But there wasn’t time for either.

He’d never been inside this tomb before, but Jess knew the first level was a kind of museum, showing artifacts from Alexander’s time—his armor, his sword, and more. With any luck, the sphinx’s instructions wouldn’t allow it to enter these precincts, where it could damage and destroy priceless history. But in case that wasn’t true, Jess led Dario up another, interior set of stairs, two at a time, to a shadowy landing. His heart was pumping, but not completely in fear; there was a kind of exhilaration to this that was addictive. A deadly game. But still a game.

Outside, the sphinx shrieked again. The other answered, and somewhere mingled with it was the bone-shattering scream of a human being in mortal pain and distress—a scream that cut off abruptly.

Dario’s eyes were wild as he said, “Did they—”

“Kill your contact? Probably. Or some innocent who got in the way.” Jess wanted to punch him for his deadly ignorance. “What did you think you were playing at, Dario? Were you trying to impress me?”

Dario swallowed hard, opened his mouth, then closed it. “Maybe I was.” Some awareness crept back into his expression, and he looked around. “I’ve never been in here. Have you?”

“No.” Another idiocy, Jess thought; Dario should have scouted this place thoroughly, on many occasions, at different times of day. He should have known how to get in, out, every possible route of escape. “Come on. We’re going up.”

The next level held the glass coffin of Alexander, and though he knew he shouldn’t, Jess found his steps slowing. There was a sense of terrible reverence here. Alexander’s withered, leathery body—embalmed and dressed in a set of gilded armor—lay under thick, ancient glass . . . or crystal, maybe. The body was smaller than Jess would have guessed. Alexander had conquered most of the known world as little more than a boy, and Jess wondered what he’d have thought of all this—of the tomb, the honors, the Library that had conquered the rest of the world in his name. Had he really wanted to be displayed like this, as his own museum piece?

Surrounding the coffin, inset in alcoves in the walls, stood statues of weeping men and women, their hands covering their faces. Lifelike and frightening.

Dario’s voice came hushed, but it still made Jess flinch. “Are those . . .”

“Automata? Yes. Don’t touch the coffin. They’re probably guardians.”

Jess stayed well away from Alexander’s corpse and took the next set of stairs up again, with Dario at his heels. They emerged into a large, empty veranda open to night breezes, furnished with stone benches and seats. It afforded a fine view of the sights of Alexandria, but no way up to the small roof or out. When Jess looked down on the gardens below, it didn’t surprise him to see that all casual visitors had vanished into the night. It was just him, Dario, and two pacing sphinxes below, staring up with intense red eyes. Terrible odds.