “Anything. Anything at all.”
“There is no one under the bed, or clinging to the balcony rail,” Eleanor said, wondering what might have happened had Anubis remained. She lifted the ring box. “I had trouble sleeping, my mind on these. You might imagine… Four rings, and me again. It doesn’t bode well.”
“I trust you won’t go putting them on,” Cleo said, peering at the wardrobe before she circled back to the sofa and sat. “I also had trouble sleeping. I was thinking of the auction—of the silver-haired woman there. Was she…” Cleo stopped, metal fingers tapping an uneasy rhythm on her thighs. “Was she actually the Defender from the canyon? I pray that you will tell me I am entirely wrong, incorrect, and awful for thinking such a thing—that any such woman is yet in that canyon, far away from us in safe, safe, safe Alexandria. Did I mention safe?”
Eleanor joined Cleo on the sofa, taking the time to draw a fresh cup from the sideboard and pour tea for her. Eleanor poured slowly, knowing there was no way she would lie to Cleo about such a thing. If Cleo were in danger, she deserved to know everything Eleanor did.
“Yes, she was. The one who wanted to study you. Your arms.”
Cleo shuddered, pressing herself back into the sofa cushions.
“She is also known to my mother,” Eleanor said. “Akila, my mother called her. My mother said Akila’s kind travel between the times by means unknown—but given what we know…her means are likely much like
those of Anubis.” She considered Anubis’s own words—they will carry you, and the jackal inside her shifted from foot to foot, wanting out. Wanting to run. “Unless you have another theory?”
Cleo drank her tea and said, “No. It’s one reason I wanted to talk with you. I haven’t been able to settle my thoughts after seeing her. I can accept that we have been…lured to this auction, if you will, for reasons we don’t yet know, but her appearance…” She shifted on the sofa, drawing her legs up to her chest to balance the teacup on her raised knees. “That was unexpected.”
“I wonder when the unexpected becomes commonplace.” Eleanor offered Cleo the blanket folded over the arm of the sofa, in case she found the morning too cool. “I suppose when that happens…” She thought of Anubis’s abrupt comings and goings. “Then is when we should worry? Truth be told, I suppose I worry constantly. These past two months, in any case.”
Eleanor watched the way Cleo chewed on her bottom lip, as if she had more to say but could not put the words in the right order. Being in possession of her own such debate, Eleanor did not press, giving Cleo the time she would want someone else to give her.
“Did Mallory bring the other ring with him?” Cleo asked. “The one that was left in the archive.”
“I am certain he has brought it, though he hasn’t said, and won’t let me near him, knowing my penchant for picking pockets.”
“One can’t exactly fault him…”
Cleo’s smile was infectious and Eleanor shook her head. “No, absolutely not. But given that…” She looked at the balcony door, picturing Anubis there even though it stood empty. “There is something else I must tell you. Anubis was here.”
The smile vanished as swiftly as it had come, and Cleo set her teacup aside, as if she feared they might be attacked or set upon at any moment.
“Here?” she asked. “How is that remotely poss—” She broke off, throwing the blanket off to rise from the couch.
“He isn’t…” Eleanor searched for the right word, but had no good way to explain. Cleo had seen what Anubis was capable of, plucking hearts out and turning them to dust as easily as they themselves crossed a room. The panic on Cleo’s face was like a knife in Eleanor’s gut and she was desperate to explain. But she couldn’t.
“I thought this was over and done,” Cleo said, striding for the door. “You gave the rings back. Irving is gone. Anubis should not be…” She paced in a circle, as restless as Eleanor, then headed again for the door. “Akila is here and Anubis is here and the auction had—” Her metal hand fell to the doorknob with a clatter, and she pulled the door open.
“Cleo—”
“I can’t,” Cleo said and was gone before Eleanor could try to call her back again.
* * *
Virgil poured coffee the following morning in the hotel dining room, as Auberon opened a file dedicated to George Pettigrew. The dining room was not yet bustling, the space still reflecting its Egyptian roots even though the British had well and truly taken it over. While white linen draped the tables, the tables were still wicker, and so too the chairs with their generously padded seat cushions. The room itself was generous with both its space and its views; the entire north side of the room sported floor to ceiling windows; the shutters and windows opened to allow the scent of the morning harbor inside. Salt and sea, and not yet the strong fish that would come with the warming of the day.
“Pettigrew and Irving have not crossed paths with that much frequency,” Auberon said, spreading pages across the white linen, “however when they did, it appears to have been at important junctions in Mistral history.” Auberon went on to cite cases Virgil was familiar with, missions to Russia, Algeria, and the forested uplands of Germany. Howard Irving had returned a director from Germany, whatever else had happened there—the files remained sealed, even to Virgil and Auberon.
Virgil filled Auberon’s coffee cup, and then drew a third near to hand when he spied Eleanor across the room. She looked as though she had not slept well, anxious and concerned. Virgil would have paid good money if it meant her mind was eased, but with the abrupt appearance of a new set of rings Virgil didn’t figure any of them would be relaxing any time soon.
“It won’t surprise me if we turn up connections to Irving for the next dozen years,” Virgil said. He poured coffee for Eleanor as she crossed to their table, and added cream and sugar near her place setting, as had already become habit. He liked that it had, that he knew how she took her coffee of all things.
“Gentlemen,” she said, and they rose from their chairs, Virgil pulling Eleanor’s out to hold it as she sat. She was not wearing trousers today, but a slim skirt that still supported a modest bustle. He watched as the ingenious thing collapsed into a neat bundle as she seated herself. Each chair had arms, but her skirt did not overflow them.
“Miss Folley,” Auberon said.
“Eleanor.” Virgil dared drop a kiss against her cheek before rounding the table and seating himself once more. “You don’t look particularly well rested.” He was certain a gentleman shouldn’t comment on such, especially in shared company, but the shadows that clung to her—and not just under her eyes—worried him.
Eleanor clasped her hands in her lap and exhaled. “I have been up for hours,” she said. She sat motionless a long while, then leaned forward to tend to her coffee, adding cream and slowly stirring, then settling the spoon into the saucer. “I had a visit from Anubis.”
This was not the news Virgil expected to hear, nor anything he wanted to hear. He leaned back in his chair as if he had been struck, and even Auberon went still.
“How is that…” Auberon drew himself straighter in his chair. “Anubis cannot…does not?…simply come and go?”
The look Eleanor gave Auberon left Virgil laughing, despite the circumstances.
“I’m not entirely sure who might tell him he could not?” Eleanor asked. She took a long swallow of the coffee and cradled the china cup as she considered. “I thought I was dreaming, but he was very real and quite here.”
“And what did he want this time?” Auberon slid the pages back into the file. “If he was actually here.”
“I believe he was actually here,” she said. She set her coffee cup carefully into its saucer and her eyes met Virgil’s.
Virgil didn’t think he was going to like this one bit, that what she was about to say would involve rings and a quest, but when Eleanor began detailing what she had experienced—the brief, half-explanation of the corroded ring, the flight into the stars within Anubis’s hands—he didn’t know what to think. Had Anubis left her the ring? Surely an Egyptian god would not do something as foolish as ransacking the Mistral archive and setting a pile of books aflame.
“He assured you that these rings were not like his own?” Virgil asked. Still, that cold hand closed around his throat. The idea that he would lose her was close, premonition or promise, he did not know. “And yet, said they would carry you.” The ring left in the archive was warm within his pocket, a hard little lump digging into his thigh. “Eleanor—”
“Did you bring the ring with you, Virgil?”
He was certain she already knew he had brought it; why leave it behind when it had so blatantly been left for her? He could only stare at her, giving no other answer, because it was beginning all over again. The fear that swallowed him—the idea of losing her when they had returned whole and well and agreed to a courtship—pushed the wolf against his heart, his throat, and made him jump to foolish conclusions.
“Did you learn nothing from Irving?” he asked. “You said you had no desire to stay in that time, that the mother you knew had gone and that you were well and content to be in the here and now.”
The look that crossed her face was one Virgil never wanted to see again. It wasn’t pain so much as it was disappointment. He knew how foolish the words were, but panic welled up inside of him. He could not fathom a life without her, a life where he once again sank into the hazy abyss opium afforded and denied what he actuall
y was. His eyes flicked to Auberon, then back to Eleanor.
If she meant to go, he could do nothing to stop her. Anubis could come and snatch her away at any moment, proven by this morning alone. Where might Anubis carry her, let alone the rings?
He slid his hand into his pocket, fingers clasping the ring that was warm and rough. He set it upon the table then flicked it in her direction. It rolled unevenly, the corrosion having turned it into more of a oval than a smooth circle. When it came within her reach, Eleanor pressed her hand over it, to halt its wobbling progress. Her eyes held Virgil’s own for a long time before she pocketed the ring and rose from the table.
“Gentlemen.”
With that, she was gone and Virgil felt as though a Paris December blew through the dining room, rather than the warmth of an Alexandrian day.
“I believe if you were intending to convey your unwavering trust in her unerring judgment,” Auberon said, sliding the file to the side as he took up his cooling coffee, “that could not have gone worse, my friend.”
Chapter Five
April 1887 – Cairo, Egypt
Dear Miss Barclay,
It was a pleasure to receive your letter from earlier this month. I am relieved to hear you are recovering, especially given the nature of your injury. I would appreciate a description of your mechanical arms, should you wish to take the time.
I find it somewhat amusing that your own physician has asked you to approach me with questions, given he is in much closer proximity to you. Perhaps he believes we are closer than I will do my best to recall what you may need to know. If there are yet gaps in your recollection, you have only to ask.
I was some distance behind you when the ground gave way. You did nothing other than walk across the street when then it crumbled beneath you. Given the way it shattered and your abrupt vanishing, I was cautious in my approach—when I looked down, the space was vast. While it has been deemed too unstable to explore in any detail, I will say it appears to be a catacomb; when I reached your side (your team was smart and fast, Miss Barclay, affixing ropes so we could reach you, summoning Doctor Fairbrass even before that), I found you beneath what looked to be a funerary statue. It could have been Wadjet, but I am not certain. It was cracked down the middle in the fall, but still impossible to move.
The Honey Mummy (Folley & Mallory Adventure Book 3) Page 6