LITMIR.BIZ

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      “She is what?”

      Munira shook her head. “She is. And much…always…will she be such.”

      Then she nodded at her completely unhelpful attempt, proud of herself. To be fair, her English so far outshone my Arabic that I couldn’t do anything but thank her.

      That, and make a mental note to come back with someone—a woman—who was fluent in both languages.

      “May she smile upon you,” said Munira—then looked down at the wedding ring I’d set on the counter. “What is you wish for this ring, Champion? You say…trapping?”

      No reason to confuse matters with the concept of a tracking device. “Is there anything unusual about this ring? Something that does not belong, embedded in it?”

      I felt sick, just having to ask. Lex and I were working on trusting each other, damn it. If it turned out he’d bugged me again, the man would need more than a sword to defend himself.

      Munira raised a jeweler’s loupe to her eye, a strange contrast to the veiling, and professionally examined the ring. If there was anything artificial there, she would surely see it.

      “It is written,” she said. “Graven?”

      “Engraved?”

      Nodding, she found a pencil to trace the unfamiliar letters, right to left. They came out sloppy, like a child’s—but again, any attempt I made to write the beautiful flourishes of Arabic would have looked worse. All I needed was legibility.

      That’s what I got. Virescit vulnere virtus.

      Latin. Something about vulnerability and strength. I’d seen the words before—over Lex’s father’s fireplace.

      It was the Stuart clan motto.

      “Does this…understand…to you?” she asked, and I nodded tightly. “Is all I see. Is fine ring. Very old. Very expensive.”

      So, just for giggles… “How expensive?”

      She named a price—in American dollars, not Egyptian pounds—which staggered me. For just gold? No diamonds or anything?

      “You have generous husband, no?” she asked.

      No. What I had was a contradiction to Lex’s oh-so-casual, standard-for-women-overseas story. Was it also company policy for businesswomen to wear expensive, been-in-the-family-for-generations, complete-with-motto rings?

      “We sell much fine jewelry,” offered Munira. “Very low price.” And like that the strange Grailkeeper interlude turned back to the assumed normalcy of souvenir shopping at the Khan el-Khalili.

      I’d seen the Pyramids of Giza as we flew in, and caught glimpses while we were in the city, they were so close to urban Cairo. But they were the opposite direction from Alexandria.

      The drive had its points of interest, for sure, like the occasional sight of fellahin, or peasant farmers, riding overpacked bicycles, donkeys or even camels down the road. Rhys pointed out the road we would take if I wanted to check out the oldest Christian monastery in existence. But contrasted against pyramids almost anything would seem anticlimactic.

      Even speculating about who had attacked me with a scimitar—and what Munira had meant about me being “Champion.”

      “Perhaps you’re special,” offered Rhys.

      “I’m not special.”

      He glanced toward me as if he wanted to contradict that but hesitated from propriety’s sake.

      “I mean, I’m no more special than the next person. Certainly no more than the next Grailkeeper.”

      “Perhaps you are. That is to say…perhaps you have been somehow chosen. You did find the Melusine Grail. And you did drink from it.”

      “My cousin Lil drank from it, too,” I reminded him. “And my friend Sophie, and Aunt Brigitte.”

      “That happened some days later, did it not?”

      It did, but… “One thing I’ve liked about being a Grailkeeper, ever since I realized the concept was bigger than my grandmother’s old stories, is that there’s no hierarchy. No inner circles. No one woman—one person, I mean—is more important than another.”

      “Unlike the Comitatus?” Damn, but Rhys could be insightful when he wanted.

      “As far as I can see, the only difference between a secret warrior society and a pyramid scheme—the financial kind—is that nobody tries to sell you anything.”

      “Instead, they try to kill you.” Rhys shared my grin, then asked, “Do you still believe that Lex was denied leadership simply because he had leukemia as a child?”

      “It makes a weird sort of sense, especially if the order was established during pagan times. An ancient belief equates the health, even the virility, of the land with that of its king. Who knows? That could explain how my country has managed to prosper under presidents who were real hound dogs.”

      “But surely if Lex has fully recovered…”

      “Oh, he recovered all right.” But thinking about Lex and virility at the same time wasn’t going to uncomplicate anything. Besides, I was still annoyed that he’d tricked me into wearing a family heirloom—so annoyed that I’d taken it off. “I used to wonder why he was so driven to stay in shape. Now I guess I know. But no way would Phil relinquish control that easily. My best guess is that Lex will try for a peaceful coup.”

      “That would be the path of a true leader, would it not?”

      Depends on how you defined leadership. “He said something strange to me, Rhys. He said he needed me, needed balance, in order to do something important.”

      “He needs you, and you flew to Egypt?”

      “He said it a few months ago. Hasn’t mentioned it since. Besides, you needed me, too, right?”

      Rhys slanted a skeptical look my direction. “I didn’t invite you here to be my bodyguard, Maggi. I do care for your safety rather more than that.”

      “But if someone thinks you’re close enough to finding the Isis Grail to try killing you…”

      “Then you deserve to be here for the actual discovery,” he finished. “I’ve gotten permission for you to participate. As an academic observer, that is.”

      “To participate in…” Belatedly, I realized exactly what he meant. “The project? Cleopatra’s sunken palace? Really?”

      He grinned. “You and she have a great deal in common, after all.”

      Noting how his eyes shone at the gift he’d given me, I thought, Attracted to two men?

      Or, worse, was he going to say something gushy about immortal beauty? I didn’t want Rhys admiring me that way, at least not saying so.

      I was officially dating Lex, trust or no trust.

      “You are both strong women,” Rhys clarified, to my relief.

      That seemed the safer analogy.

      Speedboats bounce. At least, they do around other boats, as in the partially enclosed harbor of Alexandria. Salt spray flew into my face, sunlight glared across the water, and I loved it. This no longer felt as foreign as Egypt. It felt more familiarly like the Mediterranean—which, just beyond the crescent of land enclosing the harbor from either side, it was.

      You may have read about the discovery of Cleopatra’s Palace in Newsweek or National Geographic, or seen a special about it on cable television. I had, even before I’d started my search for the goddess grails…or learned that Cleopatra herself had claimed to be the reincarnation of the goddess Isis.

      “That’s common knowledge to Egyptologists,” Rhys assured me, shouting over the engine of the motorboat

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