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Abdullah’s face was so close to mine I felt his breath hot against my cheek. Then the sinking sun sent a golden arm through the gap over the door, illumining the interior. I had not needed light to know him. I would have known that outline, that presence, in the darkest night. But if there had been breath in my lungs I would not have been able to restrain a cry when I saw the familiar features—familiar, yet so dreadfully changed.

The beard banished by my decree had returned, blurring the firm lines of jaw and chin, spreading up his cheeks toward his hairline. His closed eyes were sunken and his cheekbones stood out like spars. His shirt had been opened, baring his throat and breast…

The memory of another time, another place, assaulted me with such force my brain reeled. Was THIS how a mocking Providence had answered my unspoken appeal for a return to those thrilling days of yesteryear, when Emerson and I had been all in all to one another—before Ramses? So had he appeared on that never-to-be-forgotten day when I entered the tomb at Amarna and found him fevered and delirious. I had fought death to save him then, and won. But now … he lay so still, his features pinched and immobile as yellowed wax. Only eyes as desperately affectionate as my own could have marked the almost imperceptible rise and fall of his breast. What had they done to reduce a man of his strength to such a state in only a few days?

The dying light, glinting off an object on the table, gave me the answer. It was a hypodermic needle.

Scarce had the horror of that sight penetrated my mind when I saw something else. I had observed that his arms were stretched over his head in a stiff, unnatural position. Now I realized why. From the manacles on his wrists a chain looped over and through the bars of the headboard of the narrow bed.

I cannot explain why that detail affected me so powerfully. It was certainly a reasonable precaution; in fact, anyone who wished to keep Emerson in a place where he did not care to remain would have been a fool to neglect such restraints. Nevertheless, it did upset me a great deal, and perhaps the intensity of my outrage accounts for what—as I am told— happened next.

I had been vaguely aware of voices at the door. The guard had been joined by another man; they were talking loudly and, I suppose, telling improper stories, for there was a good deal of raucous laughter. The sounds faded into a dim insect-buzzing. A black cloud enveloped me, and a roaring fury filled my ears.

I came back to my senses to find Abdullah’s alarmed face nose-to-nose with mine. One of his hands was clamped over my mouth. “The guards have gone, to fetch beer, but they will return,” he hissed. “Do you hear me, Sitt? Has the demon departed?”

I could not speak, so I blinked at him. Finger by finger, watching me nervously, he loosened his grip. I became aware of a sharp, shooting pain in my hands. Looking down, I saw that I had seized the heavy grille and lifted it up out of the framework on which it rested. My fingers were torn and bleeding.

Abullah was muttering in Arabic—spells and incantations, designed to ward off the powers of evil.

“The—er—demon has gone,” I whispered. “How very curious. This is the second time such a thing has happened, I believe. I laughed at Emerson when he told me of the first occasion. I must tell him, and apologize for doubting him, when he… when we…”

To my consternation, I found I could not control my voice. I lowered my head onto my folded arms.

A hand, gentle as a woman’s, stroked my hair. “My daughter, do not weep. Dost thou believe I would dare to call myself a man and a friend if I left him to lie there? I have made a plan.”

Abdullah had never spoken to me except with formal respect, nor used a term of endearment. I had known the depth of his regard for Emerson; “love” would not be too strong a word, had not that word been corrupted by European romanticism; but I had not been aware that in his own fashion Abdullah loved me too. Infinitely moved, I replied in kind.