Page 99 of The Stolen Queen

“How could she have survived? Once I got to the top deck, the few lifeboats that worked had been released. The ship went down quickly, and we went down with it. I held on to her for as long as I could, but she was sucked out of my arms by the current. I promise you, I tried.” Henry had tears in his eyes. “I didn’t care what happenedafter that, I gave up, but someone grabbed me and pulled me onto a lifeboat and I passed out. The next thing I knew, I was on land, coughing up water. I crawled to the riverbank, determined to sink back into the Nile where Layla and you were, but they stopped me and took me away.”

A sob burst from Charlotte’s mouth and Henry’s expression crumpled, but neither moved to comfort the other; they stood in place, individual statues of a shared agony.

“I wonder about her every day,” said Henry. “If she would have had my ears. Or your hair, that silver streak passed down from mother to child.”

For the first time, Annie really noticed the stripe of gray that ran from Charlotte’s right temple, a sharp contrast to the dark brown around it. Before, her short haircut had made it almost imperceptible, but it had grown out since they’d first met.

Charlotte spoke. “Mona, before she was taken away, said that Layla was alive, that she knew where she was but would never reveal it.”

“You think she was telling the truth?” asked Henry. He looked unconvinced.

“I don’t know. At first I thought MonawasLayla, and for a moment, I think, so did she. But she didn’t appear to consider that theory very long. As if she knew otherwise.”

“What did she say?”

“She said that Layla was right under my nose, and that it would be a cold day in hell before she told me.”

“Very, very cold.”

Annie didn’t realize she’d voiced her thoughts out loud until she looked up to see Charlotte and Henry staring at her.

“I didn’t realize we had company,” said Henry. “I’m sorry, what did you say?”

“Mona said it would be a ‘very, very cold day in hell,’ ” repeated Annie.

“What does that mean?” said Henry.

A swirl of images ran through Annie’s head. The way Mona had looked as she spoke to them, as if venom dripped off her lips, the sheer joy of torturing someone else too good to pass up. Mona was telling the truth.

Somewhere, Mona had met Layla.

But where? Cairo? New York?

Right under your nose.

She closed her eyes and remembered the soothing light of chandeliers, the feel of a thick carpet underfoot, and, in a rush, the cold, stale air of New York was replaced by the scent of vanilla, the murmuring of soft voices, and the ding of a bell.

She knew exactly where to find Layla.

Chapter Thirty-Four

Charlotte

Egypt, 1979

Death, to the ancient Egyptians, was not an end; it was a continuation of the life already lived. In the underworld, the spirit ultimately faced judgment by Osiris, its leader. After offering up a list of denials of wrongdoing, the truth of the matter was tested: The spirit’s heart was placed on one side of a scale, and a feather—the symbol of truth and justice—was placed on the other. If the scales were balanced, the eternal life of the person’s spirit would be much like that of an abundant earthly life, surrounded by riches, servants, and plenty of food and drink. Those who failed the test had their hearts fed to Ammut, “the Devourer”—a beast that was part crocodile, part lion, and part hippo—and their souls cast into darkness.

For the past forty-one years, Charlotte had believed her daughter was no longer on this earth. If the ancient Egyptians were right about the afterlife, it meant that Layla’s innocent heart weighed the same as a feather, and that her spirit would enjoy the same pleasures she’d experienced during her time on earth—sitting in the garden behindthe house in Luxor, laughing at the bees leaping from flower to flower, feeling loved and safe. The pain of her loss had been so visceral that sometimes it brought Charlotte to her knees, but it had helped to imagine Layla in the spirit world, dancing with Hathorkare.

Yet as Charlotte, Henry, and Annie walked along a dirt path on the edge of the Nile, the tiny spark of hope that Layla was alive had turned into a conflagration; it was as if Charlotte’s heart itself was on fire, the anticipation almost too much to bear. She focused on putting one foot in front of the other. Just ahead, a square fisherman’s hut covered in bougainvillea and surrounded by palms rose out of the sandy soil, exactly as it might have five thousand years earlier. A water buffalo standing in the grasses stared idly as they passed.

Two months after reconnecting with Henry, Charlotte was now based in Egypt full-time. Mr. Lavigne, loath to lose her, had offered Charlotte the position of curatorial consultant to the Met, acting as a liaison between the Met and the Egyptian Museum. When she wasn’t in Cairo, she headed to the Valley of the Kings to assist with the newly formed Theban Mapping Project, led by an esteemed archaeologist who had begun surveying the historical sites on Luxor’s West Bank. Meanwhile, Charlotte’s missing folder on Hathorkare had been recovered intact in Mona’s apartment, which meant that, in her spare time, she was writing her article on the reclamation of the female pharaoh, to be published in the fall, as well as cowriting an article with Omar regarding the discovery and identification of Hathorkare’s mummy. The work Charlotte was doing was more fulfilling than she could have imagined, although she’d been pleased to hear that the King Tut exhibit at the Met had broken all previous records, the ticket line stretching twenty-three blocks down Fifth Avenue.

Annie had traveled to Egypt from Vienna, where she’d been conducting research with Diana Vreeland for the next Costume Instituteexhibition. Charlotte was pleased at Annie’s excitement over her work with Mrs. Vreeland; the girl was flourishing. Henry had flown to Luxor from his gallery in Geneva, landing that very morning.

Charlotte had found it in her heart to forgive Henry. After all, they most certainly would have found each other if it weren’t for her parents’ meddling, and now they both could move forward with their lives with clarity. The ship sinking hadn’t been his fault, even if he was the reason they had climbed aboard in the first place.

Meanwhile, Mona and her husband were in jail in New York, awaiting trial, denied bail due to the fact that they were considered a flight risk. Ma’at had been effectively dismantled, its leadership locked away thanks to the address on the letter Annie had stolen from Leon. Heba had been released, although her store had been seized by the Egyptian government.