On September 23, 1919, Eve listens contentedly as Lord Carnarvon and Carter discuss maps and artifacts in the Music Room. In a flashback, she recalls sitting as a child in her father’s study to absorb his conversations with Carter. When her father stepped out, Carter would answer her questions directly, teaching her about Egypt’s ancient dynasties and the foundations of Egyptology. He also recounted Hatshepsut’s story: When archaeologists rediscovered her reign in the mid-1800s, they labeled her a deviant who usurped the throne from her stepson, Thutmose III—a view Eve and Carter both reject.

Back in the present, Eve joins the men who are holding two maps of the Valley of the Kings. She presents her own smaller map charting where Hatshepsut-related artifacts were found and proposes they dig in that area. Lord Carnarvon dismisses Hatshepsut entirely, arguing a woman whose memory was systematically erased would not have received a lavish burial and that her known tombs were likely plundered long ago. Asserting his authority as the expedition’s financier, he declares they will hunt for Tutankhamun’s tomb instead, pointing to objects bearing Tutankhamun’s cartouche found by a previous archaeologist, Theodore Davis. He also rules that Eve must remain in England because of her participation in the social season and because of Egypt’s unstable political climate. Carter formally acquiesces. After her father leaves, Eve realizes she has only ever been humored, not genuinely included.

Carter reassures Eve after her father’s departure. Eve vents her frustration, recognizing that her father only sees her as a girl whose purpose is to marry. Carter then takes her into his confidence, explaining that he sometimes advances her father’s archaeological goals through indirect means—acting without Lord Carnarvon’s knowledge but always in service of his patron’s ultimate interests. Eve promises secrecy.

To illustrate his determination, Carter describes an incident from 1916. Tipped off that tomb robbers were fighting over a site in the remote Wadi Sikkat Taqat Zayid, he raced there in the middle of the night, found a rope dangling down a sheer cliff, cut it to trap the armed robbers below, and lowered himself 250 feet on his own rope. He confronted the robbers inside and offered them the only way out: his rope. They surrendered. Over the following three weeks, he and his team cleared the tomb and discovered Hatshepsut’s earliest burial site, one designed for her as a young queen, containing an empty, elegantly carved crystalline sarcophagus. Eve is stunned; she has seen photographs of the sarcophagus but never knew how it was found.

Carter shares the story not to boast, but to demonstrate his commitment to finding Hatshepsut’s final tomb, which Eve’s map suggests is close. He assures her that while he will follow Lord Carnarvon’s orders and search for Tutankhamun, they will simultaneously hunt for Hatshepsut.

On Christmas Eve, 1919, Eve admires Highclere’s Saloon fully decorated for the first time since the war. For the first time ever, the family—Eve, her parents, and her brother, Porchey—will spend the evening together, just the four of them. Eve reflects that her shared passion for archaeology partly drew her close to her father, unlike the constant strife between him and Porchey, who despises the subject.

At dinner, her mother scolds Eve for arriving one minute late. Eve offers a placating excuse and maintains the docile manner she has cultivated, which Porchey nearly gives away with a snicker. As dessert approaches, her father feigns surprise at a present beneath the Dining Room tree and hands Eve a silver-wrapped box. Inside is a ticket to Egypt.

On January 28, 1920, Eve is aboard a ship crossing the Mediterranean toward Egypt. Her mother, Almina, complains about the ship’s poor hygiene—a sharp contrast to the fortitude she showed as a wartime nurse. Eve reflects on the journey thus far: ferry to France, train to Paris to visit her father’s half-brother, Aubrey, then onward to Marseille.

Her father speaks of Egypt’s living history and the excitement of the dig. Eve asks about Uncle Aubrey’s warnings regarding political unrest. In Paris, Aubrey had explained that Egypt—under formal British protectorate since 1914—had seen Egyptian men conscripted into a war not their own, and that when the British blocked nationalist leader Saad Zaghloul from attending the postwar Peace Conference, demonstrations erupted and Zaghloul was exiled to Malta. Her father dismisses these concerns, expressing confidence that High Commissioner Allenby—a close family friend—has matters under control. Eve confirms she has made a deal with her mother: equal time at the dig and at Cairo social events. Her father proposes his own bargain—if she holds up her end with Almina, he will deliver the most extraordinary excavation he can manage.

Arriving in Cairo on February 12, 1920, Eve is immediately captivated by the city’s warmth and street life. At the famous long bar of Shepheard’s Hotel, a large, white-haired man loudly greets her father and the two embrace. Lord Carnarvon introduces him only as Mr. Miller, an old friend who helped him acquire antiquities. Eve briefly wonders whether Miller is an illicit antiquities fence, then dismisses the idea. Miller’s presence works in her favor: His casual remark about not letting Eve see only the inside of Shepheard’s pressures her mother into agreeing to a souk visit.

Miller leads the group to the Khan el-Khalili bazaar, where Eve is enchanted by the market. In a cramped shop owned by a dealer named Mamouk, she spots what she suspects are genuine pottery shards and cartouche fragments among the tourist souvenirs. Whispering that she almost wishes they were not leaving Cairo the next day, Eve is overheard by her mother, who informs her that they are not—a reception has been arranged in her honor at the British High Commission Residency.

By February 23, 1920, Eve has endured 10 days of Cairo’s English social circuit. Now at a second event at the Residency, she retreats from the crowded dance floor and observes that the British in Cairo have recreated a self-contained English world entirely separate from Egyptian society.

She overhears a group of Englishwomen disparaging Egyptian women for practicing purdah and finds their attitudes hypocritical, given that they themselves operate within equally narrow social confines. A tall, mustachioed British officer approaches and strikes up an unexpectedly candid conversation. When Eve remarks that Cairo feels nothing like Egypt, he acknowledges the strangeness of the artificial English enclave and shares genuine skepticism about the official justifications for it. Eve pushes further, suggesting the arrangement explains why Egyptians want the British to leave. Rather than defending British interests, the officer simply agrees, adding with dry wit that the English in Cairo will not even mix with the French. Eve finds him the first person in Cairo willing to acknowledge the contradictions around her. When he asks what brings her to Egypt, she begins explaining her dream of finding a pharaoh—but the dance ends, a crowd surges toward the terrace, and the officer vanishes before she can find him again.

On February 24, 1920, Eve travels by private train from Cairo to Luxor while her mother sleeps across from her. She reflects that she has kept her side of the social bargain and trusts not her parents, but the plan she and Carter developed back in September. Arriving after dark in Luxor—ancient Thebes—she feels the city’s history, recognizing that the world she had imagined for Hatshepsut is only a fraction of the real place.

At the Winter Palace hotel, the French manager mentions that the ballroom remains under renovation after its wartime use as a hospital, so no weekly balls are being held, to Eve’s relief and her mother’s disappointment. In the Royal Bar, her father and Carter greet Eve with barely concealed excitement, for they are close to a discovery and have deliberately waited for her arrival before excavating the final layer.

The following morning, Eve rides into the Valley of the Kings by donkey and camel with her parents. Carter meets them at a pit where roughly three dozen workers have assembled. Eve is introduced to the three foremen, and her father tells her she will work alongside them overseeing the dig. Carter explains that the workers halted when they began to see the outlines of large objects below the surface, and that her father wanted her present for any discovery. Eve makes it clear she does not want “to be spoon-fed an excavation” (83). Carter assures her he intends to involve her at every step, acknowledging that her knowledge rivals that of most museum curators. Ready to work, Eve kneels to sift the sandy soil.

By March 4, after more than a week of painstaking clearing, Eve is ready to lift the first of what appears to be about a dozen buried vases. Her father and mother both drift to the edge of the pit and block her light; each is asked to move and complies. As Eve brushes the vase’s surface, a cartouche emerges. Carter makes a charcoal rubbing and confirms the vessel appears to be made of aragonite, a durable mineral with a pearl-like appearance. Eve lifts it out whole and intact—15 inches high, with handles carved in the shape of ibex heads.

Her father asks whose cartouche it bears. Carter announces it belongs to Pharaoh Merneptah, buried in the nearby tomb KV8, which Carter himself excavated in 1903. Lord Carnarvon is visibly deflated, since Merneptah’s tomb was found empty and plundered. Carter argues that a cache of a dozen such vases remains significant. Eve declares it her first find and proposes a celebration; her father agrees and invites Carter to join them at the Winter Palace.

After ferrying back across the Nile, the group is approaching the Winter Palace when a man rushes at them, nearly knocking over the limping Lord Carnarvon. Carter restrains him until Lord Carnarvon identifies the man as an acquaintance named Mr. Peacock, who apologizes and delivers urgent news: Zaghloul’s supporters have launched a new uprising in Cairo that threatens to spread to Luxor. He has already found a ship leaving Port Said the next morning with four tickets remaining.

Carter and Lord Carnarvon immediately agree that Eve and Almina must leave on the overnight train. Lord Carnarvon is staying behind, planning to use his personal acquaintance with both King Fuad and Zaghloul to help informally broker negotiations. Almina pleads with him not to take risks. Eve protests that she has barely had time at the dig and fears she will not be allowed to return. Her father acknowledges her distress but remains firm, promising she will come back.

The narrative shifts to 1483 BCE in Thebes, told in the first person by Hatshepsut. She walks in her father Pharaoh Thutmose I’s funeral procession, still struggling to accept his death. Mourners wail alongside the procession, but the royals themselves are not permitted to weep. The procession crosses the Nile from the east bank—symbolizing life—to the west bank, symbolizing death. At the far bank, the sarcophagus is handed to the head priest of Amun for burial in a secret mountain chamber.

After her mother says farewell, Hatshepsut has a private moment with the sarcophagus. She is interrupted by Thutmose II, her father’s sickly son by his second wife, Mutnofret who has been designated successor. At the funeral feast, Queen Ahmes seats Thutmose II beside her, visibly displacing Mutnofret. In her toast, Ahmes calls the new pharaoh an eyas, an untrained, unfledged falcon, and announces she will serve as regent until he is ready. She concludes by revealing Thutmose I’s final wish: that Thutmose II should marry his daughter, Hatshepsut.

Two years later, in 1481 BCE, Hatshepsut is in the throes of a painful labor in an open-air birthing pavilion. She reflects that Thutmose II struggled even to consummate their marriage. As her mother, handmaidens, priests, and attendants invoke the gods around her, Hatshepsut reflects on how she and her mother have secretly guided Thutmose II’s rule for the past two years, providing him with daily instructions to protect her father’s legacy and the Thutmoside dynasty.

In the extremity of labor, Hatshepsut briefly loses awareness, seemingly crossing toward death before a baby’s cry pulls her back. She forcefully overrides protocol to hold the child immediately. When her mother reveals the baby is a girl, there are murmurs of sympathy, but Hatshepsut silences them, insisting on celebration. She names her daughter Neferure in honor of the god Re.

In 1480 BCE, a general addresses the throne room about a rebellion in Kush, a region Thutmose I conquered for its gold, ivory, and ebony. Though technically speaking to Thutmose II, the general orients himself toward Hatshepsut, whose real authority is well understood. Thutmose II is bored and inattentive; Hatshepsut prompts him with questions to keep proceedings moving. When the general finishes, Thutmose II commits a serious error by asking for his recommendation, for a pharaoh is expected to consult only himself and the gods. Hatshepsut intervenes immediately, announcing the options Thutmose II will consider with the gods. Then, Thutmose II then orders the rebels executed rather than enslaved, a punishment harsher than Hatshepsut anticipated, but she accepts it as a necessary show of strength, particularly for her daughter Neferure’s future security. When the general hesitates, Hatshepsut silences him by invoking the authority of both pharaoh and gods, and he submits.

In 1480 BCE, Djau, the head of the royal artistic studio, presents a large painted limestone stela to Hatshepsut for approval, scheduled while Thutmose II is away hunting. The stela contains an unconventional element: It depicts Hatshepsut standing beside Thutmose II at the same height, departing from the tradition of hierarchical scale in which a figure’s size signals their importance.

As Hatshepsut and her mother study the stela, a man’s voice from the back of the chamber offers to supply artistic precedent for the unusual composition. Hatshepsut grants him permission to approach. He introduces himself as Senenmut, an official from Armant who came on a separate matter but overheard the discussion. He explains that in his travels he has cataloged stelae from other temples showing queens depicted at the same scale as pharaohs. Hatshepsut orders Djau to visit these examples with Senenmut before installing the stela, noting that while she needs no one’s approval, documented precedent strengthens her position against future objections. Impressed by Senenmut’s composure and initiative, she instructs him to return to Thebes with his belongings, telling him the gods have need of him at court.

In 1479 BCE, Hatshepsut joins the inaugural voyage of her new royal barge on the Nile, built to carry oversized monuments for Thutmose II’s memorial complex. She insisted on joining despite her advisers’ objections. Below deck, she finds her daughter, Neferure, in the middle of a lesson with Senenmut, who now serves as both Hatshepsut’s high steward and Neferure’s primary tutor. She considers him far more of a father to Neferure than Thutmose II has ever been and regards him as indispensable. Neferure excitedly demonstrates her latest lesson, the hieroglyphic symbols for north and south, and Hatshepsut praises them both. The quiet moment is broken when a sailor boards the barge and kneels before Hatshepsut, delivering the news that Thutmose II has died.