“Wait. You still haven’t gotten into the burial chamber? In all these years?”

He runs a hand through his hair. “I started excavation in 2013, and it took three seasons to clear the material from the front of the tomb and record it all in order to even reach the burial shaft. One year we lost our funding and I had to find a new benefactor—which I did. But I’m still full-time at Yale, which means that I only get two to three months in the field here each year. Which brings me to Minya, in the beginning of August.” Wyatt turns, leaning his shoulder into the wooden door, facing me. “So maybe you came to Egypt on a whim,” he says. “Or maybe the universe knew you belonged right here, right now.”

Brian would roll his eyes at that and say it’s just the laws of physics splitting you into many different versions of yourself, each of which thinks that the path you’re on is unique and providential.

In one world, I’m in Boston.

In another world, I am with Wyatt when he opens that coffin, and sees the Book of Two Ways.

In yet another world, the antiquities director refuses me a permit.

A shadow falls over us, and I squint up to see a man whose edges are lit by the sun. I cannot make out his face as he points to me. “Don’t I know you?” he says.

* * *

—

MOSTAFA AWAD, THE director of antiquities, had—in 2003—been an inspector who came to the dig site to record anything Dumphries and the expedition discovered. He had been young then, and eager to learn about his country’s own history. I remember Wyatt teaching him the signs of the ancient Egyptian alphabet; him waving his hands and laughing and crying uncle when the grammar reached nominatives and pronouns and complications that were over his head. Now, he is twice as big around the middle as he was fifteen years ago, and his hair and beard are peppered with gray.

He serves us tea in his air-conditioned office. Wyatt leans back in a chair too small for his frame, sips from his cup. “I completely forgot you knew Dawn.”

“I never forget a face,” Mostafa says, winking at me. “And yours, I saw for three seasons.”

I smile back at him. “How long have you been the director?”

“Well. Let’s see. In 2009 I did my two years of military service, and then I got this position, Alhamdulillah.” Praise be to God. He turns to Wyatt. “I admit to being startled when I saw you in the doorway, like a vagrant. I am coming out to your site tomorrow, after all.”

“Yes, well, there was something that couldn’t wait,” Wyatt begins, sliding a glance toward me. “I’d like Dawn to work with the Yale concession.”

“Ah.” Mostafa gets up and rattles through a desk, searching in files. “I have the forms for next December’s permits right here—”

“I beg your pardon,” Wyatt interrupts. “Actually, I meant now.” He levels a look at Mostafa. “Tomorrow.”

Mostafa sinks into his desk chair, steepling his fingers. “I see.” He looks at Wyatt. “Are you asking me as the director of antiquities?”

Wyatt starts to nod, but Mostafa cuts him off. “Because of course, as the director, I could never compromise the high standard for which Egyptian archaeological excavations are known. You can imagine what might happen if word got out that I made an exception for one concession. How others might come begging for a favor, too.”

My hands grip the arms of my chair. “Of course,” Wyatt says smoothly. “Which is why I am asking you as my friend.”

A wide smile breaks across Mostafa’s face. “Now that is a different story. If you happened to have a visitor that you brought to the site—a personal guest—I might not be looking in her direction if she does more than just observe.”

He holds out his hand to me. “Welcome back, Dawn.”

* * *

—

ANY ANCIENT EGYPTIAN would tell you that words have great power. There were myths in which knowing the true name of a god could give you dominion over them. There were gates in the Book of Two Ways that could not be passed through unless you knew how to address their beastly guards. The tomb itself, where the ba soul reunited with the corpse each night, was also fueled with words. Visitors to the tomb would read the written spells, a peret kheru, a going forth by voice. There were lists of fish and fowl, beer and boats, bread and oxen, everything someone would want or need in the Netherworld, and when you spoke them out loud, they magically appeared for your loved one.

That’s what I’d been thinking about one afternoon in the tomb of Djehutyhotep II, during my first dig season, as Wyatt and I attempted to trace different sections of the inner chamber. It was nearly lunchtime, and I was starving—having been awake since 4:30 A.M. Staring at a giant palette of painted food, I listened to my stomach grumble.

“I heard that,” Wyatt murmured.

I was sketching, on Mylar, a roast goose. It looked more like a turkey, but there were no turkeys in Ancient Egypt. Even in modern times, it was called dik rumi, for Roman chicken.

When my stomach rumbled again, Wyatt glanced up from his own work. “If you don’t stop that, we’re going to be ambushed by those bats.”

I glanced up to the ceiling of the tomb, which rippled like a dark curtain. “They don’t even know we’re here.”

“Last season we had a postdoc here who said they wouldn’t hit us if they started to fly, because of echolocation. Then one smacked him in the face.”

I squinted at them, watching one bat detach itself from the rest to crawl to a clear part of the tomb ceiling. As if it had torn open the corner of a grain bag, a spill of black followed it. I took out my mirror and tried to bounce light upward, so that I could see how many there actually were.

Wyatt caught my wrist. “For God’s sake, don’t do that. They’ll go everywhere.”

I shuddered.

“There must be a word for an angry group of bats,” Wyatt said. “You know, like a bloat of hippopotamuses. Or a business of ferrets.”

“You made up that last one.”

“Swear to God. There’s also a conspiracy of lemurs.”

“A coven,” I announce. “That’s what a bunch of bats should be.”

“Hey, can you look at this damage?”

I crawled toward the right-hand wall in the inner chamber. Wyatt was scrutinizing a section that had, centuries ago, been hacked away or disintegrated. He pointed to the remnant of a hieroglyph. “It’s a bird,” I said, after a moment.

“Thank you, Sherlock,” he said. “But what’s the shape of the back of its head? Is it an aleph vulture or a tiw buzzard…?”

“It looks like an aleph to me.”

Wyatt grins. “Then, no offense, but it’s probably a tiw.”

I didn’t pretend to be as good at epigraphy as Wyatt was, but if I were the one drawing that vulture, it would look a lot better than what was materializing on the Mylar in front of him. I turned away, staring at a long line of Djehutyhotep’s family and retinue. The skin colors ranged across all different tones, but the women were usually painted yellow, and the men red. If you were a well-paid official in Ancient Egypt, your wife worked indoors and not in the fields. Even back then, there was privilege connected to being light-skinned.

Below a line of well-dressed ladies was a row of seal bearers carrying everything from a bow and arrows to spears and shields and axes and a litter. With them walked a spotted, curly-tailed basenji, scaled not to the other figures but larger than life, to signify his importance to Djehutyhotep.

Wyatt saw what had grabbed my attention. “Did you know that the Ancient Egyptians gave dogs the names of people, but all cats were just called ‘cat’?”

“Seems right,” I said.

The dog’s name was clearly marked over his back: the hieroglyph for “life”—ankh—and the quail chick that represented the letter u. “Ankhu,” I murmured, smiling. “Do you have a dog?”

“It was my brother’s.”

“He didn’t share?”

“He didn’t have to,” Wyatt said, cryptic. He sat back, dropping his Sharpie and massaging his hand. “You know what Ankhu means?”

“Living one.”

“Yes. But it has the same root as the word for concubine: ankhet.”

“Is that all you think about?” I said. “Sex?”

“Looks like it’s all our boy Djehutyhotep thought about.” He pointed to the left of the image, where the image of Djehutyhotep had been hacked out or eroded, leaving only a general large blank spot with a remnant of a painted kilt. Facing him was a female figure—his wife, Hathorhotep. Then came a parade of eleven women—some who were labeled and some who weren’t.

“We know this is his wife because of the inscription above her,” Wyatt said, pointing all the way to the left. “And this is likely his mother, Sat-kheper-ka. There’s a sprinkling of daughters, a sister or two…but these three were his concubines, nestled for eternity right between his wife and children. How cozy.”

“You can’t know that for sure.”