❝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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☾ ☽
HER FOCUS WAS SOLELY on her journal and the ancient crown that sat on the table before her as Mara finished drawing out the final demotic characters on its interior. She was the only one who sat in a chair, and the others were looking at her warily. The plan she had just explained to them, the one that had occurred to her, didn't seem to be as ingenious to them as it had been to her.
"Mara, I'm not quite sure you're thinking straight," said Jamil.
"What he means to say is you've gone mad," countered Talib.
The comment effectively disturbed her focus and Mara turned to eye her brother, who stood with his arms crossed looking down at her. She had expected some resistance, but that was a remark she didn't think she would hear. She questioned, "What exactly is maddening about it, Talib?"
Talib blinked at her and replied, "Um, everything."
"If I can talk to Evy and describe these characters to her, she could be able to translate the demotic for us," Mara explained again, faint hope in her voice. There was nothing mad about her plan at all. A problem or two, maybe, but those could be easily corrected. It was the only plan anyone had that she had complete confidence in, and this was because there was no one she had more confidence in than Evelyn O'Connell.
"What happened to your demotic-hieratic similarities idea?"
"There's no time for that," Mara reiterated what she had already said. If she were to continue with that, the odds were that she would not only inaccurately translate the writing, but that by the time she had inaccurately translated it, it would have been too late. "Ardeth, you heard Qadir say that time is running out. That means time is running out for me, too."
Ardeth agreed, "Jamil, she is right."
"Thank you," Mara said gratefully and turned to her father next. Jamil let out a heavy sigh and said nothing in response; if he wanted to argue, she couldn't see any sign of it. With that, she returned to drawing the characters, and had only a few left to write down.
Talib seemed to have conceded at least somewhat to that fact, but kept arguing, "What even makes you think your friend will be able to do this?" In response, he received exasperated and knowing looks from not only Mara, but Jamil and Jonathan as well. Ardeth raised an eyebrow. Talib added, "I've never met her and you expect me to have the same faith in her you lot do?"
"If anyone will be able to translate demotic from hearing it described, it's Evy," Mara stated confidently.
Jonathan pulled out the chair beside hers and sat in it, repeating what he'd said to her before she had kicked him out of bed, "Again, Evy is four thousand miles away."
