Empire of Shadows (Raiders of the Arcana #1)

Fourteen

Ellie was in Egypt, and she was dreaming.

A hot, dry sun warmed her skin. The air whispered of dust and time as it pulled at the little tendrils of hair at the back of her neck.

She held a wood-handled brush in her hand. The horsehair bristles were ideal for gently removing debris from stone, or even—if carefully wielded—ancient wood or pottery.

Stratified deposits were visible in the wall of the trench in which Ellie, kneeling, carefully worked to remove the earth from a slab of mud-hued stone.

Looking closer, Ellie realized that the surface of the stone was carved.

She dropped her brush and used a wooden pick to scrape out the delicate lines—the curve of an arch, the distinct angle of a human profile.

Her brain began translating the symbols instinctively as she tried to balance her quick excitement with the necessary delicacy of technique.

Gratitude… sixteen… head… cattle… exchange… four?

Four hundred, she clarified happily as she picked a pebble out of another ridge in the tablet. Four hundred deben of wheat.

Wonder rose in her chest, filling her like the sun. Ellie had found a two-thousand-year-old receipt for cows.

The tablet was almost certainly part of a new cache, which meant that there would be more engraved stones hidden under the sand. Such ancient documents were unglamorous, but the mortal transactions they recorded were the stuff of daily life, offering a priceless glimpse into the ordinary world of the people who had lived in this place millennia before.

Ellie had the skills to carefully unwrap those vestiges from the earth, piece them back together, and untangle the ancient threads of what they meant.

One of the local farmers Ellie had hired to assist with her dig called to her from above. Ellie gripped the dusty rungs of the ladder and climbed out of the trench, emerging into the stronger wind of the surface.

It was too strong. Canvas flapped against the stiff breeze. An empty water barrel tipped over and rolled across the ground.

Beyond the sprawl of tents stood a diminutive figure that did not belong there.

The woman was not Egyptian. Her rich black hair contrasted sharply with her simple white dress. Even at a distance, Ellie could see that the copper skin of her cheek was marked by the vivid lightning bolt of a scar.

Despite the wind whipping at the intruder’s skirts and hair, she remained straight and still as she gazed across the sprawl of trenches to Ellie.

A worker tugged at Ellie’s sleeve, pulling her attention away from the immovable woman as he pointed to the west.

Ellie turned to see a black cloud devouring the horizon.

It was a storm—a wind that would pierce like a thousand needles, burying all that she had worked for.

A voice slithered to her through the rising rasp of sand on stone.

Want, it hissed.

The maelstrom flooded across the sky, cloaking the sun. The golden light shifted to a red like blood.

Soon, the dust whispered.

Ellie’s stepmother Florence was making a racket again.

The sharp, invasive chatter tore painfully through her veil of sleep. Ellie winced, squeezing her eyes shut in protest. She reached for her blanket to pull it over her head… and grasped the front of her shirt.

Her hands moved lower and found trousers.

Ellie sat up, opening her eyes. The sudden movement toppled her from the hammock.

She landed on the deck of the Mary Lee.

“Drat,” she muttered, wincing against the impact.

Ellie glanced up at the other hammock and was relieved to find it empty. She could only imagine the look on Bates’s face if he had witnessed her throwing herself to the ground.

She climbed to her feet, aching from both her impact on the deck and the unaccustomed angles of sleeping in a canvas sling.

A chorus of parrots squawked at her from the branches overhead. Ellie shot them a rueful look as she deduced where the noise that had awoken her had originated.

“A little more sleep might have been nice,” she commented aloud.

The parrots answered with a whistle and fluttered from the tree to swing up the river.

She had been dreaming of something wonderful… and awful. Ellie shook her head, trying to clear her thoughts. The last remaining wisps of the dream slipped away from her, leaving behind only a vague unease.

The Mary Lee was empty. Bates was nowhere to be seen. As there were no immediate signs of a jaguar attack, Ellie deduced that he must have gone ashore to forage for something to augment their breakfast.

Her shirt was filthy. Dust and grime smeared the sleeves. Her trousers were a bit better off, but Ellie doubted that she was in any fine fettle, herself. She hadn’t so much as splashed water on her face in two days, and the last time she’d had a proper bath was…

Well—a good while before the moment when Adam Bates had kicked through the door to the washroom.

It had been long enough, anyway.

The water of the river looked cool and inviting, especially as the heat of the day was already beginning to rise.

Ellie wondered just how far away her traveling companion had gone.

“Mr. Bates!” she shouted, projecting the call out over the shoreline. “Hellooooo!”

Her voice echoed off the far bank and inspired a renewed racket from the parrots. There was no response from the man himself. It seemed that, for now, Ellie was on her own.

She made a quick scan of the water for any suspicious logs that might turn out to be crocodiles. Satisfied, Ellie tugged off her filthy shirt and trousers, then unlaced the soft pad of her flexible corset. Stripped to her cotton combinations, she grabbed her dirty clothes, swung onto the rail of the boat, and hopped over the side into the water with a splash.

The level of the river rose to the middle of her chest. Her feet sank into the mud of the bottom. Ellie let them squelch there while she squeezed and rubbed at her corset, shirt, and trousers, cleaning them as vigorously as she could in the absence of a bar of laundry soap. She slung the garments back up over the rail, managing to get them there with a little hop and a careful toss. The deck of the Mary Lee was nearly level with where her head rose from the water, but the rails rose another three feet above that.

With her laundry taken care of, Ellie pulled the pins from her hair, tossed them onto the deck, and dunked herself below the surface. She gave her scalp a good scrub and took care of the necessary ablutions on the other key areas of her body.

She had reached a satisfactory state of cleanliness, but the water felt too delicious to give up. The temperature was perfect, and the current mild enough that it barely seemed to tug at her, particularly in the sheltered eddy where Bates had tied up their craft.

Ellie kicked loose the mud from her feet and decided to indulge. She laid herself back against the surface with her arms out, going into a float.

The pull of the water turned her lazily. Suspended in perfect comfort, she gazed up at the immense trees rustling overhead. Small, quick birds darted between the branches, chirping softly. Sunlight filtered down through the dancing leaves and sparkled across the surface of the river.

Where would she be now if she hadn’t stumbled across that map? Probably staring out her window in Canonbury at the dreary gray skies of London. The thought was surreal.

Ellie closed her eyes as she kicked mildly against the pull of the water and let herself fall completely into the delicious sense of having escaped something dreadful.

A thud sounded against the boards of the deck. A shadow fell across the place where she floated as something came between her and the warmth of the morning sun.

“Sorry I disappeared on…”

Bates’s voice trailed off.

Ellie’s eyes snapped open.

He stood above her on the Mary Lee, gazing stupidly down at where she floated in the water in her eminently practical, currently waterlogged, and most likely all-but-transparent underthings.

Ellie snapped her head up and sank into the water until it was lapping at her chin.

“Turn around!” she ordered.

Bates blinked at her dumbly from above as though words were taking longer than usual to penetrate his brain.

“Turn. Around!” Ellie repeated, giving the words an additional threatening emphasis.

Bates spun neatly on his heel and put his back to her.

“I heard you shout for me,” he offered awkwardly.

“I was trying to see how far away you were,” Ellie retorted.

He turned his head just enough that she could make out his smirk.

“You weren’t that specific,” he noted.

To her horror, he came around lazily to face her again.

Ellie sank herself down a little lower until her nose was just shy of the surface.

“You know, now that I think about it, that looks like a pretty great idea,” Bates drawled.

Ellie narrowed her eyes.

“You wouldn’t dare...” she challenged.

But he had already kicked off his boots. Bates backed up to the far side of the deck, and with a running start, he leapt over the rail.

He soared out over the river in an impressive arc and hit the surface with roughly the force of a boulder.

Ellie spluttered against the tidal wave, which forced her to slightly increase her height in the water.

Bates surfaced, shaking his head like a wet dog.

“Oh yeah,” he said with obvious relish. “That feels great.”

“You can’t just come in here like that!” Ellie exclaimed.

“We’re outside, Princess,” Bates returned easily.

He was taller than her. With his feet in the muddy bottom of the river, the water came roughly to the bottom of his ribcage.

Ellie was able to make this measurement with greater accuracy as he promptly yanked his shirt over his head, exposing an alarming and entirely indecent expanse of chiseled male flesh.

The move was so shocking, Ellie nearly sank.

Bates gave the garment a peremptory shake in the water—clearly constituting his notion of a wash—and tossed it back onto the deck of the boat in a wadded-up ball.

All of him was tanned—the broad line of his shoulders, the rigid planes of his chest, the well-muscled curve of his arms.

The man must not generally bother with a shirt. Restraining himself to merely rolling up his sleeves since they had left town must have been a concession to Ellie’s feminine sensibilities.

Sensibilities that he had clearly decided to blow to tiny pieces this morning.

Bates flopped into the water with another splash. He drifted into a lazy backstroke as though their situation did not disconcert him in the least.

“I was in the middle of a bath.” Ellie iced her voice with disapproval. “Not that it bloody well stopped you last time.”

“Trust me, Princess,” he called over to her. “If I don’t find a place to rinse off every couple of days, I start to offend myself. You’ll be glad I did this.”

Ellie absorbed this explanation and found it all too horribly plausible.

She pulled herself over to the boat, more than ready to get back into her clothes and out of this mortifying situation… and realized that she hadn’t the foggiest idea how to get back on board. The Mary Lee had a relatively shallow draft, but the top of the rail was just above her reach.

If she swam around to the far side, she could scale the roots protruding from the clay bank and hop into the boat from there. She’d probably get a bit muddied again in the process, but that was nothing she couldn’t fix with a scoop of water—and at least Bates wouldn’t be treated to an intimate view of her backside as she managed it.

Ellie started to paddle that way, pushing against the bottom with her toes.

“I wouldn’t do that if I were you,” Bates called over.

“I am hardly going to climb up this way with you here,” Ellie retorted.

“Water snakes like close spaces,” he replied. “Between the boat and the bank is just the sort of spot you’d find one.”

“I assure you, I’ll be careful,” she shot back coolly.

There was a slosh as Bates dropped from his backstroke and came upright in the water once more.

“They don’t care how careful you are,” he drawled as he moved closer.

She stumbled back from him a step, but he made no move toward her. Instead, he reached up, and with his longer arms and height, he easily grasped the rail. The muscles in his shoulders bunched as he hauled himself up and swung gracefully over the side.

His wet trousers clung to him mercilessly. Ellie stared with an unwelcome fascination—then dipped back down to chin-level in the water as he leaned over the side, extending his arm.

“Let me give you a lift,” he said.

“I don’t think that’s a very good idea,” Ellie quickly replied.

“What if I look away while I’m doing it?” Bates punctuated the offer with a slightly wicked grin.

“Swear it,” Ellie shot back. “On that which is most sacred to you.”

Bates set his hand to his chest. His face went solemn—except for the glint of mischief in his eyes.

“I swear it,” he echoed. “On the bottle of very good rum I have hidden under the deck boards.”

“You want me to trust you based on a bottle of spirits?” Ellie burst out.

“It’s a really, really good bottle of rum,” Bates returned gravely.

“You’re a cad,” she accused.

“A charming one,” Bates agreed. “Intelligent. Moderately good looking.”

“Oh, blast it anyway,” Ellie muttered.

She raised her arms. He took hold of them near her shoulders, braced his leg against the rail, and with a single, mild grunt of effort, hauled her up out of the water.

Bates awkwardly shifted his grip to grasp her around the waist, plastering her to the rock solid mountain of his chest—and then stopped.

Ellie was flush against him with her legs still hanging on the other side of the rail. Only his grip around her torso kept her from tumbling back down again, but the hold left her crushed against a broad expanse of taut male flesh.

The sensation drove all semblance of rational thought from her brain and left her dangling there, speechless.

“You kinda gotta climb in from here,” Bates admitted. His voice was just a little tight with exertion.

The curse Ellie bit out in response was not entirely in keeping with her refined character.

She scrambled to pull her legs over the rail as Bates staggered back a step. When she was once more upright on the deck, she pushed herself neatly out of his arms.

To his credit, he turned about the moment he released her, keeping his back to the stern as she snatched up her clothes.

Ellie pulled them on despite the fact that they were uncomfortably damp. Wearing a wet corset was still better than the alternative. She plucked at the folds of her blouse to adjust herself as best she could.

“There,” she announced.

Something pale caught her eye near her still-bare feet. She recognized it as the wadded-up, sopping ball of Bates’s shirt.

Ellie fought against the roiling feeling in her stomach. She picked up the shirt from the floor and tossed it in the general direction of the canopy.

Bates caught it. She heard him give the garment a squeeze, splattering droplets of water onto the deck. The fabric snapped as he shook it out. When he brushed past her—making her jump at the near contact—he had put the shirt back on again.

“Ready to throw ourselves into a big black hole?” he asked cheerfully.

“Sorry?” Ellie blurted.

“The cave, Princess,” Bates replied with just a glint of mischief in his eyes.

“Indeed,” she returned tightly.

After all, a tunnel into the unknown could hardly be more dangerous than the waters she had just narrowly escaped.