“And how are we going to get that?” I asked.
“I can think… Perhaps, I can remember enough.” Ranth closed his eyes.
Ori’s phone chimed. “Hey, we got a call back.” Ori held up her phone, showing an unknown caller. I lowered my hands, shushing the group as she put it on speaker. Ranth’s eyes snapped open.
“Hello, this is Ori,” she said.
“Alu. You wished to connect with us?” a low, gruff voice replied. My insides shredded like wet paper. Maybe this wasn’t a good idea.
“I asked to speak with a member of the order. Are you one?” Ori asked, toying with the end of a braid.
“What is your purpose?”
“My friend is an old member who has lost his way and needs guidance to reconnect. Can you help him?” Ori asked.
“His name?”
“Ranth of Thebais.”
All we could hear was the clicking of keys. “We have no record of him.”
“I don’t expect you do. It’s complicated, but I assure you, he was a member. He’s right here if you’d like to speak to him.” Before I could stop him, Ranth leaned over the phone and shouted at it. “Alu.”
“Alu, Ranth of Thebais. What is the rule of the sky song uttered on the third night of The Beautiful Festival of Khonsu?”
I ran my hand up Ranth’s arm and waved my hand in a quietening motion, wondering if I should stop him from answering. But didn’t we need to find out?
His reply was marginally softer. “The door is open until I close it.”
“And the bones are made from?”
“Silver.”
“And the first words spoken upon waking?”
Ranth replied in a language I didn’t know.
“I will send an emissary to you.” The line clicked off.
Ranth’s look froze the moment. My pulse raced.What had we just done?
CHAPTER TWENTY-SIX
We had multiple plans and people working on them. Ranth, Ori, and I were taking on the second gold piece while Juke set up for the ritual. Juke and Ori had drafted emails from the museum director to the jewelry curator, and Vivian’s professor at UC Berkeley arranged a short-term loan of the piece for study. The museum was really nice about supporting scholars, and short of hiring someone to steal it, I didn’t see how we would get it out of the museum otherwise. If we didn’t get arrested, then it was a good plan. We’d find out shortly.
Ori pulled the car into the Egyptian Museum’s free parking lot, across the street from the building.
“You want us to wait here?” I asked Ori as she got out. She handed me her laptop bag.
“I’ll be fine. Why don’t you look up these links Vivian sent while you’re waiting? I’ll text you if Juke’s hack doesn’t fly.” Ori smoothed down the brown pantsuit jacket. With her brown hair pulled back into a bun and some extra mascara, her brown eyes had gotten bigger in her oval face. She had an air of sophistication that I hadn’t seen—and she glowed with confidence.
“You look fantastic, by the way.”
She flashed a glossy pink smile at me and walked to the street.
I was sending prayers to the universe that this would work. We still had to figure out how to get the other pieces. I opened the door and moved from the passenger seat to the back seat. Ranth looked over at the screen as I set up the laptop and clicked through the links.
“How about this one?”
