Daniel glanced back towards the entrance.
“Not here.”
Jonathan followed his gaze. Pieter had stopped to speak to someone outside the low building, but they were still close enough for him to notice an object being passed around.
“I wasn’t proposing an exhibition,” Jonathan said.
He walked beside Daniel to the car, trying unsuccessfully to look at his pocket without appearing to do so. Mara opened the rear door and let Lindiwe climb in first. By the time everyone had found a seat, Jonathan had accepted that he would have to wait.
He lasted until they reached the road.
“Is it another one?”
“Yes,” Daniel said.
Jonathan turned towards Lindiwe. She had the wrapped first amulet on her lap, her good hand resting over it.
“You were right.”
She looked down at the cloth.
“About where it was.”
Jonathan seemed about to ask something else, then settled back as the car went over an uneven stretch of road. Mara watched him steady his hat and adjust the bag between his feet. He had spent most of the morning asking questions to keep Pieter occupied; being unable to ask the ones he cared about was clearly trying his patience.
“We’ll show you at the hotel,” she said.
“I am aware of the arrangement.”
She smiled and looked out of the window.
For the rest of the journey, Daniel concentrated on driving. The case rested against his side whenever he turned, a small physical reminder of the room they had closed behind them. He could still picture the carved figures facing their empty centre. In the daylight, with traffic gathering around them and Jonathan searching his bag for a bottle of water, it was harder to remember how certain everything had felt beneath the torches.
Beside him, Vale said little. Once, Daniel noticed him looking towards the rear seat, where Lindiwe had closed her eyes.
Jonathan cleared a space on the hotel desk before Daniel had taken off his jacket.
“Here.”
He moved a glass, a folded newspaper and the notes he had left that morning, then laid down a clean towel. Daniel unwrapped the case and placed it in the middle.
Jonathan leaned over it.
For a while, he appeared more interested in the metal than in what it contained. He examined the seam without touching it, moving his head to catch the light along its edge.
“You found this behind the carving?”
Daniel described the three fitted tiles while Mara drew the curtains far enough to keep the desk out of view from the windows opposite. Lindiwe sat beside the bed, grateful to let someone else explain.
When Daniel lifted the cover, Jonathan became still.
Four small stones glowed within the case.
He looked towards Lindiwe’s wrapped amulet, then back at the dark centre of the second.
“It isn’t hers.”
“No,” Mara said.
Jonathan drew up the desk chair. Whatever objections he might have raised about removing another object from the site were postponed by the precision of the thing in front of him. He studied the matching hollows inside the cover, following each curve until it met the edge.
“I’d like to know how they made this.”
Daniel sat on the arm of the chair near Mara.
“So would I.”
They told him about the recreation, the lever and the second room. Jonathan asked them to slow down when they reached the carving, and began making notes. Daniel sketched the arrangement of the figures as well as he could, leaving the centre empty.
Mara watched him draw the branching lines. On paper they looked less exact, more like an attempt to remember something than a record of what they had seen.
“There was light moving through those,” she said.
Jonathan’s pencil paused.
Daniel added a mark beside one of the paths. He could not show the movement, or the way the light had divided and returned.
Lindiwe opened her eyes.
“That wasn’t what I remembered.”
Vale had been standing near the window. He turned towards her.
“The room was,” she continued. “The people. Where they put it away. But I didn’t remember the light.”
Jonathan looked at the drawing again. He had enough questions to fill the page, yet for once he seemed to understand that asking them would not produce answers.
He set down his pencil.
“All right. Let’s leave that part for now.”
They ordered lunch rather than take either object downstairs. While they waited, Mara helped Lindiwe move the cushion behind her shoulder, and Daniel closed the second case.
Vale pulled a chair closer to the desk.
“The other two are in Istanbul.”
Jonathan looked up from his notes. They had all seen the cabinet during the shared experience, but hearing a place attached to it changed the room’s attention.
“That’s where we were?” Daniel asked.
“Yes. Our headquarters.”
Vale rested his hands on his knees. He seemed to be considering how much to say, and Daniel felt the familiar irritation rise. Then Vale continued without being prompted.
“I was trained there. The objects were already in our keeping. I grew up knowing they mattered, although nobody could tell me exactly why.”
Mara glanced at the case.
“And they’ve never done this?”
“One small stone on each, when I was near them.”
Jonathan turned his notebook to a fresh page.
“Which means neither belongs to you.”
Vale nodded.
Daniel watched him. The man had spent a lifetime around objects that responded to his presence without fully answering it. He tried to imagine living with that uncertainty for so long, being taught how to manage an ability while its purpose remained out of reach.
“We should compare them,” Jonathan said.
It was the first proposal that had come from someone other than Vale, and Daniel found that made it easier to consider.
Mara looked towards Lindiwe.
“How are you feeling?”
“Tired.”
There was no attempt to make the answer reassuring. Lindiwe had managed the journey back and the account of the chamber, but her injured shoulder was troubling her again.
“Then we’re not going anywhere this afternoon,” Mara said.
Vale agreed. He would contact Istanbul and let them know what they had found. Jonathan wanted copies of the drawings first, including a careful sketch of the case.
As they began discussing the practical arrangements, Mara became quieter. Daniel noticed, but the knock at the door interrupted before he could speak to her.
Lunch arrived on two trolleys. For a few minutes, the ancient objects gave way to the problem of fitting five people and several plates around furniture intended for two.
Jonathan moved his notebook away from the food.
“Nothing on the drawings, please.”
Mara handed him a plate.
“You’ll have to stop drawing long enough to eat.”
“I can do both.”
“That,” Daniel said, “is what concerns her.”
Lindiwe smiled as she reached for her glass.
Later, while Jonathan worked at the desk and Vale accompanied Lindiwe to her room, Daniel found Mara standing beside the window.
“You’ve gone quiet.”
She kept her eyes on the street.
“I told my manager I’d be back.”
He stood beside her. Below them, someone was arguing with a driver who appeared to have stopped in precisely the wrong place.
“I know.”
“And my mother thinks I’m helping Jonathan look at some markings.”
“You are.”
Mara gave him a look.
He smiled briefly, then let it go.
She turned back towards the window. “This was already a ridiculous thing to explain. I don’t know how I tell her I’m going somewhere else.”
Daniel had been thinking about tickets and passports, things he could arrange. He had not thought enough about the people waiting for Mara to return, or the work she could not simply leave behind.
“Do you want to go back?”
She considered it for longer than he expected.
“No.”
He waited.
“I want to see the other two. I want to know why I felt so comfortable in that room when I should have been terrified.” She glanced towards Jonathan. “But wanting to doesn’t make everything else disappear.”
Daniel rested his hand beside hers on the windowsill.
“We’ll make the calls before we book anything.”
She nodded. After a moment, her little finger touched his.
Neither moved away.
At the desk, Jonathan held his drawing at arm’s length, frowned and began correcting an edge. Mara watched him for a while.
“He’s enjoying himself.”
“He’d deny it.”
“He brought a whip, Daniel.”
Their laughter was quiet enough that Jonathan only glanced towards them.
“What?”
“Nothing,” Mara said.
He looked unconvinced, but returned to the drawing.
Daniel stayed beside her until she was ready to make the first call.