After a while, when the laughter had ebbed away, silence fell again. Simon stared into the Hall of Gates, but was barely aware of the shiny black walls, the peculiar staircases, and the ornate gates on the other end. He wondered what it would be like to have parents, and what they would have done if he'd vanished, then what it would be to have a family, semidivine or otherwise. He didn't know whether he could call what Avrak Walker, Morgan, and himself had been a family, for most of his life up to now was devoted to beating Morgan at something, even if it only was the odd game of chess every now and then.

  The competition had started early, though he couldn't even remember when; every exam was like a fight to the death, in which only the best could survive. He had always done his best to excel, hated the careless ease with which Morgan went through school, and refused vehemently any help Morgan offered. He had felt bad enough as it was, being beaten at higher maths by his little cousin, and he didn't need the boy flaunting his triumph in private lessons as well.

  It hadn't stopped at university either when they had both enrolled in their archaeology class. The atmosphere between them had been quite friendly then, but everything had escalated when their grandfather had died. There was no more need to pretend that they were getting along. They had split even further in this past year, and even though at times they were required to work together, they'd always tried to hide their most important research from each other – or at least Simon had. Now, stranded in ancient Egypt, he couldn't help but wonder whether it even mattered any more. He felt older now than he ever had before, and all those rivalries seemed to have happened a million years ago.

  “Did you know your uncle well, then?” said Simon, feeling the need to talk lest the bad feelings catch up with him.

  “He was the Pharaoh before Thutmose,” said Nefertari. “Pontis was the first divine pharaoh to rule Egypt, you know, as the son of Ra. It was also the first time the Traveller showed, by the –”

  She fell silent so suddenly that Simon whipped his head around in fear, thinking they were about to be attacked. Nothing moved in the shadows however, except for a cluster of akh drifting past idly. He turned back around. Nefertari's face was ashen, frozen in an expression of shock, as though she had just understood something. Her fingers began to fiddle hastily with the chain on her neck, and she took the Infinity Key from the folds of her tunic, then she looked at Simon and back again.

  “What?” said Simon, taken aback.

  “You said you live with your grandfather?”

  “I did. He died last year. I live alone now,” said Simon shortly.

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  “Then –” Nefertari's frown deepened. “But of course!” she exclaimed wildly after a moment. “Your grandfather!”

  “What about him?”

  “He gave you this, right?” She held up the pendant, at the end of whose chain swung the hourglass from side to side.

  “Yes...?”

  “It must have been him! The Traveller!”

  Simon, whose brain had finally caught up with her train of thought, said, “You're barking.”

  “Huh?”

  “It means you're crazy.”

  “Crazy or not, it must be. Pontis used to tell me stories about the man who helped him when the false god was at large the last time. I did tell you about that – Apep attempted once to take the throne, but was unsuccessful, had to flee in the end, and that's when the Traveller disappeared also, just before I was born, and your grandfather must have given you this because...”

  Simon, albeit doubtful of her wildly spinning imagination, had begun to see the silver lining threading through her idea as well.

  “Because he knew Apep would be back. That he would try again, and the Pharaoh'd need help again,” Simon finished for her excitedly, but she was cut off at once.

  “That book of yours!” she cried.

  “What? But you can't read –“

  Nefertari was plainly not listening. She rummaged in her tunic until she had found the copy of Archaeology Today, then flipped through the pages vigorously, mumbling all the while. At last her fingers came to a halt at one page where a gigantic stone tablet depicted the battles of the ancient gods.

  “There you are,” she said excitedly, jabbing a finger at the image of a hourglass in the center of the page, then flipped again. “When I first saw this, I thought that it might have something to do with the key, that there was something odd about it... The symbol crops up all throughout history, not only ours.”

  “But that's way before your uncle ruled,” said Simon, checking the dates of the pictures she showed him. All of them unmistakably portrayed the Infinity Key. But there was something else that caught his eye – something even more suspicious that he had not noticed beforehand, because it was really difficult to make out on the page, a tiny detail on the edges of the photographed relics: The Crest of Atlas. But if it really was the same symbol...

  “Exactly!” Nefertari seemed delightedly oblivious to his inner struggle. “It's not just my uncle! This is far bigger than what I'd imagined. The Infinity Key must have been in your family's possession for centuries!”

  Simon gaped at her. Was she suggesting that not only his grandfather (which still seemed very unlikely) but several others of his ancestry had travelled to ancient Egypt as well? The thought was simply preposterous.

  “But that's madness,” said Simon, flabbergasted. His head was throbbing with the first hint of a headache, as it so often did nowadays.

  “Is it?” Nefertari looked at him expectantly. “It's what Thoth said when he sent me to Giza in the first place – that I'd find what I needed.”

  “I didn't actually –“