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Adam nodded toward the dig site. “What about Mr. M? Is he gonna need a rescue?”

“Mr. Mahjoud? Need a rescue?” Constance scoffed. “I am quite certain he is capable of skewering the whole lot of them if he chooses.”

“Is he?” Ellie frowned, thinking of the exceptionally well-dressed and tiredly disapproving dragoman.

“He’s Sudanese,” Constance said as though the answer were self-explanatory. “So where do we go? Mariette’s House is out of the question, as is any public accommodation in Badrashin—those are the first places they will think we have gone.” Her eyes glittered excitedly. “Perhaps we can find a troop of river pirates and convince them to join our cause!”

Mr. Al-Ahmed rubbed his face. The gesture only made it even more dirty. He let out a sigh. “I know where we can go.”

Without waiting for a response, he trudged toward the shadowy line of distant date palms that marked the edge of the inundation zone.

Constance gave Ellie a surprised look, then hurried after him, her footsteps light.

Ellie glanced back at her brother.

Neil was staring once more at the lights and noise of his former excavation. With a slow and eloquent sigh of dismay, he turned and slumped wearily after Mr. Al-Ahmed and Constance like a man condemned.

Adam lingered behind, his posture stiff as he gazed out over the shadowy expanse of the desert.

“Adam?” Ellie prompted softly.

He tore himself from his silent study to join her, but remained unusually quiet. Through the shadows of the evening, his expression looked like a closed door. “We should catch up.”

Silence fell after his words, thick and uneasy. Ellie realized that he was waiting for her—that even in this odd, brooding state, he still wouldn’t go unless he knew she was coming with him.

“Why won’t you tell me what’s wrong?” she pressed stubbornly.

He finally looked down at her. His expression was pained. “I…” He stopped, rubbing at the bridge of his nose as though fighting a headache. “This isn’t a good time.”

Ellie’s heart twisted nervously in her chest, tight with unexpected fear. Part of her flinched back in response, wanting to close up—to protect herself before she could get hurt.

She drew in a careful, deliberate breath—and reached out to take his hand instead.

His expression softened as he looked down at the place where her fingers clasped the handkerchief wrapped over his wounded palm.

“But youwilltell me,” Ellie insisted.

For just a moment, his warm, strong grip tightened around her own. He gave her an uncertain nod, then let her go.

“Come on, Princess,” he said solemnly and led her after the others.

??

Twelve

Mr. Al-Ahmed led themalong a winding trail that was barely discernible from the rocky ground of the desert necropolis. Overhead, the last vestiges of twilight slipped below the horizon, bringing a greater array of stars out against the rich darkness overhead.

They passed into the tidy rows of towering date palms that loomed silently against the sand like watching sentinels. Mr. Al-Ahmed steered them unerringly along a dirt path through knee-high fields of rice and sorghum threaded with the shimmering lines of canals. Here and there, low mud-brick houses punctuated the scene, lamplight flickering from behind their window screens.

A mile later, Ellie’s guide took a turn onto a narrower track that led them to a tidy single-story house of whitewashed mud-brick framed by flowering shrubs and palms. The building was set on a little rise safely above the level of the inundation. A cluster of humbler homes stood a little distance away, but the spot was otherwise quite private, with views across both the green fields and the broad, still sands of the desert.

Light glimmered through the meshrabiyeh screens over the windows, framing a freshly painted door.

“Whose house is this?” Ellie asked quietly.

“Mine, for now,” Mr. Al-Ahmed replied.

“Hold on!” Neil stopped short in the path. “You have ahousehere?”