He has been given to me
And he shall not be taken from me.
—Egyptian Book of the Dead, Chapter 11
THROUGH THE NARROW STRIP of glass beside the door,
Roxy could see Dagan pacing the lawn.
She shook her head and turned to Calliope, assessing her mood.
Calliope’s lips curved in a mocking smile. “I want
to go after him and stab him a thousand times. But first,
I want to hear your explanation.”
With a nod, Roxy let go of her forearm.
They stood, separated by an arm’s length. Separated
by a great, yawning chasm. How to cross it?
“Talk,” Calliope ordered.
So Roxy did. She started with the least provocative
information, telling Calliope in concise terms about
Xaphan’s concubines, their questions about Frank
Marin and their interest in Dana.
Leaning to the side, she tried to catch sight of Dagan
on the lawn, but he’d paced beyond her field of vision.
“That’s why you wanted Dana moved a second
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time,” Calliope observed. “You were concerned the
fire genies were going to find her.”
“Yeah.” Roxy felt a pang about keeping quiet that
she had moved the kid a third time, and about the certainty she had that Dana was by no means an incidental pawn. She was a key piece on the chessboard. In
some ways, she was the queen.
But if Roxy’s suspicions proved true, then Dana’s
life could well depend on no one knowing where she
was. So she didn’t tell Calliope that she’d made the kid
