Passion

It wasn’t just the eerie silence of the palace that was unsettling—something seemed strange between Luce and Bill. Ever since he’d given her the silver arrow, they were edgy around each other.

Bill took a deep, raspy breath. “Okay. Ancient Egypt. This is the early dynastic period in the capital city of Memphis. We’re pretty far back now, about five thousand years before Luce Price graces the world with her magnificent presence.”

Luce rolled her eyes. “Where’s my past self?”

“Why do I even bother with the history lessons?” Bill said to a pretend audience. “All she ever wants to know is where her past self is. So self-centered it’s disgusting.”

Luce crossed her arms. “If you were going to kill your soul, I think you’d want to get it over with before you had a chance to change your mind.”

“So, you’ve decided now?” Bill sounded a little breathless. “Oh, come on, Luce. This is our last gig together. I figured you’d want to know the details, for old times’ sake? Your life here was really one of the most romantic of all.” He hunkered down on her shoulder, in storytelling mode. “You’re a slave named Layla. Sheltered, lonely—never been beyond the palace walls. Until, one day, in walks the handsome new commander of the army—guess who?”

Bill hovered at her side as Luce left the armor piled in the alcove and walked slowly along the pool’s edge.

“You and the dashing Donkor—let’s just call him Don—fall in love, and all is rosy except for one cruel reality: Don is betrothed to the pharaoh’s bitchy daughter, Auset. Now, how dramatic is that?”

Luce sighed. There was always some complication. One more reason to put an end to all this. Daniel shouldn’t be shackled to some earthly body, getting caught up in useless mortal drama just so he could be with Luce. It wasn’t fair to him. Daniel had been suffering for too long. Maybe she really would end it. She could find Layla and join with her body. Then Bill would tell her how to kill her cursed soul, and she would give Daniel his freedom.

She’d been pacing the oblong courtyard, brooding. When she rounded the portion of the path nearest the pond, fingers clasped her wrist.

“Caught you!” The girl who’d seized Luce was lean and muscular, with sultry, dramatic features under layers of makeup. Her ears were pierced by at least ten gold hoops, and a heavy gold pendant hung from her neck, ornamented with a pound of precious jewels.

The pharaoh’s daughter.

“I—” Luce started to say.

“Don’t you dare say a word!” Auset barked. “The sound of your pathetic voice is like pumice on my eardrums. Guard!”

An enormous man appeared. He had a long black ponytail and forearms thicker than Luce’s legs. He carried a long wooden spear topped with a sharp copper blade.

“Arrest her,” Auset said.

“Yes, Highness,” the guard barked. “On what grounds, Highness?”

The question lit an angry fire inside the pharaoh’s daughter. “Theft. Of my personal property.”

“I will imprison her until the council rules on the matter.”

“We did that once before,” Auset said. “And yet here she is, like an asp, able to slither free of any bonds. We need to lock her away someplace she can never escape.”

“I will assign a continuous watch—”

“No, that won’t be good enough.” Something dark crossed Auset’s face. “I never want to see this girl again. Throw her into my grandfather’s tomb.”

“But, Your Highness, no one but the high priest is allowed—”

“Precisely, Kafele,” Auset said, smiling. “Throw her down the entryway stairs and bolt the door behind you. When the high priest goes to perform the tomb-sealing ceremony this evening, he will discover this tomb raider and will punish her as he sees fit.” She drew near Luce and scoffed. “You’ll find out what happens to those who try to steal from the royal family.”

Don. She meant that Layla was trying to steal Don.

Luce didn’t care if they locked her up and threw away the key as long as she got a chance to cleave with Layla first. Otherwise how could she set Daniel free? Bill paced the air, scheming, claws tapping against his stone lip.

The guard produced a pair of shackles from the satchel at his waist and fastened the iron chains over Luce’s wrists.

“I’ll see to it myself,” Kafele said, yanking her after him by a length of chain.

“Bill!” Luce whispered. “You have to help me!”

“We’ll think of something,” Bill whispered as Luce was dragged across the courtyard. They turned a corner into a dark hallway, where a larger-than-life stone sculpture of Auset stood, looking grimly beautiful.

When Kafele turned to squint at Luce because she was talking to herself, his long black hair swished across his face and gave Luce an idea.

He never saw it coming. She wrestled her shackled hands up and tugged down hard on his hair, clawing at his head with her fingernails. He yelped and stumbled backward, bleeding from a long scratch on his scalp. Then Luce elbowed him hard in the gut.

He grunted and doubled over. The spear slipped from his hands.

“Can you get these shackles off?” Luce hissed at Bill.

The gargoyle wagged his eyebrows. A short black bolt shot into the shackles, and they fizzled into nothingness. Luce’s skin felt hot where they had been, but she was free.

“Huh,” she said, glancing briefly down at her bare wrists. She grabbed the spear from the ground. She spun around to draw the blade to Kafele’s neck.

“One step ahead of you, Luce,” Bill called. When she turned, Kafele was sprawled flat on his back with his wrists shackled around the stone ankle of Auset’s likeness.

Bill dusted off his hands. “Teamwork.” He glanced down at the white-faced guard. “We’d better hurry. He’ll find his vocal cords again soon enough. Come with me.”

Bill led Luce quickly down the dark hallway, up a short flight of sandstone stairs, and across another hall lit by small tin lamps and lined with clay figures of hawks and hippopotamuses. A pair of guards turned into the hallway, but before they could see Luce, Bill pushed her through a doorway covered by a reed curtain.

She found herself in a bedroom. Stone columns carved to look like bundled papyrus stems rose to a low ceiling. A wooden sedan chair inlaid with ebony sat by an open window opposite a narrow bed, which was carved of wood and painted with so much gold leaf that it gleamed.

“What do I do now?” Luce pressed against the wall in case anyone walking by peered in. “Where are we?”

“This is the commander’s chamber.”

Before Luce could piece together that Bill meant Daniel, a woman parted the reed curtain and stepped into the room.

Luce shivered.

Layla wore a white dress with the same narrow cut as the one Luce had on. Her hair was thick and straight and glossy. She had a white peony tucked behind one ear.

With a heavy feeling of sadness, Luce watched Layla glide to the wooden vanity and pour fresh oil into the lamp from a canister she carried on a black resin tray. This was the last life Luce would visit, the body where she would part ways with her soul so that all of this could end.

When Layla turned to refill the lamps beside the bed, she noticed Luce.

“Hello,” she said in a soft, husky voice. “Are you looking for someone?” The kohl rimming her eyes looked much more natural than Auset’s makeup.

“Yes, I am.” Luce wasted no time. Just as she reached forward to grab the girl’s wrist, Layla looked past her toward the doorway, and her face stiffened with alarm. “Who is that?”

Luce turned and saw only Bill. His eyes were wide.

“You can”—she gaped at Layla—“you can see him?”

“No!” Bill said. “She’s talking about the footsteps she hears running down the corridor outside. Better hurry,