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So far, he had found three more instances of feminine verb endings—all of which Dawson had unsurprisingly overlooked. They clearly indicated that Neferneferuaten had been none other than Akhenaten’s queen, Nefertiti. It was a revelation that would throw the scholarly world into an uproar, but it made perfect sense to Neil when he stopped to think about it. He had been studying Akhenaten for years, after all, and had seen the manner in which his relationship with Nefertiti was depicted in the art of the period. She stood side-by-side with the pharaoh as his partner in faith, life, and authority. Why wouldn’t he have left her his crown, in the absence of a male heir with a legitimate claim on the succession?

He was actually feeling a bit chagrined that the idea had never occurred to him before. He was sure Ellie would have a thing or two to say about that.

Not that he had much time to dwell on it now. He scanned the remaining text on the tablet, painfully conscious of Dawson’s precarious napping position in the chair beside him.

If the snoring professor fell over, he’d certainly wake up, and Neil’s opportunity to get ahead on the translation would be lost.

He wished Ellie were here. Based on how easily she had picked out some of the words and logograms during her brief examination of the cuneiform at Hatshepsut’s temple, she would have made short work of the rest of the translation with the added help of Dawson’s library. Neil was reduced to scrambling through pages as he racked his brain for the few bits and pieces of the language that he had picked up over the years.

Neil pushed up his spectacles to pinch the bridge of his nose, fighting through his panic for an ounce of clarity.

As he let his glasses fall back into place, the text turned from a mushy blur to tidy clarity before him—and a symbol leapt out from among the tightly packed lines and wedges.

??

Neil stared down at it with a sense of vague recognition and rising unease. He snatched up one of the volumes on the table from beneath Dawson’s disorganized notes and flipped through the pages hurriedly, already half terrified of what he would find.

There it was—??was the Akkadian symbol for the cubit, one of the fundamental units of measurement used in both the Egyptian and Ancient Semitic worlds.

Units for measuringdistance.

Neil ignored the rest of the text, setting frantically to work on the words around the cubit logogram.

The meaning—and its dire implications—spilled out across his hurriedly scribbled page.

Valley to the east… 120 rods… South branch… 815 cubits.

He stared down at the tablet, feeling ill. No—not a tablet, he corrected himself with a rising sense of horror. The clay slab wasn’t just a clue to the location of Neferneferuaten’s lost tomb.

It was a bloodymap.

Beside him, Dawson’s snores hitched. The professor stirred, smacking his lips… and tilted as his balance in the chair shifted.

On a panicked impulse, Neil reached out and caught him.

He braced the dozing professor as Dawson’s breathing settled, becoming regular again.

Neil’s spectacles had fallen down his nose. He wanted to push them back into place, but his hands were both occupied with holding up a lightly snoring twit. Instead, he tried wildly to think through his options.

There weren’t many of them.

Ellie had pushed them all into this adventure with stories of magical artifacts and dire consequences—none of which Neil could bring himself to truly credit. As much as he respected his sister’s intelligence, basing his decisions on fairy tales about spooky mirrors and plague-bringing staffs was simply a bridge too far.

But he didn’t need a magic staff to recognize the vital importance of Neferneferuaten’s tomb. It was the key to the greatest mystery of the Eighteenth Dynasty—a priceless and irreplaceable trove of knowledge that would be utterly lost if Neil allowed it to fall into Julian Forster-Mowbray’s hands.

Add to that the possibility that the tomb might hold some connection to the true identity of the prophet Moses and the real story behind the Exodus… and Neil’s decision became painfully clear.

He couldn’t let Julian have the tablet.

He would have to destroy the text and pay the price for foiling Julian’s plans… which was certain to be death.

Neil wondered how he would do it. A firing squad, perhaps? Or would he be shoved off the boat into a swarm of hungry crocodiles?

Of course, Julian wouldn’t be the one pulling the trigger—or enticing the crocodiles. It would be that man Jacobs who did the dirty work.

The thought of Jacobs reminded Neil of Dawson’s words earlier that evening.

It’s best not to lie to him.