The princess pulled the waterbottle out of his bag, regarded it carefully, as though trying to determine whether it was poisoned or not, then, apparently coming to the conclusion that it wasn't, took a sip. Simon stared at the bottle longingly. His mouth and tongue were still unspeakably dry, dryer than they ever had been. After a moment or so, she seemed to notice his distress, for she held the bottle up to his mouth so he could take several greedy gulps of water.

  “You're an odd one, aren't you, and you don't look like a Tracker at all,” she said conversationally as he drank, twisting the fabric of his button down shirt idly in her fingers.

  “Who are you?” Simon shot back mutinously. He regretted this lapse immediately when water sloped down his chin and she pulled the flask away from him with a noise of contempt.

  “Do not waste, water is precious,” she snapped. “And I do not believe for a second that you do not know who I am.”

  Simon stared, losing his temper at her absurdity. “I can hardly know every hillbilly in Egypt, can I?” As the words rung into the open gallery, he knew at once that he had made a mistake. The girl's eyes had narrowed, her nostrils were flaring wildly, and she seemed to be swelling. Simon thought he could see traces of her earlier transformation in the way her lip had drawn back, baring her canines.

  “Hillbilly?” the girl shouted, jumping to her feet and pointing a finger at him accusingly. “I am Nefertari I of the house of Aten-Atlanta, the rightful Pharaoh of the sixth dynasty and a direct descendant of Ra!” she shot at him without taking breath once, which he thought was quite a feat. “And just who are you, ridiculous human?”

  Simon figured he should have been taken aback or impressed by this outburst, for the tips of her canines were sharp as jagged glass, as though they had been filed, and her ears (covered in fur again) were folded back like that of an angry cat by the end of it.

  But Simon found, not without pleasure, that he wasn't intimidated in the least. Instead, he seemed to have recovered enough (or gotten used to, whichever) for her capricious and pompous manner to thoroughly annoy him.

  “Simon Walker,” he snapped back hotly, not believing a word she had said. When she didn't look impressed, he added, “Of London, that's in England, you probably haven't heard of it before! I might not have all your preposterous titles but I –“

  At this point, the full impact of what she had just said hit him. The sixth dynasty? It had been easy enough to slip into the Ancient Egyptian tongue without thinking... indeed, he had even forgotten that he was speaking a language other than English … But the sixth dynasty? That would be earlier than two thousand b.c. … And how could it be two thousand b.c.?

  “What did you just say? The sixth dynasty? Is this some sort of – some kind of cult?” Simon asked, completely aghast. She – the girl – the rightful Pharaoh, or whatever it was, looked at him as though he had suddenly sprouted tendrils. Simon wouldn't have been surprised by that at all, feeling that whatever happened was going to happen next couldn't be as far-fetched as what already had. “What did you mean, the sixth dynasty?” he finished.

  “Just that,” said Nefertari carefully, in a voice that suggested he was somehow unstable or otherwise a dangerous criminal who had broken out of a mental institution and shouldn't be provoked. “This is the sixth dynasty.”

  “But that's impossible. That was centuries ago, millennia!” exclaimed Simon.

  But even so, something in her expression told him the girl wasn't joking: Nefertari really believed this nonsense...

  Simon swallowed thickly – what had he gotten himself into? He was glad when, suddenly, her head (which had returned to its human shape) twitched to one side, as though she had heard something, although everything was quiet.

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  The next moment, however, Simon heard it too: A high-pitched cry that was almost a whistle, like a bird's call.

  “We're moving, now,” Nefertari said, before the echo of the cry had completely faded.

  “Look, you could just leave me –” Simon began, but was rudely interrupted.

  “Leave you here so you can tell your friends where I am?” Nefertari crossed her arms with a steelen look. “You'd have a field day, having found me on your own where the others have failed for weeks,” she glared at him dangerously, though her voice sounded pleased, almost smug. “I don't think so.”

  “But I don't have any friends!”

  “You said it yourself, your team should be here,” Nefertari threw his former words back at him.

  Of course, she was right, but he didn't believe that there was anyone here for him any more at all. Something very strange had happened, and it definitely had something to do with this girl … He must have travelled somehow, changed location without realizing it, just before he had gone into the grave chamber downstairs. For what other explanation could there be for everyone to suddenly speak Ancient Egyptian, a language that had died out several millennia ago, as though it were their native tongue; why it had gone dark outside so quickly; where Cairo had disappeared to; and why the Great Pyramid suddenly seemed strangely intact, almost as if it had just been built (which, he also knew, had happened in the sixth dynasty)? If this wasn't all some elaborate, large-scale hoax …

  And then an idea popped into his mind, preposterous and impossible, but again something told him that it was not as far-fetched as he believed it to be.

  “I was wrong, I think,” Simon said out loud.

  “Convenient,” said Nefertari dryly.

  “I am sure I was wrong,” Simon said irritably, “This is not my time, I must have, somehow, you know, travelled...” He swallowed, his brain spinning with more hair-raising ideas, and then he finally voiced the only explanation his winded brain could come up with, “ … travelled in – in time. This has to be the past!”

  Nefertari snorted.

  “You have to believe me,” Simon persisted urgently. “This is not my world, I'm not from this time!”

  “Clearly,” Nefertari said flatly, and then, “Suppose you are right. How do you plan on getting back? With this magical time piece?” She held up his wrist, where his watch gleamed in the dim, white light of the moon that fell into the chamber.

  Simon gaped at her. This was not at all the response he had anticipated. He had expected her to be flabbergasted, stunned beyond belief...

  But Nefertari seemed mildly surprised at best. That and the fact that she was right with everything she had said sent Simon's thoughts spinning faster, and his head filled with a dull throb. Even if he had somehow managed to go back to the past (which in itself was a ludicrous idea), how was he ever supposed to return to his own time? He didn't know anything about time machines and quantum physics, never mind that, until half an hour ago, he hadn't even believed in such things...

  “That's settled then, you're coming with me,” said Nefertari brightly, interrupting his reeling mind.

  Nefertari stored the water bottle back in his bag, slung it over her shoulder, smoothed out the creases on her tunic as she rose, and made for the exit.

  Simon did not move as, realization mixed with despair washed over him: He was trapped in ancient Egypt. There was no way back home. He was stuck for all eternity, or at least for the rest of his life... He had never felt this hopeless before in his life... There was no way he could return to the twenty-first century, for he was no physicist, and even those were vague on whether time travel was even possible or not... And while he could have answered that particular question now, he thought dully, he was no closer to anyone who would think to ask it than he was to returning to London as a rich man.

  The same hoarse, strangled bird's cry came again.

  “Move it,” said Nefertari briskly, oblivious to his aching head and tortured thoughts. She seized the ties on his wrist at the knot in the middle and dragged him after her toward the exit.