He sat down and picked up his Codex and turned to the page where Morgan’s messages appeared. He knew it was useless, but he took up his pen and wrote, I need to talk to you. Please. I need you.

He watched the page, waiting for her familiar handwriting to appear, but it didn’t come. Of course it wouldn’t. She could reach out to him, but he couldn’t do the same to her. He didn’t even know if she was reading it. So he kept writing, almost against his will. I feel very alone tonight. And I miss you. It’s stupid, I know, but I miss the touch of your skin, the smell of your hair. The weight of you in my arms. Horus help me, I sound like a lovesick poet. I should thank the God of Scribes you’ll never read this, because I don’t deserve to write it. You still hate me. You might not ever want to see me again, and, even if you do, you might never feel the same as you did before. I know that. I just . . . I miss you, Morgan.

Then he reversed the stylus and brushed it all out, erased as if it had never been, and felt more alone than before.

He needed the comfort of someone familiar. I want to go home, he thought, which was strange; he had few happy memories of London, really. And it had hardly ever been safe. Still, in this moment, he desperately wanted to walk in the door of his family’s town house, to see the wan smile of his mother and see his father busy at his massive desk.

A bit of home.

After a moment of debate, and knowing it was bound to backfire on him, Jess gave in to temptation and went in search of his twin brother, Brendan.

The sentries posted at the gate asked where he was going, and he told the truth: visiting relatives. I’m not a child running for comfort, he told himself. Father’s been pestering me to find out what Brendan’s up to, anyway. Because Brendan should have left Alexandria long ago, headed back to London, but Jess had learned his brother had taken up residence in the city instead.

Maybe his brother had broken with the family business. Maybe they were both outcasts now.

Leaving the compound this time felt like shedding a giant load from his shoulders; he wasn’t on a mission, wasn’t under pressure to dodge, avoid, not be found out. He had been allowed off the grounds without argument, and now he walked into the cool, misty night of Alexandria with his hands in his pockets.

It felt, for the first time in a long time, like freedom, even with the weight of the copper bracelet of the Library still clasped around his wrist.

Alexandria at this hour was a relatively quiet place, except near the docks, where lights and noise and activity continued as ships loaded and unloaded and sailors found leisure. He avoided that; pubs here in Egypt were far different from the friendly, cozy places he’d grown up with at home. Add sailors to the mix, and they were almost always dangerous places, especially at this dark hour.