Unravel Me

four

c h a p t e r  f o u r

IYANA HAD GATHERED HER BELONGINGS BEFORE HEADING OUT BACK TO HER HOTEL. The first day was a massive success and despite their small fight earlier, Iyana had gotten Sersi to agree to go out with her to celebrate. Sprite had protested from Sersi's end of the phone call about how she never got to do anything fun. Iyana suggested she use her own skills to make herself appear older, sit in the corner and not touch a single drink, and she would be fine. After a few minutes more of hearing Sprite complain, she finally grumbled into the call that she would go. With a laugh, Iyana nodded the two goodbye before hanging up. As she did, she heard footsteps approaching her and realized it was Steven.

"Well you're here pretty late," Iyana stated the obvious before glancing down at the time in her phone and looking back at Steven. "It's almost 9 so you shouldn't be here. The custodial staff is almost done cleaning."

"Donna had me stay late for inventory. Got stuck with it all week since today was my third tardy." Steven softly explained the embarrassing reason behind his staying late as they walked out of the museum and down the front steps. "I, uh, could say the same for you...staying late that is."

"Oh I had some loose ends to tie. I hurt needed to make sure everything was in order to head to Cairo once the exhibition here was over." It was Iyana's turn to explain her reasoning and the two realized her reasoning wasn't as bad as Steven's. "Besides I wanted to give the museum one last walk through before going back to my hotel. It is its last exhibition before going back home to where the artifacts belong so..."

"Ah..." Steven trailed off that single word once they reached the bottom of the stairs.

The two shuffled their feet for a minute or two in silence while the both of them had wanted to continue their conversation. Steven felt that if she did, she would much rather go back to her hotel after a successful day at the museum. On the other hand, Iyana secretly wanted him to ask her if she had wanted to get a late dinner so she could forget all the work she still had to get done when she got back to the hotel and the room service food she was already tired of. She wanted him to ask her because something about seeing him that first time earlier that day and his personality, in general seeing that little peek of who he was, drew her to him out of curiosity. Granted she was always like that with humans over the course of all those thousands of years, but somehow he was different.

The quiet sounds of the bustling city at night still filled the space between them as neither of them still had said a work. At this time, Iyana glanced over at him and when he met her gaze she gestured back towards the direction her hotel was in.

"I guess I better-"

"The posters. They're wrong." Steven had suddenly blurted out the words to Iyana, interrupting her.

"Uh...what? What posters?" Iyana questioned him for clarification because she had been a bit of a guiding hand when it came to the marketing for the exhibition.

"Those ones," he had turned around and pointed at the ones at the front of the museum hanging from the roof.

Iyana followed the direction his finger had pointed in and let her eyes scan over the long posters hanging down. She was still confused as to what was wrong and when she turned to Steven he had his gaze on her as if hoping she would notice the error. Silence fell upon them again as she shifted from foot to foot trying to figure out the error. Maybe it was because she was tired from a long day and her brain wasn't really functioning, but she just couldn't see what was wrong.

"I...I just..." Iyana trailed off with her words, unsure how to let him down gently to know she couldn't see anything.

"The Ennead, there's nine right?"