The Egyptian Museum was located on a street near the river, past the marketplace and several European hotels and bars. Past places that admitted only men and where girls danced wearing almost nothing at all. Mala had not looked ashamed to have all those men staring at her. She seemed to thrive on the attention. Perhaps it fed her fae powers somehow.
Danilo held out his hand for me as we pulled up in front of the museum. “Stay close, Duchess.”
The museum was flanked by two small sphinx statues. I shuddered as we walked between them, but neither one seemed to notice us. Perhaps not all sphinxes spoke; I’d never heard the ones in St. Petersburg utter a word. They’d been brought to the Academy of Arts years ago, bought by Tsar Nicholas from the French to decorate the Neva riverfront.
Danilo took my arm in his as we strolled through the front doors of the museum. “I think the exhibit we want is on the second floor,” he said. We walked up the enormous white staircase, and at the first landing, I glanced back down at the marble lobby, onto a very large column covered in hieroglyphics. Large statues of cats and ibises stood guard around the stone column.
When we reached the top landing, Danilo swore under his breath. I spotted two of his Grigori rushing over to us. “They’ve already been here, Your Majesty,” the elder one said.
“Did they find the tablet?”
“They looked at it, but they did not take it.”
“Hurry!” Danilo said, his grip on my arm tightening. We rushed toward the Writings Room. The tablet that Danilo sought was in a glass case in the center of the room. He let go of me and put both of his hands on the case, peering down at the tablet.
“Perhaps they didn’t know how to read the hieroglyphics,” I said. I truly wished that Danilo were not so talented in languages either. A sword as dangerous as the Morning Star needed to stay lost. It did not belong in anyone’s hands.
“It does not matter,” Danilo said. “The tablet mentions nothing. Only the same seven gates of heaven spoken of by the sphinx. More meaningless text about the star that rises in the morning sky.”
“What if it’s not meaningless?” I couldn’t help asking. “What if they’re not talking about Venus?”
“ ‘Past the seven gates of heaven, the Morning Star lies,’ ” Danilo said, repeating the sphinx’s words. “What else could the sphinx have meant? Unless… ” He turned around and glared at the Grigori. “The gates are part of a mage’s highest initiation, are they not?”
“The seventh gate can be opened only by those who have completed the most extensive training in ceremonial magic,” the elder Grigori said. “Mages who have successfully mastered all the secret rituals of the Emerald Tablet.”
“The mages of the highest degree,” Danilo said, frowning. “No one in the Order of the Black Lily is that talented, save Papus himself.”
“But you were a member of the Black Lily,” I said. “How far in your training did you progress?” And how far had George progressed when he studied with them? I did not dare ask Danilo.
“Not far enough. It takes decades of studying to be able to complete such a ritual.” The crown prince pounded both fists on the wall. The shelves nearest him rattled but thankfully did not fall. He swore under his breath in six different languages.
I felt a slight wave of relief flood through me. If Danilo had not been a member of the Order long enough to be initiated, he would not be able to retrieve the sword.
Papus had been the one to rescue me the first time I found myself in the Graylands. He’d told me he called on the powers of higher beings to help him travel back and forth between the worlds of the living and the dead. I realized now it had been the Grigori who helped him.
Still, even though he’d rescued me once, he was a dangerous magician. He had betrayed George when George was studying magic in Paris. Papus had lured George into the Order of the Black Lily in order to gain access to the Koldun. With Danilo’s help, the French magicians tried to raise Konstantin Pavlovich from the dead. And Papus had just tried to kill me here in Cairo.
“Why did Papus ally himself with you to begin with?” I asked the crown prince. “What would he have had to gain by Konstantin’s return?”
“Money, of course,” Danilo said. “I promised him the riches of the Romanovs when I became tsar. But after my arrest, the traitor ran to the Koldun and his brother and begged for forgiveness.” The crown prince scowled. “He will regret this one day.”
“We will find the French mage and his associates for you,” the elder Grigori said. With a bow, he turned and departed.
A sliver of hope rose in my chest. Could Papus be working with George and the Koldun now? What if George was here in Egypt?
“Katerina, there is something else of interest on this tablet,” Danilo said to me, beckoning me to look closer.
He pointed to the stone lying beneath the glass. “This is the history of the sword up until the time Ankh-al- Sekhem wrote this. The first human to wield the sword was a pharaoh princess: Meresankh, a daughter of Menes. She united Upper and Lower Egypt with the Grigori’s help.”
“A daughter?”
“A Queen of Swords.” Danilo shook his head. “How ridiculous! Still, she must have been a powerful necromancer for the sword to succumb to her. And for the Grigori to follow her.”
A Queen of Swords. I shuddered as I remembered the superstitious Pushkin tale. And Maman’s tarot deck.
“If the sword can only be carried by a necromancer,” I asked, “then why would it be hidden where only a magician can find it?”
“It is bitterly ironic, yes?” He had not anticipated this, I realized. “To force the magician to work with the necromancer. We must make Papus see reason.”
I worried then for George and the French mage. They could not let the lich tsar find Papus. Konstantin would force the mage to escort him past the seven gates and retrieve the sword. “Shall we go, Duchess?” Danilo asked. “I believe there is some beautiful jewelry downstairs that belonged to the wife of Ramses the Second.” But he really wasn’t asking me. He led me off to the floor below and showed me the elegant necklaces and earrings made of faience and gold that were thousands of years old. The museum was lucky to have these priceless artifacts in their possession. Most of the tombs found had long been robbed of their riches by adventurers wishing to sell the artifacts on the black market. Egyptian antiquities were a lucrative trade. I’d seen many suspicious but beautiful pieces not only in the Vladimir Palace, but also in the Winter Palace itself.
We paused in front of a golden statue of a fierce-looking lion-headed goddess. “That is Sekhmet,” Danilo said quietly. “Both a deity of war and of medicine.”
I stared at the statue in wonder and had a pagan urge to ask the goddess for her blessing. But before I could commit such blasphemy, the crown prince was pulling me toward another jewelry collection.
I wondered how the Cantacuzene family had gotten a hold of the Talisman of Isis. I suspected it was an artifact that should have been under a glass case in a museum as well. I examined the beautiful ruby bracelets and sapphire earrings and lapis necklaces in the case. Dariya would have been beside herself to see these jewels. She would have enjoyed vacationing in such an exotic place as this.
But I was not here on vacation. I’d been abducted by an insane lich tsar who believed I was going to be his tsarina. And I had to keep him from finding the sword that could destroy the whole world.
25
We passed through the marketplace on our way to the hotel. The bazaar was a dazzling chaos of colors and sounds and scents. Merchants ran up to us, shoving silks and foods and perfumes, while children pulled on our clothing, begging for coins. Haunting songs from the minarets called the faithful to prayer at intervals throughout
