They reached it quickly enough—it wasn’t that far from the southern gate—taking a direct path through the tombs in an effort to reach their destination while it was still dark. Phryne found herself searching the shadows the entire way, memories of her encounter with the ghost dog suddenly as fresh as the day it had happened. But they encountered nothing and no one, and arrived without incident.

That should have been the end of it. She was where she was supposed to be, where her grandmother had told her to come. But Mistral was nowhere to be found.

Phryne stood at a distance of perhaps twenty feet from the Belloruusian Arch, weighing her next move. But she quickly grew impatient. Dawn was approaching, and people would be out and about. Unwilling to just stand in place any longer and resigned to whatever fate awaited her, she decided to take a closer look.

XAC WEN WATCHED HER GO, hanging back and studying the arch as if it might hold some clue he could decipher. He kept thinking something would appear that would explain the message from Mistral Belloruus. Why had she summoned Phryne here? What was it she wanted? He thought of Phryne’s grandmother the way most people did—a very peculiar, reclusive old lady who knew how to do things that other people didn’t. Like how to do magic, some of it dangerous. He kept wondering if Phryne’s insistence on finding her had something to do with that. After all, a little magic might be useful when you were dealing with people like Isoeld Severine.

Phryne was almost to the arch now, moving cautiously, taking her time. Xac didn’t think this was a trap, but he couldn’t be sure. He wished that Tasha were there. Big, strong Tasha, who was a match for anything. Or even clever Tenerife. But there was only Phryne and himself, and that seemed less than adequate given the extent of the danger they were in.

He started forward now, not wanting the girl to get too far ahead of him. He needed to be close if something happened, and he didn’t want to have regrets about that later.

He no sooner completed the thought than Phryne Amarantyne walked beneath the arch and disappeared.

For a moment, he thought his eyes were playing tricks on him. There one minute, gone the next—that wasn’t possible. Nothing had happened to cause it; she had just disappeared into thin air. He rushed ahead, blinking rapidly, trying to find her in the mix of gloom and shadows. But she wasn’t there. She was gone.

“Phryne!” he called aloud, throwing caution aside.