Every few steps they passed false doors—deep stone recesses in the walls. Some of them, Luce realized, had once been entryways leading to the final resting places of members of the royal family. They were now sealed off with stone and gravel so that no mortal could pass.
Their way grew cooler; it grew darker. The air became heavy with the faded must of death. When they neared the one open doorway at the end of the hallway, the guard with the torch would go no farther—“I will not be cursed by the gods for this girl’s insolence”—so Kafele did it himself. He wrestled aside the stone bolt that pinned the door, and a harsh, vinegary smell flooded out, poisoning the air.
“Think you have any hope of escape now?” he asked, releasing her wrists from the shackles and shoving her inside.
“Yes,” Luce whispered to herself as the heavy stone door shut behind her and the bolt thudded back into place. “Only one.”
She was alone in utter darkness, and the cold clawed at her skin.
Then something snapped—stone on stone, so recognizable—and a small golden light bloomed in the center of the room. It was cupped between the two stone hands of Bill.
“Hello, hello.” He floated to the side of the room and poured the ball of fire out of his hands and into an opulently painted purple-and-green stone lamp. “We meet again.”
As Luce’s eyes adjusted, the first thing she saw was the writing on the walls: They were painted with the same hieroglyphics as in the hallway, only this time they were prayers to the pharaoh—“Do not decay. Do not rot. Stride into the Imperishable Stars.” There were chests that wouldn’t close because they overflowed with gold coins and sparkling orange gems. An enormous collection of obelisks spread out before her. At least ten embalmed dogs and cats seemed to eye her.
The chamber was huge. She circled a set of bedroom furniture, complete with a vanity stacked with cosmetics. There was a votive palette with a two-headed serpent chiseled on its face. The interlocking necks formed a recess in the black stone, which held a circle of bright blue eye shadow.
Bill watched Luce pick it up. “Gotta look one’s best in the afterlife.”
He was sitting atop the head of a startlingly lifelike sculpture of the former pharaoh. Layla’s mind told Luce that this sculpture represented the pharaoh’s ka, his soul, and it would watch over the tomb—the real pharaoh lay mummified behind it. Inside the limestone sarcophagus would be nested wooden coffins; inside the smallest one of them: the embalmed pharaoh.
“Watch out,” Bill said. Luce hadn’t even realized she was resting her hands on a small wooden chest. “That contains the pharaoh’s entrails.”
Luce jerked away and slid the starshot out from her dress. When she picked it up, its shaft warmed her fingers. “Is this really going to work?”
“If you pay attention and do as I say,” Bill said. “Now, the soul resides directly in the center of your being. To reach it, you must draw the blade precisely down the middle of your chest, right at the critical moment, right when Daniel kisses you and you feel yourself start to cook. Then you, Lucinda Price, will be flung out of your past self, as usual, but your cursed soul will be trapped in Layla’s body, where it will burn up and be gone.”
“I’m—I’m afraid.”
“Don’t be. It’s like having your appendix out. You’re better off without it.” Bill looked at his empty gray wrist. “By my watch, Don will be here any moment.”
Luce held the silver arrow so that its blade pointed at her breast. The swirling etched designs tingled under her fingers. Her hands quaked with nerves.
“Steady now.” Bill’s earnest call sounded far away.
Luce was trying to pay attention, but her heart was pounding in her ears. She had to do this. She had to. For Daniel. To free him from a punishment he’d taken on only because of her.
“You’ll have to do it a lot faster than that during the real thing or Daniel will surely stop you. One quick slit on your soul. You will feel something loosen, a breath of coldness, and then—bam!”
“Layla!” Don bounded into her sight. The door behind her was still bolted. Where had he come from?
The starshot tumbled from her hands and clattered to the floor. She snatched it up and slipped it back inside her dress. Bill was gone. But Don was—Daniel was right where she wanted him to be.
“What are you doing here?” Her voice broke with the force of having to act surprised to see him.
He didn’t seem to hear it. He rushed toward her and wrapped her in his arms. “Saving your life.”
“How did you get in?”
“Don’t worry about that. No mortal man, no slab of stone can obstruct a love as true as ours. I will always find you.”
In his bare, bronzed arms, it was Luce’s instinct to feel comforted. But she couldn’t right then. Her heart felt ragged and cold. This easy happiness, these feelings of complete trust, every one of the lovely emotions Daniel had shown her how to feel in every life—they were torture to her now.
“Fear not,” he whispered. “Let me tell you, love, what happens after this life. You come back, you rise again. Your rebirth is beautiful and real. You come back to me, again and again—”
The light from the lamp flickered and made his violet eyes sparkle. His body was so warm against hers.
“But I die again and again.”
“What?” He tilted his head. Even when his physique looked exotic to her, she knew his expressions so well—that bemused adoration when she expressed something he hadn’t expected her to understand. “How do you—Never mind. It doesn’t matter. What matters is that we will again be together. We will always find each other, always love each other, no matter what. I will never leave you.”
Luce fell to her knees on the stone steps. She hid her face in her hands. “I don’t know how you can stand it. Over and over again, the same sadness—”
He lifted her up. “The same ecstasy—”
“The same fire that kills everything—”
“The same passion that ignites it all again. You don’t know. You can’t remember how wonderful—”
“I’ve seen it. I do know.”
Now she had his attention. He didn’t seem sure whether or not to believe her, but at least he was listening.
“What if there’s no hope of anything ever changing?” she asked.
“There is only hope. One day, you will live through it. That absolute truth is the only thing that keeps me going. I will never give up on you. Even if it takes forever.” He wiped away her tears with his thumb. “I’ll love you with all my heart, in every life, through every death. I will not be bound by anything but my love for you.”
“But it’s so hard. Isn’t it hard for you? Haven’t you ever thought, what if …”
“One day, our love will conquer this dark cycle. That’s worth everything to me.”
Luce looked up and saw the love glowing in his eyes. He believed what he was saying. He didn’t care if he suffered again and again; he’d forge on, losing her over and over, buoyed by the hope that one day this wouldn’t be their end. He knew it was doomed, but he tried over and over again anyway, and he always would.
His commitment to her, to them, touched a part of her that she’d thought she’d given up on.
She still wanted to argue: This Daniel didn’t know the challenges coming their way, the tears they would shed over the ages. He didn’t know that she’d seen him in his moments of deepest desperation. What the pain of her deaths would do to him.
But then—
Luce knew. And that made all the difference in the world.
Daniel’s lowest moments had terrified her, but things had changed. All along, she’d felt bound to their love, but now she knew how to protect it. Now she had seen their love from so many different angles. She understood it in a way she’d never thought she would. If Daniel ever faltered, she could raise him up.