“Will it tell us if there’s a temple?”
Georgia looks up at me, and there’s patience in her expression, but also weariness. “One artifact doesn’t prove a temple. But it’s evidence. Combined with the stone features, the pottery distribution, the spatial patterns… It’s all building a case.”
“I need more than a case. I need certainty.”
“Then you’re in the wrong field.” She turns back to the fragments. “Archaeology is about probability, not certainty. We gather evidence and make informed interpretations. That’s the best we can do.”
“That’s not good enough.”
“It’s going to have to be.”
The tension between us is thick enough to choke on. Omar and Yasmin exchange glances, clearly uncomfortable with witnessing yet another disagreement between their boss and their boss’s boss.
I walk away before I say something I’ll regret.
Back at the dining tent, I find Edmond reviewing structural surveys.
“How’s it going?” he asks, looking up.
“Slowly.”
“Archaeology is a slow process.”
“So everyone keeps telling me.” I drop into a chair, suddenly exhausted. “How long did your last excavation take before you found something significant?”
“Define significant.”
“Proof that you’d found what you were looking for.”
Edmond considers. “Four months. And that was with a larger team and easier terrain.”
Four months…
“Calvin,” Edmond says carefully, “maybe you should step back from the daily observations. Trust Georgia to do her job.”
“I’m paying for this excavation. I should oversee it.”
“There’s overseeing and there’s micromanaging. Right now, you’re doing the latter, and it’s creating tension.”
“She brought her child to a professional excavation site. She needs all the help she can get.”
“You agreed to that arrangement.”
“Because I had no choice!” The words come out louder than intended, echoing in the empty tent.
Edmond watches me with something like sympathy. “You’re not going to find what you’re looking for by hovering.”
“I’m not hovering. I said I would stop that, and I have.”
“Youare. You’re terrified that this won’t work, that there won’t be a temple, that your grandmother’s stories will turn out to be just stories. And you’re trying to control the outcome by monitoring every detail.” He pauses. “But that’s not how this works. You hired experts. Now you have to trust them.”
Trust them. Trust her.The woman who takes any opportunity to call me out. Who told me to act like an adult. But she’s also the only person for the job, and I’m stuck with her—my only comfort being she’s stuck with me as well.
CHAPTER 11
GEORGIA
By the end of our first week at the site, the tension is unbearable.
