In the summer of 1935, Madeline Watson—a sharp-minded scholar descended from Haitian revolutionary Sanité Bélair—and Nathaniel Jacobi, a South Asian and Indigenous American archaeologist with a knack for tinkering and trouble, embark on a ten-week work-study under the androcentric Professor Ronan Strickland, traveling from New York to London and onward to Cairo.
There, alongside fellow students Rania Said, Sami Waked, and Khairy Barhom, they work to establish an anthropology program at the American University in Cairo—only to uncover secrets buried deeper than the ruins they study. When Nathaniel and Professor Strickland are abducted by Cleopatra’s Destiny, a band of rebels led by the notorious Captain Kek, Madeline and her peers set out on a perilous rescue.
Their mission collides with Layla Fakih, a fierce Egyptian nationalist whose cause blurs the line between liberation and rebellion. Amid airships, deception, and ancient secrets, Madeline and Nathaniel discover that revolutions aren’t forged in gears or gunpowder—but in courage, conviction, and the heart’s defiance.
As alliances shift and truths surface beneath the desert sun, they must confront what it truly means to be free—and learn that the greatest kind of love begins with knowing their own worth.
