❝death is only the beginning.❞
Mara El-Masri's fascination with the long-ago world of ancient Egypt started with the stories her stepfather would tell her when she was a child. Her brother Talib El-Masri is missing, left after their mother's funera...
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☾ ☽
EVY AND MARA spent the next half hour or so hunched over the papyrus from the puzzle box and the puzzle box itself, studying every aspect of them, while Jonathan paced the room and waited for them to finish while the women spoke in excited, hushed tones. Neither made much of an effort to include him in the translating of the hieroglyphics and so the only thing he was left to do was pace and wait.
While he did that, he caught snippets of their discussions—"This map is nearly three thousand years old!" from Evy with fascination, "I'm sure this is the cartouche of Seti I," from Mara with interest, and occasionally they spoke together when they had a breakthrough at the same time. Seems he did some good picking the pocket of a drunk (though he wasn't planning on telling them that's where he found the box; this said, he was certain that Mara already suspected he'd stolen it).
Yes, that Mara was an intriguing one. He hadn't spent enough time with her to know much about her other than her name and she was an aspiring Egyptologist who worked with his sister and seemed to be her closest friend, though every time he visited he planned to correct that but never got around to it. This little box he'd stolen might just work out in his favor in that regard.
"Evy, could it be...?" Mara said.
"Yes, yes, I think so. Jonathan!" Evy called and Jonathan startled, setting the little granite statue of Horus he was playing with back where he found it. Evy and Mara were now standing, and the map was in Mara's hands whereas the box was in Evy's. "We must see Dr. Bey immediately."
—
"The cartouche there," Mara explained as she and Evy hovered around the curator at his desk, the map from the puzzle box open in front of them. She'd hardly been able to stop bouncing since she realized what the map led to. "It's the royal seal of Seti I. We're certain of it."
Bey did not seem eager to concur. "Perhaps."
"Two questions," Jonathan piped up as he went around the other side of the desk. Mara watched him. "Who the hell was Seti I, and was he rich?"
"He was the second pharaoh of the 19th dynasty," Evy informed, hands clasped behind her, "said to be the wealthiest pharaoh of them all."
"Good. That's good," he said with a roguish smile, pointing at the map. Mara remembered Evy telling her how her brother liked riches, so of course he'd be interested in Seti I's alleged wealth. "I like this fellow, like him very much."
"I've already dated the map," Evy continued to the curator as they got back on track. "It's almost three thousand years old. And if you look at the hieratic just here," she and Mara both pointed at the hieratic on the map, "well...it's Hamunaptra."
