Chapter 5

Alex turns on the faucet. The water takes its time to get hot.

She did it for Lily. She gave it all up for Lily. She’ll never leave this house. She is the house. Because she wanted to sacrifice her dream for Lily. Why did he not figure that out? He’d found hints of everything else. The ankh, the retainer, England. And he hadn’t put everything together, but that kind of affection for Lily wasn’t something he saw in the journals. Why not?

Maybe he missed something. Maybe there was a code for Lily. Minerva called her “Bug.” The scarab beetle? Shit, was it staring him in the face all along? He can’t be sure, of course. But wouldn’t it be funny if that were the case? Every time he saw it, he thought of it as the Egyptians would, as a symbol of the cycle of life, but maybe it was just Minerva’s code. The person that she was doing it all for. That’s a possibility he would never have thought of if he hadn’t heard Minerva’s pet name. He thinks about how much of history is lost to personal details. How much the little relationships matter. He always looks at the big picture of a question, trying to find the hard evidence, and always overlooks the little, personal details, that explain so much. It’s like Minerva herself said at the party: For all Lotus Valley was about sex, it was really about love.

He tests the water again. It’s hot. He starts to wash, and catches himself in the mirror above the sink. He looks an absolute mess. Unsurprisingly, after last night. Alex likes sex, but he didn’t used to understand why so many people throughout all of history centered their lives around sex. Now he gets it. Still, there’s something new in his reflection. He’s 22. Soon to be married. Soon to be a father. Also, he discovered a tomb that was hidden by an Egyptian spell. He and Charlotte. Together.