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“Mrs. Acton?” my uncle said, smiling. “I’ve come to introduce you to your charge.”

“My charge? Oh, right. Of course, young Irene, is it?”

My uncle smothered a laugh. “Inez. Do you have everything you need? The money and tickets?”

She blinked at him, her thin lips making a perfectOshape. “Young man, it is absolutelyvulgarto discuss such things in public.”

“I beg your pardon,” Tío Ricardo said, and this time he couldn’t contain his chuckle. “But do you have your tickets? The front desk ought to have handed them to you.”

“Yes, yes. Such small slips of paper, I can hardly read the print.” She felt around her person, and I pointed to her small silk purse dangling from her wrist.

“It’s there,” I said as a flash of inspiration struck me. She had a hard time reading the small print. I bit my lip, trying to keep my face neutral. “Thank you for accompanying me.”

“And you’re ready to depart?” my uncle persisted.

Mrs. Acton nodded, absently searching through her bag. “I’m all packed.”

“Excellent.” He turned to me. “I really must be off. Safe journey, querida sobrina. I will write, I promise.”

Then he left me with a stranger, and didn’t look back. Not even once.

“Well, Irina, I think we’ll have a grand adventure,” Mrs. Acton said. Her voice had a breathy quality to it, as if she was on the verge of laughing. “Shall I introduce you to my friends? They are in the alcove, just there, working on a puzzle. Quite fond of the silly little things. I think we have a few minutes before we must set off, and I’d love a cup of tea.”

The moment of my deception came.

I furrowed my brow in mock confusion. “Why, you have all the time in the world, Mrs. Acton. If you’d like, you can sit and join them and even participate in the game.”

Befuddlement settled onto her face. It reminded me of a creased silk pillow. “But we must head to the station. The train departs in an hour, I thought.”

“Oh! Mrs. Acton, I believe you confused the dates of our journey. We don’t leave until tomorrow.” I held out my hand. “Here, I’ll show you. May I have the tickets, please?”

She fished them out and unfolded them. “But I packed. Your uncle said to meet him down here.”

“I think he only wanted to introduce us,” I said in a breezy tone. I took the papers from her and pretended to examine them. “See? It says so right here. We leave tomorrow. How fortunate that you’re ready to go. I still haven’t packed.”

“You haven’t?” Mrs. Acton gaped. “Well, I like to prepare for my travels well in advance. It’s a practice that has served me well. I can send up my maid to you. She’s an absolute jewel.”

I shook my head. “My uncle has secured the services of a maid, thank you. Well, I’m so glad you’ll be able to enjoy that cup of tea. Say hello to your friends from me.”

Mrs. Acton regarded me, brow still muffled in perplexity. Gently, I prodded her in the direction of her friends. As soon as her back was turned, I strode out of the hotel lobby and into a night-covered Cairo.

Free, free, free.

I tried not to be smug about it.

WHIT

Ricardo glanced at his pocket watch and scowled. The man we were meeting hadn’t arrived for dinner. I kept quiet and my attention wandered, cataloguing the number of people in the room who posed a potential threat to myself and my employer. There were too many of them and my fingers itched for my pistol. The hotel management didn’t approve of their guests carrying weapons into the dining parlor. I swirled the whiskey in my glass and took a long sip, hearing my father’s disapproving voice as it burned a fiery path down my throat. The man only drank tea and sugary lemonade. Father thought only weak men drank alcohol.

“He’s late,” Ricardo growled.

“Are you sure we need him?”

“No, but I thought I had everything under control before and clearly I was wrong. I can’t afford to make any more mistakes. He’s an insurance policy.” He glanced at me. “Any trouble today with my niece?”

A waiter came around carrying a tray filled with red and white wine. I grabbed one, hardly caring which, and gulped it down. My thoughts turned to earlier when I’d squired Señorita Olivera about Cairo. Her disobedience was on the tip of my tongue. But the words stayed in my mouth, caught behind my teeth. I remembered, instead, her wary expression aswe stood out on the terrace, the sounds of the city rising around us like a billowing crowd. She didn’t even come up to my shoulders, and to meet my gaze at all she had to raise her chin and tip her head back almost fully.

Dark curls framed her face, and a smattering of freckles peppered the bridge of her nose, her cheeks, her eyelids. I’d looked down into her changing eyes, green then brown then gold, eyes that held alchemical magic, and had one crystallized thought in mind.