“No, no, no!”
We all turned as a tiny, winged figure flopped dramatically onto the back of a chair.
“I’ve been flying the Dusk Roads for hours, dodging death and pigeons, and this is what greets me? Dry ginger biscuits?” Nibble scowled, his wings puffed out, and his fur windswept.
“Nibble,” Orren growled. “You traitorous rodent. You’ve got nerve showing your whiskers after abandoning me.”
“Orren, you locked up your cheese,” Nibble shot back, already nibbling on a biscuit. “That’s not abandonment. That’s self-preservation.”
He licked crumbs from his tiny claws. “These taste like regret and mildew. Are these from the last century?”
“They’re vintage,” Camille scoffed. “Like good wine. Or Emrys’s humor.”
“I heard that,” Emrys said.
“Good,” Camille replied. “Now sit. We’ve got tea, questionable biscuits, and a Surge to keep safe. I’ve already sent a word to Maerya.”
I sipped my tea to wash down the biscuit. It was, undeniably, terrible. Emrys leaned back, crossing his arms over the back of his neck. “Maerya el-Khaottun? Good to hear that the old witch is still around.”
“Who is she?” I asked.
“A Keeper of the Tombs and everything that lingers there. She comes from a long line, appointed by the first pharaoh. Nobody knows more about the pyramids,” Camille explained, chewing on a biscuit thoughtfully.
“She has to! She was practically raised in those catacombs!” Orren added, collecting crumbs and throwing them to Nibble. The bat scowled at them but relented and picked them one by one. “The ghosts of builders, guards, and forgotten scribes still linger there. She gives them offerings, and they speak to her. Together, they watch over the buried treasures of the pharaohs. And help us, occasionally.”
Maerya sounded thrilling. Dangerous but fascinating. “Is she… like you?”
Emrys chuckled. “No, Miss Daphne. She doesn’t share our burden. Yet she’s one of those which Death had forgotten about.”
“Did you hear that she was betrothed to some old god once?” Orren said.
“She refused it,” Camille said, pride sparking in her voice. “The shrine opened, and instead of kneeling, she sealed it. Stone and salt and sacred oil. Walked out into the desert with nothing but a bone dagger and her grandmother’s ring.”
I stared. “And that god didn’t punish her?”
“No.” Orren’s voice was quiet now. “He whispered to her instead. Truths older than the desert. Older than death.”
The silence that followed was heavy and reverent. Even Nibble stirred slightly, one eye cracking open as if to make sure no one said anything too dramatic without his approval.
The shadows near the doorway thickened, cooled, and shifted.
“She’s here,” Camille said and smiled into her cup.
The door opened, and the most unusual woman I’d ever seen stood before us. “I heard all of this. I’m not that old at all!” she said.
She had rich bronze skin, weathered by sun and sand, bone jewelry clinked on her wrists. Her long braids nearly brushed the floor, threaded with copper wire, dried herbs, and beads shaped like scarabs, ankhs, and crescent moons. She pulled a chair to join us. Then she hissed like a cat, her tattooed finger pointing at Nibble.
“You brought that rat?” she said flatly and straightened the skirts of her layered tunic colored in bright ochre and indigo.
“Excuse you,” Nibble huffed from his perch on the bookshelf, grooming a wing with excessive precision. “I’m a highly valued member of this operation.”
She rolled her kohl-lined eyes. “You’re a flying pest.” I blinked. The one favored by the old gods seemed surprisingly down-to-earth.
“And you’re a sack of sunbaked bones with a superiority complex,” Nibble declared.
Maerya arched a brow. “Still stealing figs from my offerings, I see?”
“I was redistributing them, thank you very much. Besides, who leaves perfectly ripe fruit in front of a statue and expects it to go untouched?”
