❝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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AS HE HAD BEEN DOING for the past five minutes, Jamil continued to anxiously pace the flat and continuously glanced toward the door, waiting for it to open. It had been over an hour since Mara and Jonathan left to contact Evelyn and there had been no sign of them since. If Evelyn had translated the demotic she would have told them and they would have returned. If Evelyn hadn't answered they would have returned. Yet they hadn't.
"They should have been back by now," Jamil said to Talib and Ardeth. He turned to his son, who looked as wary as he felt. "How long does it take to get from here to the telephone?"
Talib shrugged. "Ten, fifteen minutes max," he answered. Then he suggested, somewhat weakly, "Maybe she and her friend are just on some kind of tangent. Apparently, they do it a lot. I asked Jonathan earlier, he said they could keep talking like that for half an hour."
"Mara knows the urgency and I suspect so does Evelyn."
"Then maybe Mara and Jonathan are just taking a minute to themselves before they come back," Talib said. He was searching for an excuse that could give a logical, not terrible reason for their absence. It wasn't convincing. "Not like anyone's given them any actual alone time today."
Jamil's eyes narrowed. "You are not a naïve boy, Talib," he said. There was only one conclusion that could be drawn from their not returning. "Something's happened."
Before he could say that he was going to go out and look for them, Ardeth stood and offered first, "I will look for them. Which way is the telephone?"
Talib gestured west, slouching a little in his seat. "Six, seven blocks that way. Office building, five stories, it's got the name Zaman on the side."
"Stay here. Do not leave," Ardeth advised them before leaving himself.
Perhaps his looking for them was for the best; if something had happened, if either of them laid dead in an alley somewhere, it was better if Jamil wasn't the one to find them. This knowledge did nothing to stop Jamil from feeling helpless about it, forced to sit and wait. He and Talib exchanged a nervous look, and Jamil returned to pacing.
When Ardeth stepped out onto the street, he was not even halfway down the block before he spotted Jonathan, alone, coming towards the building, one hand on the back of his head and the other clutching some kind of fabric. The bag on his side did not look as full as it had earlier. "Jonathan," Ardeth said when they came within feet of one another. "Where is Mara?"
Jonathan didn't respond with anything other than a glance as he passed by him into the building and Ardeth swiftly turned and followed him. The answer was already clear. When they reached the flat, Jonathan grabbed the doorknob and pulled the door open, saying immediately, "They've taken Mara."
