Where the Library Hides (Secrets of the Nile #2)

by Isabel Ibañez

Whit gestured toward me with a faint smile. “My wife is the one with the plan.” I ignored the label.

“Wait a moment. She’s your wife?” Farida asked, her rich brown eyes widening. “Since when? And why didn’t you invite me to the wedding?” The corners of Whit’s lips tightened. “We would have,” I said hurriedly. “But it happened quickly. Besides, it’s only a business arrangement.” “Oh,” Farida said uncertainly, looking between us. I felt Whit’s quick stare; there was a faint air of outraged disbelief radiating from him,

“Everything comes to an end at some point,” Whit said, with the slightest inflection on everything. I knew his words were in reference to my decision for a divorce. I tried not to read into his tone and how it sounded the littlest bit bleak. Or maybe that’s how I wanted him to sound. I was having a hard time keeping my heart in line with my mind. Silly, foolish thing.

“Don’t pretend to care.” “But I do,” he said quietly.

his head was covered by a hat, his face covered by a mask, I could see that he had dark hair. His clothing was nondescript: black trousers, crisp light shirt, and the customary vest under a dark jacket.

The same young man walked onto the stage, wearing gloves, and carefully removed the statue. Though he wore a mask obscuring his face, his auburn hair glimmered in the candlelight. He was wearing a different shirt than the one I’d seen him in earlier, and while he never once looked in my direction, I could sense his ire. My rascal of a husband.

My wife’s plans would be the death of me.

“You’re a walking hazard, Mr. Hayes.” He rubbed his eyes and said tiredly, “Please don’t call me that. We’re not strangers. We’re not even acquaintances.” “I have to,” I whispered.

“The city you saw must be Alexandria,” he said. “Cleopatra had a palace close to the water, and if she had inherited the alchemical sheet and was working from it, it follows that she’d keep it close.” He thought for a moment. “I could see why she’d be desperate to produce the philosopher’s stone. Nothing bleeds money quite like war.”

“Papa loves my mother. He never lets her out of his sight. I can’t imagine he’s far away from her.” “Ever?” I asked softly. “I hardly believe—” “Ever,” she snapped. “They are devoted to each other.”

“Then tell me why you followed me to an opium den the other night.”

I also think it was Isodora

“I don’t care if you believe me, I don’t care if you think the worst of me. What I do care about is Inez. Consider what will happen to me if we are successful in our efforts? Both of my parents in prison, or worse. I will be alone, without family except for Inez. I would never jeopardize our relationship, and while I have made mistakes, they were unintentional.”

“Inez is already in hell,” she said,

I had little hope of a reconciliation, but as long as there was a chance, I couldn’t afford to jeopardize it.

He is hoping and trying 🥲

Whit had lost the power of speech when he had seen me. I didn’t know if it was a good or bad thing and ultimately decided that it should not matter.

Humans can be so careless with beautiful things: lives, animals, art. Nothing is safe from our hands.”

“Jump into my arms instead.” She tensed, the lines of her face steeped in distrust. She no longer believed I could keep her safe. Or maybe the thought of my holding her was so off-putting she’d rather remain stuck to the rug.

Time to get my theatrical wife before someone offered her a job onstage.

No one was louder than my wife.

“Why is it so hard to stay mad at you?” Tension pressed down hard on my shoulders. “Because I did it to save my sister?”

“I’ve never been one to stay mad for too long. Eventually, my anger fades into profound dislike for the other person. Being furious is exhausting,

Because I really loved you.” I hadn’t just lost a friend or a wife. I’d lost Inez’s love. Something I didn’t know that I’d had.

“Then we are to confront her,” Isadora said, her face pale and miserable. “Today.”

the bottles of ink were actually medicine, and I shrunk them all down, recalling a story my uncle had told me back on Philae. Mamá constantly worried about getting sick, but then she had found a cache of ink bottles that held the remnants of healing spells. Now she could cure anything: broken bones, heat rashes, fevers, chills, stomach pains. I felt no qualms in taking the stash.

Every awful thing always led back to my mother.

“How many people have you killed, Isadora?” “A few, along with that crocodile,” she said.

How did Mr. Sterling follow me all the way from Cairo without any of us noticing?

Except—there hadn’t been anyone suspicious on the train, nor at the train station when we’d first arrived in Alexandria. I knew because I’d made sure to look. So then how had he done it?

Isadora

Sterling wore cologne and liked his tea. Empty cups sat on nearly every available surface. He didn’t employ a maid. Curious.

But my gut told me I had seen something and missed its significance entirely.

For the millionth time, I held on to one reality: he did not love me. It was a curse written on my heart, and every time I thought of it, I felt as if I bled from an open wound.

“Why did Mr. Sterling let us live?” Isadora asked. “I suspect because he still needs Inez in some way,”

Whit. He was looking at me, focused, intense, with an emotion swirling in the cool depths of his eyes. It might have been adoration. It might have been frustration. When it came to Whit, I never knew.

The glare that he gave her could have leveled a small town, buildings, trees, nothing would have survived. But it wasn’t all anger … not quite. If I didn’t know better, I would have named his emotion something else entirely. It looked a lot like jealousy. But that was impossible. The idea that he was jealous about my relationship with my sister was ludicrous. Wasn’t it?

Once again, my wife woke me up in the middle of night.

“I warned you once that you were too trusting, Inez. Too naive to see what had been in front of you all along.”

she did

“Inez, you are the love of my life,” Whit roared. “I will not lose you now.”

he seemed to understand that in order to save me, he had to save himself.

My rage didn’t scare me as much as my love for him did.

“Inez,” he whispered. “You want to know why I saved your life? I can think of no better act to show how much I love you. This world would not be the same without you in it, and I don’t ever want to find out what that feels like. If I have to follow you across a desert, I will. If I have to jump into the Nile, again and again, I will. If I have to leap in front of a thousand bullets, I will.” He closed his eyes, breath shuddering. “I will always love you.”

Abdullah tilted his head, shrugging. “Who knows where the library hides?”

Sometime during the night, when he held on to my hand in a death grip, I had forgiven him for what he had done. It seemed he would always do the extreme to help the people in his life. Steal a fortune to save his sister. Jump in front of a bullet to save me. Fight crocodiles.

Mr. Sterling became a man I had loved all my life.

My father looked back at me, smiling slightly. In his soft voice that I would recognize anywhere, he said, “Hola, hijita.”

“How long have you been Basil Sterling?” I choked out, my throat still too tight. “How long have you been a criminal, Papá?”

I learned early on that it was hard to fight with someone smarter than you.

When she did turn up, her behavior was unacceptable.” “What do you mean?” Papá looked at me steadily. “That part will have to remain between me and Lourdes. Suffice it to say, I found her cold demeanor off-putting. During her last visit, I followed her back to Cairo and discovered the affair.”

“There is no honor among thieves,”

“Do you want to know my reason for having you stay away in Argentina?” It wasn’t a question. I really ought not to give him the satisfaction, but I couldn’t help asking, “What was it?” “It’s simple, Inez,” he whispered close to my ear. “I’ve built an empire, and I didn’t know if I could give you the keys to my kingdom.” “That’s why you kept asking me to join you,” I said. “You were hoping to see … what, exactly? If I was corruptible?”

“Jump, Miss Olivera,” Mr. Graves said in a tone that brooked no argument.

Mrs. Hayes