Page 67 of A Discovery: Love and Other Things

After a moment, he spoke. “Please wait outside while we discuss this.”

Adrenaline coursed through me. This might actually have worked! I wanted to laugh hysterically and cry all at the same time from the high I was riding.

James ushered me outside.

As soon as the door clicked closed, I tossed my notebook onto a chair and swung around to face James. “Oh, my God!” I mouthed.

He responded with a quiet chuckle. That brightness had returned to his blue eyes from all the excitement. His plan had been brilliant, and the fact that we were out here waiting in the hall had to be a good sign.

“I really think they’ll cave,” I said.

He slipped his hands into his pockets. “They have no choice. They know if I’m claiming to have found something, it must be significant.”

“Where is the cartouche now?”

“It’s at home in my safe which has temperature and moisture controls.”

I giggled. “That’s veryyou.”

He tilted his head to one side, his long locks swaying with the movement. My fingers tingled remembering how silky they felt. “What do you mean?”

“You’re smart and you’d think to place it somewhere secure like a tricked out safe.”

“You’re smart, too. The way you so effortlessly brought up that part about the attestation. Beautiful.”

My cheeks felt hot, though the word had been meant for my action and not me. “I like to read contracts.” I tried to shrug it off, but I was sure he saw the faint blush of red my skin tone would allow. “What if we’re wrong about our theory?”

It was possible that the cartouche was a fake to disguise the real patron.

“We’re not,” James answered plainly.

His confidence baffled me. He seemed so sure with only one piece of evidence.

“Why do you say that?”

“Because the lab results came back from the bracelet you found.”

The one made of lapis lazuli with the flower clasp.

I wet my lips. The tip of my tongue caught his stare. “And?”

He cleared his throat and met my eyes once again. “Funny thing. X-ray fluorescence found that the iron clasp had high levels of nickel. It contained cobalt, too.”

“What does that mean?”

“It was made from iron meteorite.”

Extraterrestrial rock from outer space.There was only one other item that I knew that had been made from a meteorite. “The dagger,” I whispered in disbelief. It was the burial dagger found in Tutankhamun’s tomb. Scientists had run tests and found that it was comprised of levels of nickel higher than in any other iron found on Earth.

James nodded. “It appears the bracelet and Tutankhamun’s dagger were fashioned from the same material.”

My mind raced. This meant that the bracelet had most likely belonged to someone of great importance, just like Tutankhamun. Like his wife, Ankhesenamun. “It’shers.”

“My guess is she also visited the temple herself to honor her dead husband and offered the bracelet to the gods on his behalf. She had probably been banned from ever visiting Tutankhamun’s mortuary temple, wherever it is, by Ay if she was married to him after Tut’s death. Perhaps she built this temple so she could continue to honor her fallen pharaoh in private. This would explain why it wasn’t lavish like a mortuary temple.”

I was completely stunned. Tutankhamun’s mortuary temple had yet to be discovered, but this temple was definitely not it. Mortuary temples were grand and ostentatious just like the pharaohs who commissioned them. It was too small and too humble to be his official death temple.

My theory was right. A woman had commissioned the temple. Ankhesenamun had wanted to honor the love she had for her husband, to have his memory live on forever. I wanted to shout for joy.

---