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The darkness loomed thicker, closing in more tightly around him. He fought back against the claustrophobic terror, forcing himself to attend to his other senses.

Sayyid’s boots scraped softly against the ground ahead of him, which was remarkably flat for an uncharted cave system. The air was dry and smelled of stone.

It helped—but only a little.

“It’s too bad we didn’t think to fall through that hole with a light,” Neil joked weakly.

Sayyid stopped ahead of him—though Neil only knew it by the scuff of his boot.

“What did your sister throw at you?” Sayyid pressed.

“Peanut?” Neil had to think, confused by the abrupt change in subject.

His hand went to his pocket, and he pulled out the object he’d picked up from the floor of the cave. He felt a length of smooth metal, warm from the heat of his body, and a round screw top. “I think it’s that cigar tube of hers. The one where she keeps the…”

His voice trailed off as he finally put it together.

“Firebird bone?” Sayyid filled in dryly.

“But that’s just a load of superstitious…” Neil stopped, catching himself with a wince.

He could hardly call Ellie’s bonesuperstitious nonsensewhen he’d seen Julian Forster-Mowbray swing around a flaming sword.

Suppressing a sigh, he unscrewed the lid. He tipped the tube carefully, and the bone slid into his hand.

The world around him remained dark and uncomfortably silent.

“But what do I do with it?” Neil startled at the echo that rang back at him. It spoke of being surrounded by a vast, low, empty space.

“In the tunnel at Saqqara, your sister tried some sort of motion with her hand,” Sayyid recalled.

Shake it!Ellie had shouted down at him from above.

Neil swallowed the feeling of being unutterably foolish—reminding himself that no one could actuallyseehim—and gave the bone a quick little shake.

A soft, sputtering blue flashed against the darkness, momentarily illuminating Sayyid’s face a few steps away before it vanished.

The blackness that closed back in around Neil felt even thicker.

“I must have done it wrong,” he said, panic lacing his words.

“How hard did you try?”

“I don’t know!” Neil protested wildly. “A mild shake?”

“As though you were rolling dice in a cup or preparing a soda canister?” Sayyid pressed.

“More like the dice?” Neil hedged awkwardly.

“So give it a right shake, then!” Sayyid snapped.

His mouth twisting against the utter lunacy of what he was doing, Neil gave the bone a right bloody shaking.

A wild, impossible light blazed to life in his hand.

The glare was somehow both pale and hot, a fiery white-gold like a burning star. Neil’s eyes watered against the abrupt intensity of it, forcing him to squint as he thrust the bone out in front of him.

“Wallah! Can’t you turn it down?” Sayyid threw up an arm to shield his eyes.