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He yanked the machete from his belt and neatly cut the rope.

Ellie took a quick stumble away as the severed length snaked down in front of her, coming to rest in the long coil of woven hemp. Adam followed, dropping from the tomb shaft and landing in a crouch.

“That’ll buy us a little more time,” he said, shaking off his recently wounded hand with a wince.

“But you… you cut the rope!” Neil stammered, paling. “How are we supposed to get out of here without a rope?”

“Tunnel,” Adam replied, shoving his machete back into its sheath.

“That tunnel,” Neil whispered desperately, stabbing a finger back at the precarious black opening in the wall behind him. “The one that is two thousand years old. The one that looks as though it is about to collapse. And which most likely leads to nowhere.”

Mr. Al-Ahmed paused in his careful work on the interior of the jewelry box. “That would… not be an entirely accurate statement.”

“Why not?” Neil demanded.

“A few months ago, one of the workers found an opening under a slab near one of the spoil dumps to the southeast of the temple complex,” Mr. Al-Ahmed replied, keeping his voice low. “Which turned out to be a very simple late Twentieth Dynasty tomb shaft—entirely cleared out, of course, by looters or Frenchmen.”

“For all the difference there is between them,” Ellie grumbled.

“I mean to say that it was not a site of any interest,” Mr. Al-Ahmed hurried on. “But when I descended into it—”

“Descended?!” Neil cut in with a hiss.

“I could not know that it was not a site of value until I had seen it, could I?” Mr. Al-Ahmed protested uncomfortably, then went back to his work at the interior of the wooden box. “But while I was inside, it is possible that I might have seen an opening to a thieves’ tunnel in the northern wall, the orientation of which would roughly align with the location for the burial chamber in this complex.”

“But did you go into the tunnel?” Constance pressed excitedly.

“Absolutely not!” Mr. Al-Ahmed was clearly aghast at the notion. “It is almost certainly a death trap!”

“So’s going upstairs,” Adam pointed out.

“But Dawson won’t know there’s anything wrong—not yet,” Ellie reasoned.

He met her eyes, his expression grim. “And just how long do you think it’s gonna take him to figure it out once he sees us?”

With a soft click, the interior floor of the jewelry box came loose. Mr. Al-Ahmed looked down at it in surprise, as though he had nearly forgotten that he was still working at it. Carefully, he lifted the delicate wooden panel away, exposing a narrow compartment that lay hidden beneath it.

The compartment was not empty. It held a finely made loop of glimmering electrum, the alloy hued a subtle bronze. A flat bezel at the top was inscribed with a cluster of hieroglyphs.

“It’s a seal ring!” Ellie breathed wonderingly.

Mr. Al-Ahmed carefully plucked it from the box, shifting it toward the lamplight to illuminate the symbols.

“True servant, beloved of his lord,” he read off easily.

“The king’s scribe, Ahmose,” Ellie filled in, leaning over him for a closer look.

“The proper pronunciation is ‘Yahmoseh,’” Mr. Al-Ahmed corrected her distractedly.

A chill danced over Ellie’s skin despite the warm air. “But something has been done to one of the glyphs. The crescent moon symbol—it’s filled in with plaster.”

“That’s the glyph for Yah,” Mr. Al-Ahmed clarified. “The god of the moon.”

Neil whirled back toward them, his gaze sharpening with sudden interest. “Hold on—did you say the name of the god wasdeliberatelyfilled in?”

The chill electrifying Ellie’s skin intensified, raising the hairs on her arms. “But if the glyph was filled, that sound wouldn’t have imprinted itself into the wax when the seal was used.”

Neil held out his hand. “Could I…please?” he asked, the word tinged with desperation.