Free The Honey Mummy (Folley & Mallory Adventure Book 3) by E. Catherine Tobler

his family about his dual nature.
    “It isn’t my place to ask,” Cleo said, “so long as I’m not interrupting.” She looked around the room, and much as Eleanor might have in her place, began to walk around, as if looking for intruders. “Anything. Anything at all.”
    “There is no one under the bed, or clinging to the balcony rail,” Eleanor said, wondering what might have happened had Anubis remained. She lifted the ring box. “I had trouble sleeping, my mind on these. You might imagine… Four rings, and me again. It doesn’t bode well.”
    “I trust you won’t go putting them on,” Cleo said, peering at the wardrobe before she circled back to the sofa and sat. “I also had trouble sleeping. I was thinking of the auction—of the silver-haired woman there. Was she…” Cleo stopped, metal fingers tapping an uneasy rhythm on her thighs. “Was she actually the Defender from the canyon? I pray that you will tell me I am entirely wrong, incorrect, and awful for thinking such a thing—that any such woman is yet in that canyon, far away from us in safe, safe, safe Alexandria. Did I mention safe?”
    Eleanor joined Cleo on the sofa, taking the time to draw a fresh cup from the sideboard and pour tea for her. Eleanor poured slowly, knowing there was no way she would lie to Cleo about such a thing. If Cleo were in danger, she deserved to know everything Eleanor did.
    “Yes, she was. The one who wanted to study you. Your arms.”
    Cleo shuddered, pressing herself back into the sofa cushions.
    “She is also known to my mother,” Eleanor said. “Akila, my mother called her. My mother said Akila’s kind travel between the times by means unknown—but given what we know…her means are likely much like those of Anubis.” She considered Anubis’s own words—
they will carry you
, and the jackal inside her shifted from foot to foot, wanting out. Wanting to run. “Unless you have another theory?”
    Cleo drank her tea and said, “No. It’s one reason I wanted to talk with you. I haven’t been able to settle my thoughts after seeing her. I can accept that we have been…lured to this auction, if you will, for reasons we don’t yet know, but her appearance…” She shifted on the sofa, drawing her legs up to her chest to balance the teacup on her raised knees. “That was unexpected.”
    “I wonder when the unexpected becomes commonplace.” Eleanor offered Cleo the blanket folded over the arm of the sofa, in case she found the morning too cool. “I suppose when that happens…” She thought of Anubis’s abrupt comings and goings. “Then is when we should worry? Truth be told, I suppose I worry constantly. These past two months, in any case.”
    Eleanor watched the way Cleo chewed on her bottom lip, as if she had more to say but could not put the words in the right order. Being in possession of her own such debate, Eleanor did not press, giving Cleo the time she would want someone else to give her.
    “Did Mallory bring the other ring with him?” Cleo asked. “The one that was left in the archive.”
    “I am certain he has brought it, though he hasn’t said, and won’t let me near him, knowing my penchant for picking pockets.”
    “One can’t exactly fault him…”
    Cleo’s smile was infectious and Eleanor shook her head. “No, absolutely not. But given that…” She looked at the balcony door, picturing Anubis there even though it stood empty. “There is something else I must tell you. Anubis was here.”
    The smile vanished as swiftly as it had come, and Cleo set her teacup aside, as if she feared they might be attacked or set upon at any moment.
    “Here?” she asked. “How is that remotely poss—” She broke off, throwing the blanket off to rise from the couch.
    “He isn’t…” Eleanor searched for the right word, but had no good way to explain. Cleo had seen what Anubis was capable of, plucking hearts out and turning them to dust as easily as they themselves crossed a room. The