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“But do we even know whether the staff can be found in the lady pharaoh’s tomb?” Jemmahor pressed.

“I can’t say for certain,” Ellie admitted. “The only connections we have are the presence of a ring with the name of Moseh in Mutnedjmet’s jewelry box and the inscription’s mention of the Was-Scepter of Khemenu.”

“But would not the staff have left Egypt with Moses?” Jemmahor pressed. “It was with him when he parted the Red Sea and afterward while the people wandered in the desert. Why would it have been returned to Egypt? What would have been left here for Musa or his followers?”

“It does not matter,” Zeinab concluded flatly. “Mr. Forster-Mowbray believes that some object of great power lies in this lost pharaoh’s tomb, and if there is even a chance that he is right, we must intervene.”

The space after her words was thick with the question of whether anyone would object.

Jemmahor’s eyes shone with excitement at the prospect.

Adam’s expression was grim but determined.

Sayyid stared at his wife as though she stood on the far side of a great gulf—and had turned to walk away from him.

“Bismillah,” Umm Waseem concluded without opening her eyes.

Ellie wondered how much of the exchange the older woman had understood, given that so far she hadn’t uttered a word of English. Did she know she was agreeing to stop a cabal of thieves from raiding the tomb of a mysterious pharaoh? Or was she simply on board for whatever trouble Zeinab led them into?

“If we’re hoping to stage an ambush, we’re going to want to get there first,” Adam pointed out.

“They are traveling by boat,” Zeinab said thoughtfully. “If we take the train to Dayrout, we will only need to go a few miles downstream and cross the river. We would certainly outpace them that way.”

“El atr 'atal fe Asyut,” Umm Waseem announced pleasantly.

“What’d she say?” Adam asked.

“She says the train is out at Asyut,” Jemmahor translated with a look of surprised admiration.

“And how does she know that?” Zeinab cast a narrow-eyed glance at the older woman.

“Do you really want to know?” Jemmahor shot back wryly.

Umm Waseem wheezed out a dark, happy chuckle.

“Asyut!” Zeinab bit out the word with frustration.

“From what I remember of the map, that still leaves us about fifty miles short of Tell al-Amarna,” Adam noted.

Zeinab stood. “It doesn’t matter. I can get us there in time.”

“How?” Ellie asked, curious.

“By calling in a favor,” Zeinab replied.

Her tone made it sound like a threat.

??

Twenty-Two

As the batteredcarriage rattled uncomfortably away from the temple at Deir al-Bahari, Constance Tyrrell made an unflinching assessment of her circumstances.

Up to now, Constance’s existence had been fairly dull and predictable. Her mother, Lady Sabita, liked to go to dinner parties and meet up with friends for tea. Her father, Sir Robert, got very excited about numbers and balance sheets, to the point where they frequently distracted him from such lesser concerns as food or conversation.

Constance had been on holiday in Paris and Bruges. She had never been to India, though it constituted a quarter of her heritage, with both her mother and grandmother having been born there.

She took her tea with an excess of cream and sugar, because one needn’t worry about one’s figure if one simply refused to stop moving. She had recently begun jiu jitsu classes with some of the ladies in Ellie’s suffrage club and had learned how to use the momentum of an opponent to toss him onto the floor. She had tried the move out in the dojo on the rebellious daughter of an MP—a girl easily twice Constance’s weight—and it had worked splendidly.