"You are safe. This man, you need not think of him now. He died due to his own rash behavior. He cannot harm you ever again."
From a crystal pitcher on the nightstand he poured her a glass of water, gestured for her to drink. Of course, it could be poison. Of course, this man could be an abductor far more fearsome than the mad drunk who had attacked her at the party. But she was not confined or restrained, and he was kind, this man. Very gentle and kind and possessed of a quiet strength for which she did not have a name.
"I am Aktamu," the man said.
Such a strange name. She had never come upon this name in all of her dreams or studies.
He held her gaze in the silence that followed, and she realized he was asking for her name without demanding it of her.
"My name is Sibyl Parker," she said. "And I would like very much to know where I am."
"I will tell them you are awake," he said. "I'm sure you will all have much to tell each other."
She nodded, even though it wasn't possible for her to know what this meant, who they were, or how she had come to be in this place.
At least it was beautiful, she thought.
At least she could hear the sea.
She felt movement on the blanket next to her and cried out. But then she found herself staring into the watchful gaze of a slinky gray cat. The gentle creature approached with careful steps and then sprawled out across her chest as if to comfort her.
This was no ordinary creature, she was sure. Sibyl began to stroke its fur anyway, and watched as it gently closed its blue eyes with a drowsiness that appeared almost human.
30
Havilland Park
Her scream was loud enough to awaken a pack of dogs nearby.
She could hear them howling, somewhere out there, somewhere beyond where she was now confined. Her reflection in the canal's water had vanished and been replaced by another. By Sibyl Parker. But were the woman's words true? Did she truly seek to hide nothing, to steal nothing? Was she as tortured by their connection as Cleopatra was?
A confusing jumble, these thoughts, none
of them strong enough to distract her from the cold stone under her back, the pebbles and rocks digging into her flesh, and the damp, earthy smell of the cell in which she now found herself.
Her eyes needed no time to adjust to the darkness. For that she could thank Ramses and his elixir.
The grooves in the stone floor were clear, as was the outline of a formidable door made of some kind of metal. Also in this dark place, the lingering stink of some animal. Had the creatures howling somewhere nearby been housed inside this cell at some point?
A curse in this moment, these heightened senses. She would have savored a second or two of disorientation. Another few minutes of feeling as if her dream of Alexandria and the woman named Sibyl Parker were slowly falling from her like a shroud.
Gone was Alexandria. The sense of pursuing and being pursued through a vague impression of its backstreets and canals. Gone was the terrifying sight of Sibyl Parker's reflection where her own should have been. Gone was the sound of a young boy's voice calling out to her again and again in Greek. Mother, Mother, Mother.
And now...
There was a terrible scraping sound. Similar to the sound her captors had made when they closed the lid over the coffin that brought her here.
Dim orange light fell in a small rectangle across the floor at her bare feet.
Through the sudden opening in the metal door, she saw three faces. She did not recognize a one. The man in the middle had cascades of black curls and exquisitely balanced features. To his left, a man who looked much older, with a pinched, sour expression and two wings of wiry gray and white hair with which one might scrub pots. To his right, a woman with a great mane of blonde hair who bore no resemblance to the other two. Immortals, all of them, and they studied her coldly, as a scientist might a failed experiment.
"It is not her," the man in the middle said, a quiver of rage in his voice.
"Master," the older one began. "I am so very sorry, but you--"
"Go," the man in the middle said.
"In the tunnel, they acted too soon and now with everything that's--"