“Come, Renifer,” said Pankh. “The night is beautiful. We will return when it pleases me. Your father will not be talking to other suitors.”

Her father was no longer in charge. She might have said her marriage vows already, because Pankh was the one whose permission she needed.

In the streets of Memphis they walked. They said good evening to friends, bought sweets from vendors, listened to a band of flutes, and sat on a bench above the Nile, watching parties on pleasure boats.

“You look lovely in that shawl,” said Pankh.

“Father is always coming home with some extraordinary gift,” she said nervously. “Pankh? Up on the rooftop? It almost sounded as if you were threatening Father.”

“Silly goose,” said Pankh. “I just reminded him that I always get what I want.”

Renifer was horrified. He was begging a god to lash out and prove him wrong. Or a goddess. “But you treated Sekhmet as a weapon,” she whispered. She felt herself at the top of something as high as the Pyramid, and as steep; felt herself falling, and falling with her was a shape so terrible she must keep her eyes closed and her thoughts protected.

“A weapon?” Pankh laughed. “I was just juggling it around.” He snapped his fingers to show how little he cared for the goddess. “If I need a weapon, I have a knife.”

“But Pankh—”

“I have reached the end of my patience,” said Pankh sharply. “I do not care for a wife who questions my decisions.”

What decisions? thought Renifer. I don't even know what we're talking about.

“I'm sorry,” she said humbly, but she was afraid.

Her father and her beloved were hiding something, using a goddess who would gladly destroy them with one swipe of her immortal paw.

Evil was coming, and Renifer was powerless to get out of its way.

II

Time to Fall

ANNIE: 1999

Suddenly the special Egyptian exhibition exploded with schoolchildren. Seventh graders, possibly eighth. Filled with the noisy excitement of a field trip, they had not the slightest intention of learning anything. They rattled around the exhibition while their teacher read aloud from placards.

So she was not going to change centuries.

Strat had done that for her. He was here. In her time.

Annie wanted to touch Strat as tenderly as they had touched a hundred years ago. How perfect he still looked. He wore cargo pants and a navy sweater heavily knitted in braids and whorls. He could have been a young sailor from some Irish island, whose sister or mother had been knitting all winter to create this masterpiece. Strat's hair was the same moppy annoying badly cut hair she had known a hundred years ago. He had worn a cute little cap then, the kind men wore when they drove automobiles with open tops and running boards.