Inez gripped my arm, excitement lit across her face. She was trembling from it. “I mean it looked like there was a network of canals beneath the city of Alexandria, and Cleopatra knew about themandwhere they led to.” Inez tightened her grasp. “I saw her reaching a tunnel that had a curved staircase, and after getting out of the boat, she used it to climb up a tower. It overlooked the harbor. And I saw it—”
“Saw what?”
“The lighthouse, her palace. Everything.” Inez frowned. “But she wasn’t carrying the roll of parchment anymore. I don’t understand—she wouldn’t have left it in the boat. It’s too valuable.”
I tried to picture what Inez would have seen. All of these visions were connected. The first had been a frantic search for the alchemical sheet, the second had been Cleopatra, a Spellcaster, creating magic to perhaps protect the Chrysopoeia. At this point, Cleopatra’s goal was to hide such a treasure from her scheming brother. She needed help, and history told us that eventually, she went to Julius Caesar—who had stationed himself at the royal palace.
“She was going back to her home,” I said.
“Yes, that must be it exactly,” Inez replied, grinning. “With her brother hoping to invade the city, Cleopatra would have had to move about secretly. What better way than the underground passageways?”
Instinctively, I understood that she wouldn’t have given a Roman general something so valuable to her. No, she would have found a way to keep it hidden.
“Right,” I said quietly. “But before getting to the tower, Cleopatra must have made a stop along the way and found a secure place to—”
From the corner of my eye, I caught sight of Isadora approaching.
She held something small in her hand.
A gun, glinting in the moonlight.
She lifted her arm, aiming directly at Inez. Her finger curled around the trigger. My heart stopped.
CRACK.
CAPÍTULO VEINTE
Whit gripped my hand and yanked me behind one of the massive boulders piled one on top of the other. The sound of the shot thundered in my ears. Everything had happened so fast I still didn’t know who had fired at us. I tried to picture where we had been standing, where Isadora might have gone. Had she been near us?
“Keep moving,” Whit said, pulling me at a run. We dodged around the rocks, pebbles and sand kicking up under my heels.
“What about my sister?” I yelled.
Whit shot me a thoroughly exasperated look before tucking me behind a partially buried doorway. He peered around the edge calmly, his rifle in his hands.
I poked his back, and he grunted. “We can’t leave her. Let’s go—”
“She’sthe one shooting at us,” Whit said through gritted teeth. “Now, quiet. I don’t think your sister knows where we’re hiding.”
“Isadora wouldn’t—”
Whit glared at me, and I fell silent. He motioned for me to look out into the opening, and as I peered around him, I could make out Isadora picking her way through the debris, the gun in her hand still smoking. My stomach lurched. Whit lowered his gun, bent forward, and then straightened, showing me a rock in his fist.
I gasped. “You arenotgoing to throw it at her.”
He rolled his eyes and then threw it in the opposite direction of where we hid. Isadora spun around and shot where she had heard the rock hitting the ground.
“Sisssssster,” she called out in an eerie singsong voice. “Why don’t you come out here and we can have a talk, you and I? Only, let me take care of your brute, first. What you see in him I’ll never understand.”
I stared, riveted, as her expression turned cold and grim. All of her earlier warmth seemed to bleed out of her. I couldn’t make sense of her behavior. She loaded her weapon with quick, efficient movements. It wasn’t just her expression that had changed. No, she seemed like an entirely different person. Her movements were less polished, less perfect, all traces of the lady she had been gone. Now she walked loosely, her steps long and confident. There was nothing prim and dainty about her. She shoved at her long skirt impatiently, kicking the bulk as she prowled the space.
This person was a stranger to me.
Whit aimed his gun at her, and I instinctively reached out, forcing him to lower the barrel.
“No,” I cried out.
Isadora spun again, her gaze unerringly finding mine. I ducked as she fired, and Whit led me out from under the crumbling doorway. My foot caught on an overturned slab of stone, and I tumbled forward, landing hard on my hands and knees. My palms stung, pebbles embedding into the tender flesh.
