❝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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WAS IT FOOLISH to have knocked on Jonathan's door to ask him for help? Even if it was, he was the only person Mara wanted to speak to about her brother right now. He was the only person she trusted enough to tell about this, about what she wanted to do. She thought he would understand her train of thought right now, being an older sibling himself.
Although considering how late it was, she probably could have come at an earlier time or even tomorrow morning (either would have been more sensible than ten o'clock), but she had already wasted enough time pacing back and forth in her hotel room debating herself. She wasn't going to be able to sleep until she did this, and if she had waited until the morning, she might have changed her mind.
He had let her into his flat without asking what exactly she meant, and now she sat in one of the chairs, foot tapping anxiously on the floor. He came back from the kitchen with a glass of water, murmuring, "Here," as he offered it to her.
It was very kind of him. She had wondered where he had went, because she had only been in the flat for all of twenty seconds before he had disappeared. She wrapped her hands around the glass and said, "Thank you, dear."
Jonathan smiled when she called him that—their terms of endearment addressing one another had never failed to cheer either up, whatever the circumstances—but it faded as he sat in the chair across from her. He said, "You haven't told me what you need my help with."
Mara glanced at him. It had seemed much easier in her head to say all of this. She took a breath and explained, "It's my brother. I was at my father's house tonight and I found an empty envelope addressed to him from Talib. He's in Riyadh. It isn't an old letter either. The postage was from last week."
His brows rose. "What did the letter say?"
"I don't know. He wouldn't let me read it. I was never meant to know there was a letter. Apparently, Talib wrote not to tell me," she informed, and he nodded. "He's in trouble. My father wouldn't tell me from what but I think Talib wrote him because he needs help."
"I was more than a little drunk when you told me," he remarked with a frown, "but I remember distinctly you saying you insisted on going with him when he was out 'Robin Hood-ing,' and that's why you know everything you do about healing. Why wouldn't he ask for your help when you did all that for him?"
Wasn't that the question? There was no way to know the true answer unless she asked Talib himself. Mara replied with a shrug after drinking some of the water while he was talking, "Your guess is probably as good as mine. But Baba did say it was dangerous, so..." Here she trailed off for a moment as he nodded slowly. "It's not as if I can't handle danger. He knows that even if Talib doesn't."
