The Honey Mummy (Folley & Mallory Adventure Book 3) by E. Catherine Tobler Page A

open a portal to the past through which Eleanor or any of their party would be lost. And yet, he supposed it was rather like a person who looking upon the ocean for the first time after having nearly been drowned by it. It was hard not to have a reaction to something known to cause harm.
    “A modest collection of rings,” the auctioneer said, as his young assistant displayed them upon their padded tray. This young man made a slow circle through the assembled chairs, pausing beside Virgil and Eleanor.
    Even under the meager warehouse lights, the rings shone. Virgil swallowed the lump in his throat. Four rings, exactly as before, though these were unlike those Eleanor had reclaimed for Anubis.
    “Two rings of gold—take note of the green jasper and glass and the delicate way they have been shaped into one of the smallest scarabs we have encountered, if you would. A third ring of nephrite, and one of corroded iron,” the auctioneer continued, detailing the markings, the likely age, but not where they had been found.
    The iron ring, however, Virgil noted with a twinge, was similar to that left with Eleanor’s notebooks in the archive. Her hand tightened hard around his at the sight of it, and he wanted to tell her absolutely not, wanted to prohibit any bids by her hand, but he imagined himself in her neatly laced boots, and what
she
must be experiencing at the sight of the rings—fear mingled with that ever-present curiosity—and he knew he could say none of it. She would not deny him were their positions reversed, and he would not deny her, so he returned the squeeze of her hand, and stroked a firm line against her fingers with his thumb. They had been brought here for a reason; if this was it, they would see it through as they always did.
    It wasn’t strange that Eleanor bid, but Virgil wondered at the way Akila did not. Pettigrew joined in the bidding, turning to flash Eleanor a rakish grin at one point, and bowing deeply when he at last conceded to her bids. If Akila did not want the rings, what was she after? She had not turned to look at them, and Virgil wondered if she had recognized Eleanor’s voice, if she had spied them enter the auction at all.
    Virgil found he could not relax even once Eleanor had won the rings. Someone had set this entire play in motion by leaving the ring in the archive; there was a plan at hand, but being that Virgil didn’t control it, he disliked every aspect.
    “And now, ladies and gentlemen, we come to the centerpiece of this evening’s auction, the sarcophagi found in the heart of deepest Egypt and come to you wholly preserved and as perfect as anything we have ever had the chance to encounter. Such care was taken with these, you shall see there is no chisel mark upon them that was not placed there by their original artisans, and artisans they were indeed, please gaze upon these ancient wonders.”
    Eight men wheeled the sarcophagi into better position for viewing—each sarcophagus rested upon a cart, and even with two men assigned to each, Virgil could see them struggling to move the massively heavy objects. He had trouble wondering how they had been carted from the desert at all, but men properly motivated by profit might be moved to do any number of vile things, he knew. One was the most remarkable sarcophagus he had seen, carved from serpentine. Veins of light green stone shot through fertile valleys of the darker hued stone; this, Virgil knew, would garner an amazing amount. Strangely however, the sarcophagus bore no mark upon it; no name, no insignia. It had only its stone to speak for who had once rested inside.
    Eleanor’s hand tightened around his again, and he threaded his fingers through hers, leaning into her shoulder.
    “Oh, Virgil. They look wholly preserved,” she whispered. “But not as old as I expected.” She leaned in, to get a better look at them and Virgil looked too, but he was sure that she noticed something entirely different from what he did, given