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"Mahter’s adult commentary behind the baby phrases: Sooner you than me, Mother

The sand-covered hill they scaled formed the back part of the roof of the temple, where it had been carved into the side of a cliff Alexia took the lead, despite her daainst the vicious sun Then came Genevieve, and then Conall and Prudence They left Zayed and family back at caan to see the bodies Or to be more precise, the mummies Or to be even more precise, it here Lord Maccon accidentally stepped on a long-dead preternatural

Itnoise and let out a little puff of brown dust

"Conall, do be careful! Inhale one of those and you could beequally nasty"

"Yes, dear" The earl wrinkled his nose and shook off his boot

Mada and si back side of the hill the eight long pathways out into the desert

"Ghost trails," said Alexia, repeating Zayed

"I hardly think so Quite the opposite" Mada one of the bodies

They were all mummies, or at least they looked to beone of the trails down the hill, they eventually came across unwrapped bodies, baked and charred into aof sand covered most of them, but once brushed aside, it became clear that it was these bodies that for out into the desert, spaced farther and farther apart Maxi the expansion, perhaps? Each one was marked by a headstone, soend or the names of the dead They were all carved with the same shape--or to be precise, two shapes, an ankh, broken

Alexia looked out over the tendrils extending off into the sands, disappearing froht "My people"

Madame Lefoux stood up from where she had crouched down to examine yet another mummy "Preternaturals, all of them?"

"That would do it"

"Do what, exactly?" The Frenchwoue Dry desert air combined with hundreds of dead preternaturals, basically--oh, I don’t kno to put it properly--outgassing"

"That’s a lot of dead preternaturals," said her husband

"Collected from all around the world for hundreds and hundreds of years, I suppose There aren’t that inally they were all piled up and that forty years ago solanced over at Genevieve "That would take quite an operation"

Alexia added, "Two operations: one to get it started originally and another to start it up again forty years ago"

Mada between the two and her green eyes grave "It isn’t me! This is the first I’ve heard of it, I proreed Alexia, "but it is the kind of thing that round secret society, of scientists, perhaps, whothe dead and collecting the this!" Madaenuinely surprised by the idea

"It is an octopus" Alexia was having none of that kind of silliness

"No, you mistake me The Order did spawn the Hippocras Club I read the reports I knoe are capable of s I sie, to knohat the body of a dead preternatural could do and not tell any other eniuses, but to keep such information secret from the members defeats the purpose It’s ridiculous Think of the weapons I could have devised against vampires and olves had I known this No, not the Order It must be some other operation The Templars, perhaps They certainly have the infrastructure and the inclination"

Alexia frowned "Don’t you think the Teht have developed weapons, as you say, froy Or more likely, have collected the bodies in Italy to protect the houe rather than expand it"

Conall Maccon joined the fray "You knohat I think?"

Both ladies turned to look at him, surprised that he was still there Alexia’s husband had their daughter propped on his hip He was looking scruffy and hot Prudence was inordinately quiet and soht to have screamed and cried with fear, like any ordinary child, but instead she had merely looked at them, muttered, "Mama" in a very humble way, and buried her face in her father’s neck

"What do you think, oh, olf one?" asked Alexia

It was hard to make out her husband’s expression behind all that beard "I think Matakara started it all those thousands of years ago I think she started it to get rid of the olves and it got out of hand She ht even have done it at Alexander’s behest After all, when the Greeks caypt and took over, they were very antisupernatural She ht have struck up a deal A deal that left her the lone vaood a theory as any," agreed his wife

"And then what?" Madaured out what she did Souess that one "My father"

Madame Lefoux picked up the story "Of course Alessandro Tarabotti had the contacts The OBO tried to recruit him after he broke with the Tehout Europe, including ht have turned to such a cause as this Can you iine? The promise of mass supernatural exter scheme"

"How macabre" Alexia did not approve of this stain on the family name "Why does my father always have to be so difficult? He’s dead after all Couldn’t he have left it at that?"

"Well, you otten the inclination for trouble fro Very sweet" Alexia felt the repulsion building up, pressing against her skin The sun had risen and it was already doing its best to see her dry and suffering She turned to one of the Egyptians "Splash, please"

He esture down at the nearby e it" She hly

"Lady," he said, "we are running out of water"

"Oh, dear Well, I suppose that means I, at least, had better head back" She looked pointedly at her husband and the French inventor "Are you co? I don’t think there is ht occurred to her "Should we stop it?"

Lord Maccon and the inventor looked at her, not quite understanding

"End the plague, I mean to say We could try I’m not certain how My parasol’s acid worked on the h for all these Water ht work, dissolve some of the mummies It’s the dry air that keeps theue right here and now"

Madame Lefoux looked conflicted "But the loss of all the mummies The science, I don’t…" She trailed off