The truth was different, of course.
Bektaten had reserved the room shortly before Ramses and Julie had departed Cornwall, and solely to give foundation to this cover story. And her alias, Abeba Bektul, was one of many, and different from the one she'd used to lease the castle. She did not wish to remain completely invisible if her participation was required, but she had no desire to host strangers so near to her garden. Thankfully, having lived many lives on different continents, she had no shortage of aliases she could use should this investigation turn its focus to her.
"Not sure there's any need as of yet," the detective answered, "so long as you can vouch for her good character."
"We most certainly can," Julie added.
"If we wish to question her, we'll be in touch with you then. Will she return to Ethiopia soon?"
"No," Ramses offered, "she'd planned a long stay to begin with. After what she's been through, after what we've all been through, she has no desire to take to the high seas anytime soon."
"Very well, then." The detective cleared his throat. "So it appears now, as it did before, we are in search of a theft. In the two days since we've begun our investigation, no further details as to these missing guests have been brought to our attention, I'm afraid. And while I can assure you it's almost impossible to investigate a murder without a body, when no loved ones or friends or even acquaintances of the missing step forward, well...it's impossible to investigate nothing at all. So if the constabulary is to continue in this matter, it will have to do so as if this is a theft."
"Or a poisoning," Edith said, "but of us. Clearly, we were given something that made us hallucinate. It must have been in the champagne!"
"Perhaps, miss," the detective said, "but I'm afraid that in the panic, the champagne was spilled and the glasses smashed underfoot. We couldn't recover a single intact glass anywhere on the property, and all the open bottles had been dispensed."
"Well, then it's the most perfect and befuddling plot that ever was." Edith tossed her hands in the air and let them thud to the blanket on either side of her. Julie couldn't help but smile. There was energy and vitality in this simple gesture, a sign that Edith would soon be free of this clinic and back to her old self. "Why we couldn't have all seen butterflies and rainbows is beyond me. Why did we all have to see something so truly wretched? But then again, I'm not a professional poisoner or thief, so perhaps it's just beyond me."
There was a ripple of laughter in the room.
Alex did not join in.
"It is rather odd, though, isn't it?" Alex's focus seemed to be entirely on Julie, even as he addressed the room. "That we would all hallucinate almost precisely the same thing."
"Odd doesn't even begin to describe it, I'm afraid," the detective said. "But just so you're aware, we continue to take this seriously. The constabulary will be consulting several illusionists over the next few days. Perhaps they'll tell us how a trick like this might have been accomplished through the marriage of some physical magic act and a drug, as the countess suggests. I do ask, however, that you keep that information from the press. For all of our sakes. It isn't the easiest thing. Police seeking help from...magicians."
A polite exchange of goodbyes followed. But Julie found herself unable to take her eyes off Alex. Was he in some sort of shock? Had his condition gone undiagnosed as the medical professionals present rushed to give their full attention to his mother, the countess?
"It was so dear of you both to drive all this way," Edith said.
Julie clasped the woman's hand. "After what you've had to endure on our behalf, Edith. I can't..."
The words failed her, and she felt the touch of Ramses' hand on her shoulder. Did he fear she'd say too much?
"We'll return to London as soon as we can," Edith said. "I can't bring myself to visit the estate just yet. As for Elliott, well, he sent another enormous sum of money from somewhere. I've lost complete track of where he is."
"Surely he'll come home when he hears of all this," Alex said crossly. "As soon as I have a new address."
"Don't be annoyed with your father, Alex," said Edith. "He needs this time to himself. And every time I turn around, it seems, the bank is calling to let us know of another deposit. Fortune has certainly smiled on him, wherever he is, and he shares that good fortune with his family, perhaps more than he enjoys it himself."
"I'm sorry, Mother." He mirrored Julie now, standing on the opposite side of the bed, taking Edith's other hand. "It's been an exhausting few days."
But he didn't seem exhausted, Julie thought. He seemed dazed, perhaps a little drunk. Strangely relaxed. And when he caught Julie studying him intently, he gave her a knowing smile.
"It has," Edith whispered, returning Alex's grip and then Julie's in turn. "It most certainly has. And you've been a wonderful son throughout all of it."
Alex gazed at her as if these words pained him. Then, in a whisper, he said, "We have always been a family, Mother, you and I. And Father. And we always will be, regardless of where any of us are in the world. Regardless of where any of us hope to be."
"Yes, I suppose so," Edith whispered. "And be assured, I do miss your father from time to time. Even melancholy has its charms now and then."
"Alex," Julie said, "do you care to join me for a walk?"
He nodded, but he continued to stare at his mother.
Edith's mind seemed elsewhere. Perhaps that was why she didn't notice the glint of tears in her son's eyes. When he bent down quickly, almost furtively, to kiss her on the forehead, she reached up and patted him gently on the cheek. But her expression suggested she'd returned to some silent deliberation over the strange events of the past few days.
*
They walked together through the tree-lined square just outside. They were surrounded by a mix of stone walls and shop fronts, and neither one of them seemed able to speak. She expected Alex to burst forth with some great outpouring of emotion. That's what the Alex of several days before would have done. But now he had been changed once more, it seemed. And so she was at a loss for how to determine his mental state without revealing details she didn't want him to know.
"What do you believe, Alex?" she finally asked him.
"What do you wish me to believe, Julie?"
"I don't understand." But she did. She did understand. He had suspicions, suspicions of her.
"Most people don't change, do they?" He'd stopped suddenly, his hands in his pockets, staring at a motorcar as it chugged past. "No matter what happens to them. No matter what they go through. They do everything they can to preserve their prejudices. Or their ambitions, even if those ambitions were cast when they were quite young and foolish. This is the business of living, as I once described it, isn't it? To explain away new experiences with old beliefs."
"The business of living," she said, "as you described it, as I understood you to describe it, was ignoring the pain in your heart and seeking to distract yourself with routine."
"Yes. Indeed."
"You have been changed by what you have seen, Alex?"
"Perhaps. But that's not exactly what I mean to say."
"What is it you mean to say?"
"I mean to say it's a reasonable expectation of most people. That they won't change. That they will reject the implications of new experiences." He met her gaze. "New information--"
"Alex--"
"And so it's understandable, I guess. And perhaps the basis for forgiveness when you learn that so much has been kept from you, even by those to whom you've bared your heart."
When she reached for his hand, he withdrew it. When she reached for his face, he took a step back.
"But this is new, Julie. This forgiveness. So I ask you not to test it just yet."
"What else do you ask of me?"
"I ask that it be my turn. For the time being, at least."
"Your turn? I don't understand."
"My father is never coming home. I know this now. I know it because he will make no promise, no mat
ter how he's pressed by me and my mother. And I know as well that my mother is greatly relieved. She's quite happy to return to her duties as the Countess of Rutherford now with the new wealth supplied by my father, and to have full charge of the estates she struggled to maintain so miserably for so long. She says to me confidentially that it is her turn to rule the little kingdom of Rutherford, and she does not care if she ever sees my father again."
"I see," said Julie.
"And that is all well and good," said Alex. "But I would like it to be my turn too in a different way."
"I still don't understand what you mean, Alex."
"My father is enjoying his endless travels. You and Ramses have enjoyed yours. And you will again. I would now like to enjoy my own."
Ramses, he'd said. Not Mr. Ramsey.
"Alex, you mustn't--"
"Mustn't what? Please, Julie. I understand. Truly. I do. You thought it would spare my heart to think her a madwoman. Perhaps you thought it was a privilege to be the only member of our traveling party with no real sense of the true nature of our journey. No sense of the momentousness of it. Surely, my father knows, and that in part explains his long absence."
"Alex, you must understand, I--"
"I do understand, Julie. This is not sarcasm with which I speak. But it isn't easy to say these things, so I ask for your respect."
"Alex, you don't understand what she is."
"Neither do you!"
She recoiled from his anger; she'd never heard anything quite like it in his voice.
"And neither does Ramses," he said, "and that's exactly the point, isn't it? The two of you sought to protect me from a being you yourselves did not truly understand. You still don't. She does not even understand herself. Only one thing is clear. She now desires only to return to the shadows in which you both would have wished her to remain. And that should satisfy you both, shouldn't it? Even if I go with her. For the time she has left. And I ask you...No. No, I don't ask it. I demand it, Julie. I demand that you not follow us."
Us.
"Where is she now?" Julie asked. "One of the tenant farms? Alex, you must tell me."
"Goodbye, Julie." His voice had softened, and he took a step towards her, closing the distance he'd opened when he'd pulled away from just the thought of her touch. "Goodbye. It's clear to me now you and Ramses stand on the edge of a magnificent and terrifying new world that has yet to be fully discovered. No doubt this new Ethiopian friend of yours hails from it. I hope it will bring you much joy and magic, this world. But I have no desire to be part of it. And neither does she."
*
How was it these words could overwhelm her more than anything she'd seen these past few months? What was the true source of these tears that gripped her now? Guilt? Remorse? It didn't seem so.
He gripped her shoulders, leaned in, and kissed her on the forehead. A blessing, this gesture, after the way he'd pulled away from her only minutes before. Then he was trotting across the square in the direction of his car. For now he was afraid. Afraid that she would pursue. Afraid that she would alert Ramses, and they would begin searching for wherever he was hiding her, the being that was, but was not quite, Cleopatra.
She wanted to go after him. But she was paralyzed. Paralyzed by his revelations and his directness--his earnestness and his flashes of anger which, just like the vulnerability he'd shown in the weeks prior, were so utterly new to him.
He could change. He could accept impossible truths. This was what he had just said to her, was it not?
She watched his car putter through the square and disappear from view.
A moment later, she heard footsteps behind her.
Ramses embraced her.
She turned to him, gave herself to his arms, buried her face against his broad chest. No sense in trying to hide her tears, she realized. He could hear their effect on her breath. He could feel them through his shirt, no doubt.
Did it fall on her now to keep this secret from Ramses? Was that the only possible way to honor Alex's request? His demand, as he'd put it.
"She's with him, Ramses. She's with him. He knows everything she knows. And now he seeks to go away with her, and he demands that we do not follow."
"And he was angry with you?" he asked.
She looked up at him.
"Not quite," she whispered, "not enough to explain these miserable tears. And I don't simply feel remorseful or guilty. So I can't explain this sense of overwhelming sadness."
"I can, my darling."
"Well, of course you can."
"The secrets we kept from him. Your concern for him. The party. All of it prolonged the business of your forced engagement. It was the one thing that still connected you to your mortal life. And now, in asking to be set free, Alex has set you free as well."
"Indeed. He said we stand on the edge of a magnificent and terrifying new world that has yet to be fully discovered, you and I. But he does not wish to be part of it. And neither does she."
"They already are," he said quietly.
"Can we honor his request?"
"We can, of course. But we now have a queen to whom we must answer as well. And then there is Sibyl, whose desire to find Cleopatra is stronger than ours."
"Must we tell them?"
"We must tell Bektaten. Telling Sibyl will be her decision. But whatever we disclose, we mention Alex's desire that they be set free. The two of them. Together. If it's your desire to honor this request, of course."
"If I desire to be set free myself, you mean. If I desire to be freed from my last tie to my mortal life so that I can give myself to your magnificent and terrifying world."
"Our world, my darling Julie." When she looked up at him, he graced her slight smile with a kiss. "Our world."
45
Cornwall
Sibyl was leaving them.
She had announced as much that morning after two days of continuous rest.
Two days during which she would burrow more deeply into her blankets whenever they tried to question her about her connection to Cleopatra.
Enamon had reported sounds of sexual release coming from her room. Muffled and restrained, of course, but still audible during his regular trips past her bedroom door. And so the connection between Sibyl and Cleopatra remained, and it was still strong, and it now provided her with the more pleasurable aspects of Alex and Cleopatra's reunion.
At least her torment seemed to be at an end, Ramses thought. The mad visions gone.
But were they? Or had Sibyl's attitude about them simply changed? Did they seize her still, only she now gave herself to them without confusion and resistance? There was no telling, for, suddenly, Sibyl wouldn't speak of any of it. And now, with a burst of energy that seemed to have come from nowhere, she was eager to return to her hotel room in London and a lady's maid whom she insisted was coming apart at the seams with worry.
They waited for her in the great hall. It had the air of a formal ceremony, the way they all stood with their hands clasped, not far from where they'd met with Saqnos three nights prior. Enamon was missing from their group, but only because he was on the other side of the bridge, waiting to drive Sibyl back to London. Aktamu was off on some other mission, the details of which Bektaten wouldn't disclose.
"Is this wise?" Ramses asked once the wait became unbearable.
"Wise?" Bektaten asked. She wore a heavy robe of rich brocade fabric, and her tightly kinked black hair, so lustrous, was gathered at the back of her head by a device of emeralds and gold.
Ramses was distracted for the moment by her regal beauty.
"To simply let Sibyl go like this," he said. "With so many questions unanswered. Is it wise?"
"She is not my prisoner," Bektaten answered, "nor is she yours."
"And what if she were to tell all she knows of us, you and I and Julie--"
"Who would believe her? She is a writer of fantasies."
Ramses nodded.
It was bracing the way she spoke to him now. But when he
cast a glance in her direction, she didn't seem stern or angry.
Finally they heard the clop of footsteps on the stone stairs.
A moment later Sibyl appeared, dressed in new clothes Julie had purchased for her from a dress shop in the nearest village. A lacy blouse with a pearl-studded collar, contained by a trim jacket the same shade of white. Her dress wasn't nearly as long as gowns worn by so many ladies of this era. The hem was short enough that she could run, dance, and twirl if she so chose. And atop Sibyl's golden locks was a small top hat, black as night and much like the ones Julie had been fond of during their travels through Europe. It comforted him to see how Julie had left her stamp on the woman's new attire. A sign, perhaps, that Sibyl might soon return, even if she did insist on departing now with an aura of suddenness and mystery.
"Do I look well?" Sibyl asked. "Or healthy, at least."
"You look positively stunning," Julie said. "I'm biased, of course. Given I'm the one who dressed you."
Julie closed the distance between them, took Sibyl's hands in hers, and spread them slightly so she could get a better look at the clothes she wore.
"You're sure you must leave?" Ramses asked.
Sibyl flinched slightly, as if she were startled to have the tension in the room described so directly.
"Yes," she whispered. "I'm very sure."
"What guides you in this decision?" Bektaten asked.
If she'd flinched at the sound of Ramses' voice, Bektaten's voice caused Sibyl to go still. Fear? Awe? Did it matter, if one of those feelings led her to answer the question honestly?
Bektaten took several steps across the stone floor. Cautious and restrained, as if she could see the power she held over Sibyl and didn't want to overwhelm her with a fast approach.
"We know she travels now with Alex Savarell. That they seek to escape London and Yorkshire and perhaps Britain itself. Do you know this, Sibyl? Can you glimpse them through that which connects you now?"
They had not told Sibyl of what Alex had revealed to Julie the day before, but she didn't seem remotely surprised to hear of it now.
Had Bektaten held this information back on purpose? Was this a last-minute attempt to keep her from leaving?
Sibyl was silent for a while.
Then she leaned forward and kissed Julie gently on the cheek.
And then, to Ramses' surprise, Sibyl walked past Julie and began to approach the oldest immortal any of them might ever know. She held her head up and fixed a welcoming smile to her face, both signs that this movement required her utmost courage. For her experience of Bektaten had been limited and shrouded in fear; she'd seen the queen as nothing more than a mute witness to her tales and the architect of Saqnos's fatal leap. A source of mystery and death. And through the fog of these feelings, she seemed to be selecting her next words very carefully.