Free Theodosia & the Eyes of Horus by R. L. Lafevers Page A

I longed to do was give the poor man a proper burial; I just hadn't figured out how to go about it yet.
    Fagenbush sauntered over to the Canopic shrine on which the statue of Anubis rested. "Ah, yes. Your jackal."
    Oh, do be quiet, I thought. You're going to spill all my secrets. I glanced at Henry, who was watching Fagenbush with narrowed eyes. "Amazingly lifelike, isn't it?" I said.
    Fagenbush looked over his shoulder at me, then down at Henry. "Amazing," he drawled.
    "What are you doing down here?" I demanded again, my nerves stretched thin by his examination.
    "Now, Theo, you can't blame me if I wanted to check out where you've been keeping yourself for the last few weeks. You can't hog all the choicest artifacts, you know. I'll have to be sure and come down here more often. In fact, you might say I'll be dogging you." He glanced at the Anubis
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    statue, then laughed at his own joke. But I knew a threat when I heard it. He was going to follow me around if need be--whatever was required for him to make those wretched reports to Wigmere.
    He continued his perusal of the room, sauntering ever nearer to the shelves. As Fagenbush worked his way closer and closer to the tablet, I realized I had to divert him--but how? I glanced around, and my eyes fell on a Canopic jar that held a length of rope ensorcelled with a particularly nasty curse. Hmm. I could use that, except it was a rather vile piece of magic, and while I wanted Fagenbush out of the way, I didn't wish him any permanent damage. Well, not often, anyway.
    When Fagenbush reached out and picked up a funerary mask from the shelf just above the hidden tablet, my gaze settled on a stool from the New Kingdom that was nestled up against the base of the shelves. Carefully, as if I didn't want him to see me, I lifted my foot and gently pushed the stool behind the Canopic shrine.
    Fagenbush's head snapped up, his nose quivering like that of a hound on point. "What was that?"
    "What was what?" I asked innocently.
    He dropped the now forgotten mask back on the shelf and strode toward me. "What are you trying to hide from me?"
    "I'm not trying to hide anything from you."
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    "You little liar." He pushed past me and reached behind the Canopic shrine, then smiled in triumph as he pulled out the stool. "See! I knew you were trying to conceal something." He examined it. The leather seat had rotted away centuries ago, but the legs were inlaid with small pieces of ivory and ebony, so it didn't take long for Fagenbush to figure out it had belonged to an important individual. His gaze turned speculative. "Now, why didn't you want me to see this? I wonder."
    Actually, I had wanted him to see it. That was the whole point and the basis of the new strategy I had just devised on the fly: redirect Fagenbush's nosiness to harmless artifacts. Well, relatively harmless. The stool had a mild curse on it, one that roughly translated to "May the sands of the desert settle in your knickers until the next new moon."
    I scowled, as if I were upset he'd found the stool. "I'm sorry, did you say what you were doing down here?"
    He gripped the stool and closed the gap between us. "I have actually been sent down here by your father and Weems to see if you've finished their precious inventory yet. If not, I am to assist you until it is done. I have, in essence, been sent to clean up after you."
    "Hardly," I said, thrusting the ledger at him. "The inventory was completed last night. Here. It's all yours." Of course, it wasn't complete. There were a number of
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    questionable artifacts I hadn't included, such as the tablet and the Orb of Ra, but I wasn't about to confide that to Fagenbush.
    He snatched the ledger from me, then thumbed through the pages, reading what I'd written. "Well, it looks complete, anyway."
    "It is complete. I am very thorough." And you would do well to remember that, I thought. "Now, since you have what you need, perhaps you should get back to work."
    He leaned forward and I was