❝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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☾ ☽
THERE WAS NO DANGER that befell them on the journey to Riyadh, unlike the previous trip Mara and Jonathan had taken together (that to Hamunaptra). It had been a long travel, and it had taken two boats and three trains, but the most obstacles they had seen was making sure they had gotten on the right transportation and that they weren't going to wind up in the middle of nowhere.
This wasn't to say that the journey had not been fraught with worry. Much of Mara's time had been spent thinking about her brother and what she would say to him when she saw him again. In her head she had thought of what seemed like a million different variations of what could happen. Would he welcome her with a hug or slam the door in her face? What if she couldn't find him at all?
At one point, Jonathan had figured out that she was warring with herself and had prompted her to tell him what was on her mind, and he had listened without saying a word until she asked him to. What he had said was that it was doing her no good to overthink things and that she couldn't predict how things would go, but that regardless of whatever happened with Talib El-Masri she'll have tried and that's what mattered. After that, Mara had relaxed, and instead of worrying about what her brother would do, she told Jonathan more about him.
By the time the final train had finally pulled into Riyadh, Mara had been so distracted talking to Jonathan that she hardly noticed that the train had stopped until he'd pointed it out. It had been the second time that day she had felt her face burn out of embarrassment; the first had been when, after spending much of the night before telling him the stories, she had woken with her head on his shoulder while he quietly read a book he'd brought with him.
The first thing to do in Riyadh, before even thinking about finding Talib now that they were here, was to find a hotel. The first one they had come across, the one that was chosen with no further thought, didn't particularly stand-out as far as hotels went. The lobby, which they stood in now, was rather empty for midday on a weekend.
"Right, so where exactly are we going?" Jonathan questioned, watching Mara unfold a map of the city. She held it in front of her face, inadvertently blocking his view of her. "You're not planning on dragging me all around Riyadh, are you?"
Mara folded down the top of the map enough to gaze at him. "Very funny, dear," she remarked, and caught his smile before opening the map again. "I remember the address that was on the envelope. I just need to find it on the map so I don't have to drag you all around Riyadh. Could you—"
"Yes, I will be right back," Jonathan interrupted as she gestured to the front desk a few feet away. She nodded and returned to the map. He walked across to the front desk, where the man behind it was reading a newspaper. "Ah...hello." He had to knock twice on the desk to get the man's attention. "Room for two under Carnahan, please."
