Pharai
The three small wooden shabti figures felt warm against my fingers as I picked them up off the granite nightstand.
After serving as tiny, fierce constructs in the subterranean tunnels beneath Zagros, they had reverted back to their inert forms—four-inch carved wooden figurines of ancient servants, complete with miniature hoes crossing their chests and hieroglyphic incantations painted along their shins. I ran my thumb over the smoothed cedar wood before carefully lining them up inside the padded side pocket of my canvas excavation bag, zipping it shut.
Whatever waited for us beneath the Coptic Quarter of Cairo, I knew I would need every artifact, every spell, and every familiar I possessed.
"You pack like a scholar preparing for a three-month dig rather than a god marching into a divine war," a deep, metallic voice echoed from the archway.
