“It’s enormous,” Inez whispered.
“The tallest structure in the ancient world,” I said. “At the very top, there used to be a massive mirror that reflected light and could be seen thirty-five miles away.”
“You can still see the inscription on this side,” Isadora said, pointing to the etching on the light stone. “An offering to the twin guardians of the sea.”
“Who were they?” Inez asked.
“Castor and Pollux,” Isadora and I said in unison.
We looked at each other in horrified surprise. Inez merely smiled and strode toward the front entrance, her chin lifted, her curly hair trailing down to the middle of her back. “There’s the doorway,” she said. “Wide enough for two horsemen to ride through side by side.”
We walked inside and were met by a crumbling staircase and a large square-shaped area that must have housed chariots and horses at one point. Overhead, parts of the ceiling had fallen. Boulders littered the space, some taller than me. While the lighthouse seemed empty, there were many shadowy corners in which to hide.
Inez glanced around warily, her gaze landing on Isadora. “Did you remember to bring your gun?”
Isadora patted her jacket pocket. “Oh, I must have forgotten my spare when we went to the hotel for supplies.”
I studied our surroundings, my gut clenching. I had brought my rifle, which I’d packed inside my trunk, unassembled. It was my least favorite gun—bulky, loud, and a nuisance to load. But something was better than nothing.
It wouldn’t do to meet our enemies unarmed.
“Look over here,” Inez called out.
I walked to where she stood, peering at a mostly intact wall. An enormous relief was carved into the stone, depicting a Greek god in billowing robes. He wore a crown, and in his left hand, he carried a scepter. At his feet rested a three-headed dog, its teeth bared fiercely.
“Cerberus again,” Inez murmured.
“The hound of Hades,” I said. “A curious creature to carve onto the wall of the lighthouse. It guarded the entrance to the underworld and had nothing to do with the sea.”
Inez was barely listening to me. She had crept closer, her finger lightlytracing the carving, inspecting the lettering at the base of the relief. “There is some writing in Latin. Can you read it?”
“Very little,” I said, but I came closer, peering over her shoulder. I tried to ignore the sweet scent of her hair, the brush of her long skirt against the toes of my boots. This was the closest I’d stood next to her since we married. Which hadnothingto do with anything. I cleared my throat and focused on translating. “I believe the name of this god is Serapis.”
She glanced at me from over the curve of her shoulder. “I don’t know who he is.”
“Abdullah would,” I muttered. “I think he’s a Greco-Egyptian god.” My eye caught another faint line of text. “Wait a moment—there’s something else written below his name.” Gently, I moved her aside so I could better read the scant lines of text etched into the wall. “He’s the patron of Alexandria, and there’s a temple dedicated to him in the city.”
“Where?” Inez asked sharply. “Because I think I’ve seen…”
A dreamy expression stole over her face, as if she’d stepped into another world. I waved my hand across her eyes. She stared vacantly back at me, not quite alert but still lost somehow. “Inez?Inez.”
I reached out to shake her shoulders but stilled when I recalled her curious connection to Cleopatra via the golden ring on her finger. She might be viewing one of her memories.
“What’s the matter with her?” Isadora asked sharply from somewhere behind me. I barely heard her. My whole focus was on my wife.
“Inez?” I asked again, louder this time.
She blinked, coming back to herself in a matter of seconds. She squeezed her eyes shut and then slowly opened them, meeting my gaze levelly. “Can you see a tower from here?”
“What?” I asked.
“Across the harbor,” she said. “Is there a tower? It looks Roman by design.”
I turned, squinting through the rubble. There was a section that allowed someone to see across the water and back to the coastline we’d rowed from earlier. “Yes, I think. Why?”
“I was in a memory,” she breathed. “Cleopatra was traveling by boat and wearing the same exact robe from last time. I think these two memories are connected. In the first one, she had the roll of parchment on her, and just now I saw her in a little rowboat, only one guard with her. He was working the oars, but they weren’t on the Nile River, or even out at sea. They wereunderground.”
“What do you mean? Underground how?”
