Page 62 of No Charm Done

Frankie had an easy, infectious laugh that made people want to offer him things. Money, secrets, the benefit of the doubt. Elias had spent most of his adult life trying to protect his kid brother from the consequences of being so goddamn likeable. And failing, mostly.

“Aha! Got it!” Frankie’s voice sharpened as he gently pulled something from behind a collapsed wall.

Elias moved closer. “What is it?”

“Linen. Mummy wrapping.” Frankie held it up to the dim doorway light. It was the length of his forearm, yellowed but intact. “Look at the back.”

Elias squinted. There were symbols inked onto the fabric—hieroglyphics, but not the decorative kind you saw on tomb walls. These were dense, precise, the kind of writing that meant something. The kind that did something. “Is that a spell?”

“The spell.” Frankie’s eyes were bright, almost feverish. “This is what Burke wanted—the spell rumored to grant power over death itself. This is what he’s been searching for in every tomb from here to Thebes.”

“What’s it do?”

Frankie’s grin widened. “He thinks it’s the key to immortality.”

Of course he did. Upson Burke III was seventy-two years old and rich enough to buy whole countries. The only thing he couldn’t buy was more time, and it was driving him insane.

“You believe him?” Elias asked.

Frankie shrugged, careful as a magician folding a trick. “Doesn’t matter what I believe. Only matters what Burke’ll shell out.”

Footsteps echoed from the outer chamber: the boss man, Howard Carter. His voice grew closer as he lectured someone on the significance of the architecture or some scholarly folderol.

Frankie shoved the linen into his jacket, stood, and brushed dust from his knees. “Come on, look busy. Archaeologically speaking.”

By the time Carter stalked in—tall, thin, wearing that death-mask scowl—both brothers looked busy, the picture of earnest archaeology.

“Ah, Mr. Shaw, Mr. Shaw.” Carter nodded to each of them. He’d never bothered to learn which was which. “Any significant findings?”

“Just cataloguing the debris, sir,” Frankie said earnestly. “Remarkable craftsmanship, even in pieces.”

“Indeed.” Carter swept past them, already focused on something else, already composing the lectures he’d someday give.

Elias caught his brother’s eye. Frankie touched his jacket pocket once and winked. They’d done it. They’d stolen immortality from a boy king’s tomb, and nobody would ever know.

He remembered thinking, in that moment, that Frankie was going to be fine. That this was just another job, just another artifact for some rick jerk’s collection. Soon they’d be drinking whiskey in some dive, laughing about the whole thing. Elias remembered the exact quality of light in that antechamber, the way dust motes danced in the air. He remembered everything.

Because a week later, his brother was dead.

* * *

The words landed like a body hitting pavement.

Luna’s hand tightened around his under the table—when had she grabbed his hand? Elias couldn’t remember. Everything felt distant suddenly, like he was watching the scene from underwater.

“How’d he die?” Scarlett asked, her voice careful.

“The linen was cursed.” Elias heard himself, calm and matter-of-fact, as if he were describing someone else’s tragedy. “Ancient Egyptian death curse, very specific. Anyone who removed that spell would die on the new moon. We got it back to Cairo, Frankie delivered it to Burke personally, and six days later . . .” He made a vague gesture. “He was twenty-one years old and healthy as a horse, and his heart just . . . gave out.”

Kelly had gone very still. “And Burke?”

“Oh, he knew about the curse.” The words tasted like desert sand. “Not the specifics, maybe, but he knew the risk. He’d been chasing that particular spell for years, hiring magicians to raid tombs, promising them fortunes. Most of them refused. But Frankie . . .” Elias shook his head. “Frankie thought he was invincible. And Burke let him believe it. He got his spell. Franklin was just . . . overhead.”

Nate was staring at the photo on Scarlett’s phone, still visible on the table. “So this guy Burke, he was in his seventies in 1922? That means now he’d be . . .”

“A hundred and seventy-five, give or take,” Jerusha noted. “It seems I’m not the oldest antique in the shop, after all.”

“The spell worked, then,” Jasper said.