The valley walls were steep and treacherous in the dark. Alex wished they could take the secret path they’d discovered, but it was at least half a mile away and their pursuers were too close to risk it.

He took another step, and the heel of his boot sheared off a chunk of limestone, sending him sliding several feet down the slope on his backside.

“Careful!” hissed Ren.

Alex tried to concentrate on his footing, but he was hounded by questions. How did The Order find us? They could have been spotted in town or given away by the cabbie, he supposed. But the pincer move was precise. In a valley rimmed with slopes and ridges, how did they know exactly which one?

Distracted, he nearly missed another step. He forced his feverish mind to concentrate on the tricky descent, sliding down the steepest parts on his backside. A crescent moon was just edging into view as they reached the bottom. As Alex looked back toward it, he saw a host of vague shadows surmount the top of the ridge. Their hunters would indeed follow them here.

Luke clicked on his flashlight and pointed it straight ahead.

“Shut it off,” hissed Alex, pointing up the slope. “They’re coming.”

“How are we supposed to find a hiding place?” Ren whispered urgently. “I can’t see anything!”

Alex looked around. He wished he knew what to do, where to go. He wished Todtman was there to tell them. As soon as he thought of the old German, his words came back to him: “From now on, it is winner take all.”

If The Order got the Spells first, it was all over. And now their forces were in the valley that might hold them. This wasn’t a game of hide-and-seek — it was a race! Alex’s hand closed around the scarab. “I know a place,” he said softly.

And it was true. Even at this distance, Tut’s tomb flickered on the edge of his senses. He didn’t know if it was the Lost Spells sending such a strong signal, but he knew he needed to find out. “Follow me,” he said, and with no other options, the others did.

Alex could feel the ground giving up the day’s heat through the soles of his boots as they hurried across the valley floor, but the air had already cooled considerably. The powerful signal from his amulet led him directly across the dark valley, like a plane navigating by radar.

They paused to catch their breath at the entrance to KV 62.

“Wait, here?” said Ren, scanning the dark valley behind them for any signs of their pursuers.

“Yeah,” said Alex. “I think the Lost Spells could be in here. Something is. And remember what Todtman —”

But Ren wasn’t having it. “Yeah, something is here: bones! And probably a Death Walker.”

“He wasn’t here last time,” said Alex.

“Neither were the Spells!”

It was such a crushing comeback that Alex could only respond with open-mouthed silence.

“Ouch,” said Luke.

Alex ignored him and tried to regroup. “We didn’t have time to really look,” he said, before quickly changing tactics. “And we don’t have time to argue. If we’re caught out in the open now, we’re sunk.”

“Then we’d better find someplace else quick,” said Ren.

Luke looked at both of them and shook his head. “Let’s just go in,” he said, breaking the standoff. “We don’t have time to find someplace else to hide.”

Alex made a quick concession to seal the deal: “Any sign of the Walker — even one warm chicken bone — and we’re out of here. I promise.”

“Fine,” huffed Ren. She turned toward Luke: “But you’re being dumb.” She turned toward Alex: “And I won that debate.”

Alex didn’t deny it. He’d lost the argument but won the battle. As they filed inside, their backs tensed against the possibility of an Order bullet, he felt a strong urge to pull out his flashlight. He wanted one more look at the symbol they’d spotted the day before. The Aten: the symbol of the sun cult that had been wiped away by Tut’s royal decree. It shouldn’t have been there, and the fact was nagging at him — one more thing he was sure was trying to tell him something. But he couldn’t risk the light giving them away.

They passed the open gate and entered the dark mouth of the tomb. Alex could finally reach into his pack for his flashlight, feeling the reassuring thunk of the Book of the Dead as he did.

They washed the walls thoroughly with their flashlight beams, but the first few rooms looked the same as before. There was one difference, though. Buried beneath the desert, the tomb had been almost pleasantly cool on their first visit. Now it was hot. And the farther in they went, the hotter it got. “Uh, guys?” said Alex.

“Yeah,” confirmed Luke. “It’s like a brillion degrees in here.”

That was enough for Ren. “Any sign, you said. One chicken bone, you said.”

Alex protested: “Maybe it just heats up during the day and takes a while —”

“Alex!” said Ren. “Chicken bone!”

Alex dropped his head. She was right: He had promised. But by the time they got back to the entrance, the choice had been taken from them. Flashlights lit the valley floor outside, the closest no more than twenty yards from the gate and getting closer.

The friends could do nothing but slink back inside before they were spotted, risking an unseen evil to avoid an undeniable danger.

“Let’s hide in the treasury room,” said Alex. “In the back.”

They fled back inside, turned the last few corners, stepped over the piled bones — and the plan came apart.

The treasury would make a lousy hiding place, after all.

It was glowing.

“Let’s hide in the treasury room,” said Luke, his voice a squeaky, unkind imitation of Alex’s.

“We should not go in there,” added Ren, but Alex already had.

Ren ducked her head in after him. On the back wall of the tomb there was a thin line of yellow light. She moved closer. There was another chamber behind the wall, a lit chamber.

Ren stared at the glowing line and realized that it was slowly shrinking, getting narrower as she watched. Alex darted past her and ran his fingers along the edge of the glowing stone. “A secret room,” he said eagerly. “What if this is the hiding place of the Lost Spells?” His voice trailed off as he dug his fingers into the narrowing gap in the wall.

The wall began to slide open. As the gap widened, Ren realized it was a doorway of some sort, but there were no edges, no tracks or hinges. The glowing gap simply expanded — seamlessly, liquidly — as if the stone itself was yawning open.

A wave of heat and light hit Ren as the door opened, and she covered her face with her hands. When she lowered them, she saw neither the burned and blistered face of the Death Walker nor the glowing chamber she had expected.

“Of course,” she said, and she really should have known by now. “Of course it’s another tunnel.”