Oh dear. Ophelia was going to have a fit. He had insisted on bringing Amy to the Sudan for his summer archeological dig, claiming that the sea air of the voyage and the crisp desert air would improve her eternally frail health. Much more wholesome than those rooms in London! And besides, he had suspecions that unsuitable young gentlemen may have been coming to call on her while her father was away.

And now he, Professor Ignatius Allen, most respected explorer and archaeologist in the whole Royal Geographical Society, the man who famously located the ruins of ancient Hattay based only on a hunch and a shimmer in the sands, had lost her. Where on earth could the wretched girl have gone? She'd spent most of her days sulking in the tents or parading imperiously around the dig, sheltering under a parasol that she'd had her poor sweating maid cart around for her. As if it wasn't enough to be dealing with the annoyances of the local serpent cultists who seemed determined to disrupt the dig in any way they could...

She gradually awoke, as if from a hideous dream. The endless hours of boredom, under the stern but naive gaze of her doting father. The endless desert sands. The total lack of liquor, or unsuitable young men. The Sudan was a bust.

Where was she? One of the tombs, she guessed. But one in much better condition than the places Daddy had been so proudly showing off to her. This one looked... well, less like a tomb and more like a temple, maybe. Or possibly a house of ill-repute, from the incence! She seemed to be chained up. Peculiar, but not immediately of concern, she thought to herself. If they had meant to kill her, they would never have let her regain consciousness.

Oh. She caught sight of the idols around the temple. The priapic ones, the orgiastic ones. It was that sort of cult. She thought she might just fit right in...