The Complete Kane Chronicles

CHAPTER


4. I Consult the Pigeon of War
I WAS IN LOVE WITH A BIRDBATH.

Most guys checked their phone for texts, or obsessed over what girls were saying about them online. Me, I couldn’t stay away from the scrying bowl.

It was just a bronze saucer on a stone pedestal, sitting on the balcony outside my bedroom. But whenever I was in my room, I found myself stealing glances at it, resisting the urge to rush outside and check for a glimpse of Zia.

The weird thing was—I couldn’t even call her my girlfriend. What do you call somebody when you fall in love with her replica shabti, then rescue the real person only to find she doesn’t share your feelings? And Sadie thinks her relationships are complicated.

Over the past six months, since Zia had gone to help my uncle at the First Nome, the bowl had been our only contact. I’d spent so many hours staring into it, talking with Zia, I could hardly remember what she looked like without enchanted oil rippling across her face.

By the time I reached the balcony, I was out of breath. From the surface of the oil, Zia stared up at me. Her arms were crossed; her eyes so angry, they looked like they might ignite. (The first scrying bowl Walt had made actually did ignite, but that’s another story.)

“Carter,” she said, “I’m going to strangle you.”

She was beautiful when she threatened to kill me. Over the summer she’d let her hair grow out so that it swept over her shoulders in a glossy black wave. She wasn’t the shabti I’d first fallen for, but her face still had a sculpted beauty—delicate nose, full red lips, dazzling amber eyes. Her skin glowed like terracotta warm from the kiln.

“You heard about Dallas,” I guessed. “Zia, I’m sorry—”

“Carter, everyone has heard about Dallas. Other nomes have been sending Amos ba messengers for the past hour, demanding answers. Magicians as far away as Cuba felt ripples in the Duat. Some claimed you blew up half of Texas. Some said the entire Fifty-first Nome was destroyed. Some said—some said you were dead.”

The concern in her voice lifted my spirits a little, but it also made me feel guiltier.

“I wanted to tell you in advance,” I said. “But by the time we realized Apophis’s target was Dallas, we had to move immediately.”

I told her what had happened at the King Tut exhibit, including our mistakes and casualties.

I tried to read Zia’s expression. Even after so many months, it was hard to guess what she was thinking. Just seeing her tended to short-circuit my brain. Half the time I could barely remember how to speak in complete sentences.

Finally she muttered something in Arabic—probably a curse.

“I’m glad you survived—but the Fifty-first destroyed…?” She shook her head in disbelief. “I knew Anne Grissom. She taught me healing magic when I was young.”

I remembered the pretty blond lady who had played with the band, and the ruined fiddle at the edge of the explosion.

“They were good people,” I said.

“Some of our last allies,” Zia said. “The rebels are already blaming you for their deaths. If any more nomes desert Amos…”

She didn’t have to finish that thought. Last spring, the worst villains in the House of Life had formed a hit squad to destroy Brooklyn House. We’d defeated them. Amos had even given them amnesty when he became the new Chief Lector. But some refused to follow him. The rebels were still out there—gathering strength, turning other magicians against us. As if we needed more enemies.

“They’re blaming me?” I asked. “Did they contact you?”

“Worse. They broadcasted a message to you.”

The oil rippled. I saw a different face—Sarah Jacobi, leader of the rebels. She had milky skin, spiky black hair, and dark, permanently startled eyes lined with too much kohl. In her pure white robes she looked like a Halloween ghoul.

She stood in a room lined with marble columns. Behind her glowered half a dozen magicians—Jacobi’s elite killers. I recognized the blue robes and shaven head of Kwai, who’d been exiled from the North Korean nome for murdering a fellow magician. Next to him stood Petrovich, a scar-faced Ukrainian who’d once worked as an assassin for our old enemy Vlad Menshikov.

The others I couldn’t identify, but I doubted that any of them was as bad as Sarah Jacobi herself. Until Menshikov had released her, she’d been exiled in Antarctica for causing an Indian Ocean tsunami that killed more than a quarter of a million people.

“Carter Kane!” she shouted.

Because this was a broadcast, I knew it was just a magical recording, but her voice made me jump.

“The House of Life demands your surrender,” she said. “Your crimes are unforgivable. You must pay with your life.”

My stomach barely had time to drop before a series of violent images flashed across the oil. I saw the Rosetta Stone exploding in the British Museum—the incident that had unleashed Set and killed my father last Christmas. How had Jacobi gotten a visual of that? I saw the fight at Brooklyn House last spring, when Sadie and I had arrived in Ra’s sun boat to drive out Jacobi’s hit squad. The images she showed made it look like we were the aggressors—a bunch of hooligans with godly powers beating up on poor Jacobi and her friends.

“You released Set and his brethren,” Jacobi narrated. “You broke the most sacred rule of magic and cooperated with the gods. In doing so, you unbalanced Ma’at, causing the rise of Apophis.”

“That’s a lie!” I said. “Apophis was rising anyway!”

Then I remembered I was yelling at a video.

The scenes kept shifting. I saw a high-rise building on fire in the Shibuya district of Tokyo, headquarters of the 234th Nome. A flying demon with the head of a samurai sword crashed through a window and carried off a screaming magician.

I saw the home of the old Chief Lector, Michel Desjardins—a beautiful Paris townhouse on the rue des Pyramides—now in ruins. The roof had collapsed. The windows were broken. Ripped scrolls and soggy books littered the dead garden, and the hieroglyph for Chaos smoldered on the front door like a cattle brand.

“All this you have caused,” Jacobi said. “You have given the Chief Lector’s mantle to a servant of evil. You have corrupted young magicians by teaching the path of the gods. You’ve weakened the House of Life and left us at the mercy of Apophis. We will not stand for this. Any who follow you will be punished.”

The vision changed to Sphinx House in London, headquarters for the British nome. Sadie and I had visited there over the summer and managed to make peace with them after hours of negotiations. I saw Kwai storming through the library, smashing statues of the gods and raking books off the shelves. A dozen British magicians stood in chains before their conqueror, Sarah Jacobi, who held a gleaming black knife. The leader of the nome, a harmless old guy named Sir Leicester, was forced to his knees. Sarah Jacobi raised her knife. The blade fell, and the scene shifted.

Jacobi’s ghoulish face stared up at me from the surface of the oil. Her eyes were as dark as the sockets of a skull.

“The Kanes are a plague,” she said. “You must be destroyed. Surrender yourself and your family for execution. We will spare your other followers as long as they renounce the path of the gods. I do not seek the office of Chief Lector, but I must take it for the good of Egypt. When the Kanes are dead, we will be strong and united again. We will undo the damage you’ve caused and send the gods and Apophis back to the Duat. Justice comes swiftly, Carter Kane. This will be your only warning.”

Sarah Jacobi’s image dissolved in the oil, and I was alone again with Zia’s reflection.

“Yeah,” I said shakily. “For a mass murderer, she’s pretty convincing.”

Zia nodded. “Jacobi has already turned or defeated most of our allies in Europe and Asia. A lot of the recent attacks—against Paris, Tokyo, Madrid—those were Jacobi’s work, but she’s blaming them on Apophis—or Brooklyn House.”

“That’s ridiculous.”

“You and I know that,” she agreed. “But the magicians are scared. Jacobi is telling them that if the Kanes are destroyed, Apophis will go back to the Duat and things will return to normal. They want to believe it. She’s telling them that following you is a death sentence. After the destruction of Dallas—”

“I get it,” I snapped.

It wasn’t fair for me to get mad at Zia, but I felt so helpless. Everything we did seemed to turn out wrong. I imagined Apophis laughing in the Underworld. Maybe that’s why he hadn’t attacked the House of Life in full force yet. He was having too much fun watching us tear each other apart.

“Why didn’t Jacobi direct her message at Amos?” I asked. “He’s the Chief Lector.”

Zia glanced away as if checking on something. I couldn’t see much of her surroundings, but she didn’t seem to be in her dorm room at the First Nome, or in the Hall of Ages. “Like Jacobi said, they consider Amos a servant of evil. They won’t talk to him.”

“Because he was possessed by Set,” I guessed. “That wasn’t his fault. He’s been healed. He’s fine.”

Zia winced.

“What?” I asked. “He is fine, isn’t he?”

“Carter, it’s—it’s complicated. Look, the main problem is Jacobi. She’s taken over Menshikov’s old base in St. Petersburg. It’s almost as much of a fortress as the First Nome. We don’t know what she’s up to or how many magicians she has. We don’t know when she’ll strike or where. But she’s going to attack soon.”

Justice comes swiftly. This will be your only warning.

Something told me Jacobi wouldn’t attack Brooklyn House again, not after she’d been humiliated last time. But if she wanted to take over the House of Life and destroy the Kanes, what else could her target be?

I locked eyes with Zia, and I realized what she was thinking.

“No,” I said. “They’d never attack the First Nome. That would be suicide. It’s survived for five thousand years.”

“Carter…we’re weaker than you realize. We were never fully staffed. Now many of our best magicians have disappeared, possibly gone over to the other side. We’ve got some old men and a few scared children left, plus Amos and me.” She spread her arms in exasperation. “And half the time I’m stuck here—”

“Wait,” I said. “Where are you?”

Somewhere to Zia’s left, a man’s voice warbled, “Hell-ooooo!”

Zia sighed. “Great. He’s up from his nap.”

An old man stuck his face in the scrying bowl. He grinned, showing exactly two teeth. His bald wrinkly head made him look like a geriatric baby. “Zebras are here!”

He opened his mouth and tried to suck the oil out of the bowl, making the whole scene ripple.

“My lord, no!” Zia pulled him back. “You can’t drink the enchanted oil. We’ve talked about this. Here, have a cookie.”

“Cookies!” he squealed. “Wheee!” The old man danced off with a tasty treat in his hands.

Zia’s senile grandfather? Nope. That was Ra, god of the sun, first divine pharaoh of Egypt and archenemy of Apophis. Last spring we’d gone on a quest to find him and revive him from his twilight sleep, trusting he would rise in all his glory and fight the Chaos snake for us.

Instead, Ra woke up senile and demented. He was excellent at gumming biscuits, drooling, and singing nonsense songs. Fighting Apophis? Not so much.

“You’re babysitting again?” I asked.

Zia shrugged. “It’s after sunrise here. Horus and Isis watch him most nights on the sun boat. But during the day…well, Ra gets upset if I don’t come to visit, and none of the other gods want to watch him. Honestly, Carter…” She lowered her voice. “I’m afraid of what they’d do if I left Ra alone with them. They’re getting tired of him.”

“Wheee!” Ra said in the background.

My heart sank. Yet another thing to feel guilty about: I’d saddled Zia with nanny duty for a sun god. Stuck in the throne room of the gods every day, helping Amos run the First Nome every night, Zia barely had time to sleep, much less go on a date—even if I could get up the courage to ask her.

Of course, that wouldn’t matter if Apophis destroyed the world, or if Sarah Jacobi and her magical killers got to me. For a moment I wondered if Jacobi was right—if the world had gone sideways because of the Kane family, and if it would be better off without us.

I felt so helpless, I briefly considered calling on the power of Horus. I could’ve used some of the war god’s courage and confidence. But I suspected that joining my thoughts with Horus’s wouldn’t be a good idea. My emotions were jumbled enough without another voice in my head, egging me on.

“I know that expression,” Zia chided. “You can’t blame yourself, Carter. If it weren’t for you and Sadie, Apophis would have already destroyed the world. There’s still hope.”

Plan B, I thought. Unless we could figure out this mystery about shadows and how they could be used to fight Apophis, we’d be stuck with Plan B, which meant certain death for Sadie and me even if it worked. But I wasn’t going to tell Zia that. She didn’t need any more depressing news.

“You’re right,” I said. “We’ll figure out something.”

“I’ll be back at the First Nome tonight. Call me then, okay? We should talk about—”

Something rumbled behind her, like a stone slab grinding across the floor.

“Sobek’s here,” she whispered. “I hate that guy. Talk later.”

“Wait, Zia,” I said. “Talk about what?”

But the oil turned dark, and Zia was gone.

I needed to sleep. Instead, I paced my room.

The dorm rooms at Brooklyn House were amazing—comfortable beds, HD TVs, high-speed wireless Internet, and magically restocking mini-fridges. An army of enchanted brooms, mops, and dusters kept everything tidy. The closets were always full of clean, perfectly fitting clothes.

Still, my room felt like a cage. Maybe that’s because I had a baboon for a roommate. Khufu wasn’t here much (usually downstairs with Cleo or letting the ankle-biters groom his fur), but there was a baboon-shaped depression on his bed, a box of Cheerios on the nightstand, and a tire swing installed in the corner of the room. Sadie had done that last part as a joke, but Khufu loved it so much, I couldn’t take it down. The thing was, I’d gotten used to his being around. Now that he spent most of his time with the kindergartners, I missed him. He’d grown on me in an endearing, annoying way, kind of like my sister.

[Yeah, Sadie. You saw that one coming.]

Screensaver pictures floated across my laptop monitor. There was my dad at a dig site in Egypt, looking relaxed and in charge in his khaki fatigues, his sleeves rolled up on his dark muscular arms as he showed off the broken stone head of some pharaoh’s statue. Dad’s bald scalp and goatee made him look slightly devilish when he smiled.

Another picture showed Uncle Amos onstage at a jazz club, playing his saxophone. He wore round dark glasses, a blue porkpie hat, and a matching silk suit, impeccably tailored as always. His cornrows were braided with sapphires. I’d never actually seen Amos play onstage, but I liked this photo because he looked so energetic and happy—not like he did these days, with the weight of leadership on his shoulders. Unfortunately the photo also reminded me of Anne Grissom, the Texas magician with her fiddle, having so much fun earlier this evening just before she died.

The screensaver changed. I saw my mom bouncing me on her knee when I was a baby. I had this ridiculous ’fro back then, which Sadie always teases me about. In the photo, I’m wearing a blue Onesie stained with pureed yams. I’m holding my mom’s thumbs, looking startled as she bounces me up and down, like I’m thinking, Get me off of this ride! My mom is as beautiful as always, even in an old T-shirt and jeans, her hair tied back in a bandana. She smiles down at me like I’m the most wonderful thing in her life.

That photo hurt to look at, but I kept looking at it.

I remembered what Sadie had told me—that something was affecting the spirits of the dead, and we might not see our mom again unless we figured it out.

I took a deep breath. My dad, my uncle, my mom—all of them powerful magicians. All had sacrificed so much to restore the House of Life.

They were older, wiser, and stronger than me. They’d had decades to practice magic. Sadie and I had had nine months. Yet we needed to do something no magician had ever managed—defeat Apophis himself.

I went to my closet and took down my old traveling case. It was just a black leather carry-on bag, like a million others you might see in an airport. For years I’d lugged it around the world as I traveled with my dad. He’d trained me to live with only the possessions I could carry.

I opened the suitcase. It was empty now except for one thing: a statuette of a coiled serpent carved in red granite, engraved with hieroglyphs. The name—Apophis—was crossed out and overwritten with powerful binding spells, but still this statuette was the most dangerous object in the whole house—a representation of the enemy.

Sadie, Walt, and I had made this thing in secret (over Bast’s strong objections). We’d only trusted Walt because we needed his charm-making skills. Not even Amos would have approved such a dangerous experiment. One mistake, one miscast spell, and this statue could turn from a weapon against Apophis into a gateway allowing him free access to Brooklyn House. But we’d had to take the risk. Unless we found some other means of defeating the serpent, Sadie and I would have to use this statue for Plan B.

“Foolish idea,” said a voice from the balcony.

A pigeon was perched on the railing. There was something very un-pigeonlike about its stare. It looked fearless, almost dangerous; and I recognized that voice, which was more manly and warlike than you’d normally expect from a member of the dove family.

“Horus?” I asked.

The pigeon bobbed its head. “May I come in?”

I knew he wasn’t just asking out of courtesy. The house was heavily enchanted to keep out unwanted pests like rodents, termites, and Egyptian gods.

“I give you permission to enter,” I said formally. “Horus, in the form of a…uh…pigeon.”

“Thank you.” The pigeon hopped off the railing and waddled inside.

“Why?” I asked.

Horus ruffled his feathers. “Well, I looked for a falcon, but they’re a little scarce in New York. I wanted something with wings, so a pigeon seemed the best choice. They’ve adapted well to cities, aren’t scared of people. They’re noble birds, don’t you think?”

“Noble,” I agreed. “That’s the first word that comes to mind when I think of pigeons.”

“Indeed,” Horus said.

Apparently sarcasm didn’t exist in Ancient Egypt, because Horus never seemed to get it. He fluttered onto my bed and pecked at a few Cheerios left over from Khufu’s lunch.

“Hey,” I warned, “if you poop on my blankets—”

“Please. War gods do not poop on blankets. Well, except for that one time—”

“Forget I said anything.”

Horus hopped to the edge of my suitcase. He peered down at the statuette of Apophis. “Dangerous,” he said. “Much too dangerous, Carter.”

I hadn’t told him about Plan B, but I wasn’t surprised that he knew. Horus and I had shared minds too many times. The better I got at channeling his powers, the better we understood each other. The downside of godly magic was that I couldn’t always shut off that connection.

“It’s our emergency backup,” I said. “We’re trying to find another way.”

“By looking for that scroll,” he recalled. “The last copy of which burned up tonight in Dallas.”

I resisted the urge to spike the pigeon. “Yes. But Sadie found this shadow box. She thinks it’s some sort of clue. You wouldn’t know anything about using shadows against Apophis, would you?”

The pigeon turned its head sideways. “Not really. My understanding of magic is fairly straightforward. Hit enemies with a sword until they’re dead. If they rise again, hit them again. Repeat as necessary. It worked against Set.”

“After how many years of fighting?”

The pigeon glared at me. “What’s your point?”

I decided to avoid an argument. Horus was a war god. He loved to fight, but it had taken him years to defeat Set, the god of evil. And Set was small stuff next to Apophis—the primordial force of Chaos. Whacking Apophis with a sword wasn’t going to work.

I thought about something Bast had said earlier, in the library.

“Would Thoth know more about shadows?” I asked.

“Probably,” Horus grumbled. “Thoth isn’t good for much except studying his musty old scrolls.” He regarded the serpent figurine. “Funny…I just remembered something. Back in the old days, the Egyptians used the same word for statue and shadow, because they’re both smaller copies of an object. They were both called a sheut.”

“What are you trying to tell me?”

The pigeon ruffled its feathers. “Nothing. It just occurred to me, looking at that statue while you were talking about shadows.”

An icy feeling spread between my shoulder blades.

Shadows…statues.

Last spring Sadie and I had watched as the old Chief Lector Desjardins cast an execration spell on Apophis. Even against minor demons, execration spells were dangerous. You’re supposed to destroy a small statue of the target and, in doing so, utterly destroy the target itself, erasing it from the world. Make a mistake, and things start exploding—including the magician who cast it.

Down in the Underworld, Desjardins had used a makeshift figurine against Apophis. The Chief Lector had died casting the execration, and had only managed to push Apophis a little deeper into the Duat.

Sadie and I hoped that with a more powerful magic statue, both of us working together might be able to execrate Apophis completely, or at least throw him so deep into the Duat that he’d never return.

That was Plan B. But we knew such a powerful spell would tap so much energy, it would cost us our lives. Unless we found another way.

Statues as shadows, shadows as statues.

Plan C began forming in my mind—an idea so crazy, I didn’t want to put it into words.

“Horus,” I said carefully, “does Apophis have a shadow?”

The pigeon blinked its red eyes. “What a question! Why would you…?” He glanced down at the red statue. “Oh…Oh. That’s clever, actually. Certifiably insane, but clever. You think Setne’s version of the Book of Overcoming Apophis, the one Apophis was so anxious to destroy…you think it contained a secret spell for—”

“I don’t know,” I said. “It’s worth asking Thoth. Maybe he knows something.”

“Maybe,” Horus said grudgingly. “But I still think a frontal assault is the way to go.”

“Of course you do.”

The pigeon bobbed its head. “We are strong enough, you and I. We should combine forces, Carter. Let me share your form as I once did. We could lead the armies of gods and men and defeat the serpent. Together, we’ll rule the world.”

The idea might have been more tempting if I hadn’t been looking at a plump bird with Cheerio dust on its plumage. Letting the pigeon rule the world sounded like a bad idea.

“I’ll get back to you on that,” I said. “First, I should talk to Thoth.”

“Bah.” Horus flapped his wings. “He’s still in Memphis, at that ridiculous sports stadium of his. But if you plan on seeing him, I wouldn’t wait too long.”

“Why not?”

“That’s what I came to tell you,” Horus said. “Matters are getting complicated among the gods. Apophis is dividing us, attacking us one by one, just as he’s doing with you magicians. Thoth was the first to suffer.”

“Suffer…how?”

The pigeon puffed up. A wisp of smoke curled from its beak. “Oh, dear. My host is self-destructing. It can’t hold my spirit for much longer. Just hurry, Carter. I’m having trouble keeping the gods together, and that old man Ra isn’t helping our morale. If you and I don’t lead our armies soon, we may not have any armies left to lead.”

“But—”

The pigeon hiccupped another wisp of smoke. “Gotta go. Good luck.”

Horus flew out the window, leaving me alone with the statuette of Apophis and a few gray feathers.

I slept like a mummy. That was the good part. The bad part was that Bast let me sleep until the afternoon.

“Why didn’t you wake me up?” I demanded. “I’ve got things to do!”

Bast spread her hands. “Sadie insisted. You had a rough night last night. She said you needed your rest. Besides, I’m a cat. I respect the sanctity of sleep.”

I was still mad, but part of me knew Sadie was right. I’d expended a lot of magical energy the previous night and had gone to sleep really late. Maybe—just maybe—Sadie had my best interests at heart.

(I just caught her making faces at me, so maybe not.)

I showered and dressed. By the time the other kids got back from school, I was feeling almost human again.

Yes, I said school, as in normal old school. We’d spent last spring tutoring all the initiates at Brooklyn House, but with the start of the fall semester, Bast had decided that the kids could use a dose of regular mortal life. Now they went to a nearby academy in Brooklyn during the day and learned magic in the afternoons and on weekends.

I was the only one who stayed behind. I’d always been homeschooled. The idea of dealing with lockers, schedules, textbooks, and cafeteria food on top of running the Twenty-first Nome was just too much for me.

You’d think the other kids would have complained, especially Sadie. But, in fact, attending school was working out okay for them. The girls were happy to have more friends (and less dorky boys to flirt with, they claimed). The guys could play sports with actual teams rather than one-on-one with Khufu using Egyptian statues for hoops. As for Bast, she was happy to have a quiet house so she could stretch out on the floor and snooze in the sunlight.

At any rate, by the time the others got home, I’d done a lot of thinking about my conversations with Zia and Horus. The plan I’d formulated last night still seemed crazy, but I decided that it might be our best shot. After briefing Sadie and Bast, who (disturbingly) agreed with me, we decided it was time to tell the rest of our friends.

We gathered for dinner on the main terrace. It’s a nice place to eat, with invisible barriers that keep out the wind, and a great view of the East River and Manhattan. The food magically appeared, and it was always tasty. Still, I dreaded eating on the terrace. For nine months we’d had all our important meetings there. I’d come to associate sit-down dinners with disasters.

We filled up our plates from the buffet as our guardian albino crocodile Philip of Macedonia splashed happily in his swimming pool. Eating next to a twenty-foot-long crocodile took some getting used to, but Philip was well trained. He only ate bacon, stray waterfowl, and the occasional invading monster.

Bast sat at the head of the table with a can of Purina Fancy Feast. Sadie and I sat together at the opposite end. Khufu was off babysitting the ankle-biters, and some of our newer recruits were inside doing their homework or catching up on spell crafting, but most of our main people were present—a dozen senior initiates.

Considering how badly last night had turned out, everyone seemed in strangely good spirits. I was kind of glad they didn’t yet know about Sarah Jacobi’s video death threat. Julian kept bouncing in his chair and grinning for no particular reason. Cleo and Jaz were whispering together and giggling. Even Felix seemed to have recovered from his shock in Dallas. He was sculpting tiny shabti penguins out of his mashed potatoes and bringing them to life.

Only Walt looked glum. The big guy had nothing on his dinner plate except three carrots and a wedge of Jell-O. (Khufu insisted Jell-O had major healing properties.) Judging from the tightness around Walt’s eyes and the stiffness of his movements, I guessed his pain was even worse than last night.

I turned to Sadie. “What’s going on? Everybody seems…distracted.”

She stared at me. “I keep forgetting you don’t go to school. Carter, it’s the first dance tonight! Three other schools will be there. We can hurry up the meeting, can’t we?”

“You’re kidding,” I said. “I’m thinking about plans for Doomsday, and you’re worried about being late to a dance?”

“I’ve mentioned it to you a dozen times,” she insisted. “Besides, we need something to boost our spirits. Now, tell everyone your plan. Some of us still have to decide what to wear.”

I wanted to argue, but the others were looking at me expectantly.

I cleared my throat. “Okay. I know there’s a dance, but—”

“At seven,” Jaz said. “You are coming, right?”

She smiled at me. Was she…flirting?

(Sadie just called me dense. Hey, I had other things on my mind.)

“Uh…so anyway,” I stammered. “We need to talk about what happened in Dallas, and what happens next.”

That killed the mood. The smiles faded. My friends listened as I reviewed our mission to the Fifty-first Nome, the destruction of the Book of Overcoming Apophis, and the retrieval of the shadow box. I told them about Sarah Jacobi’s demand for my surrender, and the turmoil among the gods that Horus had mentioned.

Sadie stepped in. She explained her weird encounter with the face in the wall, two gods, and our ghost mother. She shared her gut feeling that our best chance to defeat Apophis had something to do with shadows.

Cleo raised her hand. “So…the rebel magicians have a death warrant out for you. The gods can’t help us. Apophis could arise at any time, and the last scroll that might’ve helped us to defeat him has been destroyed. But we shouldn’t worry, because we have an empty box and a vague hunch about shadows.”

“Why, Cleo,” Bast said with admiration. “You have a catty side!”

I pressed my hands against the surface of the table. It would’ve taken very little effort to summon the strength of Horus and smash it to kindling. But I doubted that would help my reputation as a calm, collected leader.

“This is more than a vague hunch,” I said. “Look, you’ve all learned about execration spells, right?”

Our crocodile, Philip, grunted. He slapped the pool with his tail and made it rain on our dinner. Magical creatures are a little sensitive about the word execration.

Julian dabbed the water off his grilled cheese sandwich. “Dude, you can’t execrate Apophis. He’s massive. Desjardins tried it and got killed.”

“I know,” I said. “With a standard execration, you destroy a statue that represents the enemy. But what if you could crank up the spell by destroying a more powerful representation—something more connected to Apophis?”

Walt sat forward, suddenly interested. “His shadow?”

Felix was so startled he dropped his spoon, crushing one of his mashed-potato penguins. “Wait, what?”

“I got the idea from Horus,” I said. “He told me statues were called shadows in ancient times.”

“But that was just, like, symbolic,” Alyssa said. “Wasn’t it?”

Bast set down her empty Fancy Feast can. She still looked nervous about the whole topic of shadows, but when I’d explained to her that it was either this or Sadie and me dying, she’d agreed to support us.

“Maybe not,” the cat goddess said. “I’m no expert on execration, mind you. Nasty business. But it’s possible that a statue used for execration was originally meant to represent the target’s shadow, which is an important part of the soul.”

“So,” Sadie said, “we could cast an execration spell on Apophis, but instead of destroying a statue, we could destroy his actual shadow. Brilliant, eh?”

“That’s nuts,” Julian said. “How do you destroy a shadow?”

Walt shooed a mashed-potato penguin away from his Jell-O. “It’s not nuts. Sympathetic magic is all about using a small copy to manipulate the actual target. It’s possible the whole tradition of making little statues to represent people and gods—maybe at one time those statues actually contained the target’s sheut. There are lots of stories about the souls of the gods inhabiting statues. If a shadow was trapped in a statue, you might be able to destroy it.”

“Could you make a statue like that?” Alyssa asked. “Something that could bind the shadow of…of Apophis himself?”

“Maybe.” Walt glanced at me. Most of the folks at the table didn’t know we’d already made a statue of Apophis that might work for that purpose. “Even if I could, we’d need to find the shadow. Then we’d need some pretty advanced magic to capture it and destroy it.”

“Find a shadow?” Felix smiled nervously, like he hoped we were joking. “Wouldn’t it be right under him? And how do you capture it? Step on it? Shine a light on it?”

“It’ll be more complicated than that,” I said. “This ancient magician Setne, the guy who wrote his own version of the Book of Overcoming Apophis, I think he must have created a spell to catch and destroy shadows. That’s why Apophis was so anxious to burn the evidence. That’s his secret weakness.”

“But the scroll is gone,” Cleo said.

“There’s still someone we can ask,” Walt said. “Thoth. If anyone knows the answers, he will.”

The tension around the table seemed to ease. At least we’d given our initiates something to hope for, even if it was a long shot. I was grateful we had Walt on our side. His charm-making ability might be our only hope of binding a shadow to the statue, and his vote of confidence carried weight with the other kids.

“We need to visit Thoth right away,” I said. “Tonight.”

“Yes,” Sadie agreed. “Right after the dance.”

I glared at her. “You aren’t serious.”

“Oh, yes, brother dear.” She smiled mischievously, and for a second I was afraid she might invoke my secret name and force me to obey. “We’re attending the dance tonight. And you’re coming with us.”
SADIE


5. A Dance with Death
CHEERS, CARTER. At least you have the sense to hand me the microphone for important things.

Honestly, he drones on and on about his plans for the Apocalypse, but he makes no plans at all for the school dance. My brother’s priorities are severely skewed.

I don’t think I was being selfish wanting to go to the dance. Of course we had serious business to deal with. That’s exactly why I insisted on partying first. Our initiates needed a morale boost. They needed a chance to be normal kids, to have friends and lives outside Brooklyn House—something worth fighting for. Even armies in the field fight better when they take breaks for entertainment. I’m sure some general somewhere has said that.

By sunset, I was ready to lead my troops into battle. I’d picked out quite a nice black strapless dress and put black lowlights in my blond hair, with just a touch of dark makeup for that risen-from-the-grave look. I wore simple flats for dancing (despite what Carter says, I do not wear combat boots all the time; just ninety percent of the time), the silver tyet amulet from my mother’s jewelry box, and the pendant Walt had given me for my last birthday with the Egyptian symbol of eternity, shen.

Walt had an identical amulet among his own collection of talismans, which provided us a magic line of communication, and even the ability to summon the other person to our side in emergencies.

Unfortunately, the shen amulets didn’t mean we were dating exclusively. Or even dating at all. If Walt had asked me, I think I would’ve been fine with it. Walt was so kind and gorgeous—perfect, really, in his own way. Perhaps if he’d asserted himself a bit more, I would’ve fallen for him and been able to let go of that other boy, the godly one.

But Walt was dying. He had this silly idea that it would be unfair to me if we started a relationship under those circumstances. As if that would stop me. So we were stuck in this maddening limbo—flirting, talking for hours, a few times even sharing a kiss when we let our guard down—but eventually Walt would always pull away and shut me out.

Why couldn’t things be simple?

I bring this up because I literally ran into Walt as I was coming down the stairs.

“Oh!” I said. Then I noticed he was still wearing his old muscle shirt, jeans, and no shoes. “You’re not ready yet?”

“I’m not going,” he announced.

My mouth fell open. “What? Why?”

“Sadie…you and Carter will need me when you visit Thoth. If I’m going to make it, I have to rest.”

“But…” I forced myself to stop. It wasn’t right for me to pressure him. I didn’t need magic to see that he really was in great pain.

Centuries of magical healing knowledge at our disposal, yet nothing we tried seemed to help Walt. I ask you: What’s the point of being a magician if you can’t wave your wand and make the people you care about feel better?

“Right,” I said. “I—I was just hoping…”

Anything I said would’ve sounded bratty. I wanted to dance with him. Gods of Egypt, I’d dressed up for him. The mortal boys at school were all right, I suppose, but they seemed quite shallow compared to Walt (or, yes, fine—compared to Anubis). As for the other boys of Brooklyn House—dancing with them would have made me feel a bit odd, like I was dancing with my cousins.

“I could stay,” I offered, but I suppose I didn’t sound very convincing.

Walt managed a faint smile. “No, go, Sadie. Really. I’m sure I’ll be feeling better when you get back. Have a good time.”

He brushed past me and climbed the steps.

I took several deep breaths. Part of me did want to stay and look after him. Going without him didn’t seem right.

Then I glanced down into the Great Room. The older kids were joking and talking, ready to leave. If I didn’t go, they might feel obliged to stay too.

Something like wet cement settled in my stomach. All the joy and excitement suddenly went out of the evening for me. For months I’d been struggling to adjust to life in New York after so many years in London. I’d been forced to balance life as a young magician with the challenges of being an ordinary schoolgirl. Now, just when this dance had seemed to offer me a chance to combine both worlds and have a lovely night out, my hopes were dashed. I’d still have to go and pretend to have fun. But I’d only be doing it out of duty, to make the others feel better.

I wondered if this was what being a grown-up felt like. Horrible.

The only thing that cheered me up was Carter. He emerged from his room dressed like a junior professor, in a coat and tie, button-down shirt, and trousers. Poor boy—of course he’d never been to a dance any more than he’d been to school. He had no clue whatsoever.

“You look…wonderful.” I tried to keep a straight face. “You do realize it’s not a funeral?”

“Shut up,” he grumbled. “Let’s get this over with.”

The school the kids and I attended was Brooklyn Academy for the Gifted. Everyone called it BAG. We had no end of jokes about this. The students were Baggies. The glamour girls with nose jobs and Botox lips were Plastic Bags. Our alumni were Old Bags. And, naturally, our headmistress, Mrs. Laird, was the Bag Lady.

Despite the name, the school was quite nice. All the students were gifted in some sort of art, music, or drama. Our schedules were flexible, with lots of independent study time, which worked perfectly for us magicians. We could pop off to battle monsters as needed; and, as magicians, it wasn’t difficult for us to pass ourselves off as gifted. Alyssa used her earth magic to make sculptures. Walt specialized in jewelry. Cleo was an amazing writer, since she could retell stories that had been forgot since the days of Ancient Egypt. As for me, I needed no magic. I was a natural at drama.

[Stop laughing, Carter.]

You might not expect this in the middle of Brooklyn, but our campus was like a park, with acres of green lawns, well-tended trees and hedges, even a small lake with ducks and swans.

The dance was held in the pavilion in front of the administration building. A band played in the gazebo. Lights were strung in the trees. Teacher chaperones walked the perimeter on “bush patrol,” making sure none of the older students sneaked off into the shrubbery.

I tried not to think about it, but the music and crowd reminded me of Dallas the night before—a very different sort of party, which had ended badly. I remembered JD Grissom clasping my hand, wishing me luck before he ran off to save his wife.

Horrible guilt welled inside me. I forced it down. It wouldn’t do the Grissoms any good for me to start crying in the middle of the dance. It certainly wouldn’t help my friends enjoy themselves.

As our group dispersed into the crowd, I turned to Carter, who was fiddling with his tie.

“Right,” I said. “You need to dance.”

Carter looked at me in horror. “What?”

I called over one of my mortal friends, a lovely girl named Lacy. She was a year younger than I, so she looked up to me greatly. (I know, it’s hard not to.) She had cute blond pigtails, a mouthful of braces, and was possibly the only person at the dance more nervous than my brother. She’d seen pictures of Carter before, however, and seemed to find him hot. I didn’t hold that against her. In most ways, she had excellent taste.

“Lacy—Carter,” I introduced them.

“You look like your pictures!” Lacy grinned. The bands of her braces were alternating pink and white to match her dress.

Carter said, “Uh—”

“He doesn’t know how to dance,” I told Lacy. “I’d be ever so grateful if you’d teach him.”

“Sure!” she squealed. She grabbed my brother’s hand and swept him away.

I started to feel better. Perhaps I could have fun tonight, after all.

Then I turned and found myself face-to-face with one of my not-so-favorite mortals—Drew Tanaka, head of the popular girl clique, with her supermodel goon squad in tow.

“Sadie!” Drew threw her arm around me. Her perfume was a mixture of roses and tear gas. “So glad you’re here, sweetie. If I’d known you were coming, you could’ve ridden in the limo with us!”

Her friends made sympathetic “Aww” sounds and grinned to show they were not at all sincere. They were dressed more or less the same, in the latest silky designer bits their parents had no doubt commissioned for them during the last Fashion Week. Drew was the tallest and most glamorous (I use the word as an insult) with awful pink eyeliner and frizzy black curls that were apparently Drew’s own personal crusade to bring back the 1980s perm. She wore a pendant—a glittering platinum and diamond D—possibly her initial, or her grade average.

I gave her a tight smile. “A limo, wow. Thanks for that. But between you, your friends, and your egos, I doubt there would’ve been extra room.”

Drew pouted. “That’s not nice, hon! Where is Walt? Is the poor baby still sick?”

Behind her, some of the girls coughed into their fists, mimicking Walt.

I wanted to pull my staff from the Duat and turn them all into worms for the ducks. I was pretty sure I could manage that, and I doubted anyone would miss them, but I kept my temper.

Lacy had warned me about Drew the first day of school. Apparently the two of them had gone to some summer camp together—blah, blah, I didn’t really listen to the details—and Drew had been just as much of a tyrant there.

That did not, however, mean she could be a tyrant with me.

“Walt’s at home,” I said. “I did tell him you’d be here. Funny, that didn’t seem to motivate him much.”

“What a shame,” Drew sighed. “You know, maybe he’s not really sick. He might just be allergic to you, hon. That does happen. I should go to his place with some chicken soup or something. Where does he live?”

She smiled sweetly. I didn’t know if she actually fancied Walt or if she just pretended because she hated me. Either way, the idea of turning her into an earthworm was becoming more appealing.

Before I could do anything rash, a familiar voice behind me said, “Hello, Sadie.”

The other girls let out a collective gasp. My pulse quickened from “slow walk” to “fifty-meter dash.” I turned and found that—yes, indeed—the god Anubis had crashed our dance.

He had the nerve to look amazing, as usual. He’s so annoying that way. He wore skinny black trousers with black leather boots, and a biker’s jacket over an Arcade Fire T-shirt. His dark hair was naturally disheveled as if he’d just woken up, and I fought the urge to run my fingers through it. His brown eyes glittered with amusement. Either he was happy to see me, or he enjoyed seeing me flustered.

“Oh…my…god,” Drew whimpered. “Who…”

Anubis ignored her (bless him for that) and held out his elbow for me—a sweet old-fashioned gesture. “May I have this dance?”

“I suppose,” I said, as noncommittally as I could.

I looped my arm through his, and we left the Plastic Bags behind us, all of them muttering, “Oh my god! Oh my god!”

No, actually, I wanted to say. He’s my amazingly hot boy god. Find your own.

The uneven paving stones made for a dangerous dance floor. All around us, kids were tripping over each other. Anubis didn’t help matters, as all the girls turned and gawked at him as he led me through the crowd.

I was glad Anubis had my arm. My emotions were so jumbled, I felt dizzy. I was ridiculously happy that he was here. I felt crushingly guilty that poor Walt was at home alone while I strolled arm in arm with Anubis. But I was relieved that Walt and Anubis weren’t both here together. That would’ve been beyond awkward. The relief made me feel guiltier, and so on. Gods of Egypt, I was a mess.

As we reached the middle of the dance floor, the band suddenly switched from a dance number to a love ballad.

“Was that your doing?” I asked Anubis.

He smiled, which wasn’t much of an answer. He put one hand on my hip and clasped my other hand, like a proper gentleman. We swayed together.

I’d heard of dancing on air, but it took me a few steps to realize we were actually levitating—a few millimeters off the ground, not enough for anyone to notice, just enough for us to glide across the stones while others stumbled.

A few meters away, Carter looked quite awkward as Lacy showed him how to slow-dance. [Really, Carter, it isn’t quantum physics.]

I gazed up at Anubis’s warm brown eyes and his exquisite lips. He’d kissed me once—for my birthday, last spring—and I’d never quite got over it. You’d think a god of death would have cold lips, but that wasn’t the case at all.

I tried to clear my head. I knew Anubis must be here for some reason, but it was awfully hard to focus.

“I thought…Um,” I gulped and barely managed not to drool on myself.

Oh, brilliant, Sadie, I thought. Let’s try for a complete sentence, now, shall we?

“I thought you could only appear in places of death,” I said.

Anubis laughed gently. “This is a place of death, Sadie. The Battle of Brooklyn Heights, 1776. Hundreds of American and British troops died right where we’re dancing.”

“How romantic,” I muttered. “So we’re dancing on their graves?”

Anubis shook his head. “Most never received proper burials. That’s why I decided to visit you here. These ghosts could use a night of entertainment, just like your initiates.”

Suddenly, spirits were twirling all around us—luminous apparitions in eighteenth-century clothes. Some wore the red uniforms of British regulars. Others had ragtag militia outfits. They pirouetted with lady ghosts in plain farm dresses or fancy silk. A few of the posh women had piles of curly hair that would have made even Drew jealous. The ghosts seemed to be dancing to a different song. I strained my ears and could faintly hear violins and a cello.

None of the regular mortals seemed to notice the spectral invasion. Even my friends from Brooklyn House were oblivious. I watched as a ghostly couple waltzed straight through Carter and Lacy. As Anubis and I danced, Brooklyn Academy seemed to fade and the ghosts became more real.

One soldier had a musket wound in his chest. A British officer had a tomahawk sticking out of his powdered wig. We danced between worlds, waltzing side by side with smiling, gruesomely slaughtered phantoms. Anubis certainly knew how to show a girl a good time.

“You’re doing it again,” I said. “Taking me out of phase, or whatever you call it.”

“A little,” he admitted. “We need privacy to talk. I promised you I’d visit in person—”

“And you did.”

“—but it’s going to cause trouble. This may be the last time I can see you. There’s been grumbling about our situation.”

I narrowed my eyes. Was the god of the dead blushing?

“Our situation,” I repeated.

“Us.”

The word set my ears buzzing. I tried to keep my voice even. “As far as I’m aware, there is no official ‘us.’ Why would this be the last time we can talk?”

He was definitely blushing now. “Please, just listen. There’s so much I need to tell you. Your brother has the right idea. The shadow of Apophis is your best hope, but only one person can teach you the magic you need. Thoth may guide you somewhat, but I doubt he’ll reveal the secret spells. It’s too dangerous.”

“Hold on, hold on.” I was still reeling from the comment about us. And the idea that this might be the last time I saw Anubis.… That sent my brain cells into panic mode, thousands of tiny Sadies running around in my skull, screaming and waving their arms.

I tried to focus. “You mean Apophis does have a shadow? It could be used to execrate—”

“Please don’t use that word.” Anubis grimaced. “But yes, all intelligent entities have souls, so all of them have shadows, even Apophis. I know this much, being the guide of the dead. I have to make souls my business. Could his shadow be used against him? In theory, yes. But there are many dangers.”

“Naturally.”

Anubis twirled me through a pair of colonial ghosts. Other students watched us, whispering as we danced, but their voices sounded distant and distorted, as if they were on the far side of a waterfall.

Anubis studied me with a sort of tender regret. “Sadie, I wouldn’t set you on this path if there was another way. I don’t want you to die.”

“I can agree with that,” I said.

“Even talking about this sort of magic is forbidden,” he warned. “But you need to know what you’re dealing with. The sheut is the least understood part of the soul. It’s…how to explain…a soul of last resort, an afterimage of the person’s life force. You’ve heard that the souls of the wicked are destroyed in the Hall of Judgment—”

“When Ammit devours their hearts,” I said.

“Yes.” Anubis lowered his voice. “We say that this completely destroys the soul. But that’s not true. The shadow lingers. Occasionally, not often, Osiris has decided to, ah, review a judgment. If someone was found guilty, but new evidence comes to light, there must be a way to retrieve a soul from oblivion.”

I tried to grasp that. My thoughts felt suspended in midair like my feet, not able to connect with anything solid. “So…you’re saying the shadow could be used to, um, reboot a soul? Like a computer’s backup drive?”

Anubis looked at me strangely.

“Ugh, I’m sorry.” I sighed. “I’ve been spending too much time with my geeky brother. He speaks like a computer.”

“No, no,” Anubis said. “It’s actually a good analogy. I’d just never thought of it that way. Yes, the soul isn’t completely destroyed until the shadow is destroyed, so in extreme cases, with the right magic, it’s possible to reboot the soul using the sheut. Conversely, if you were to destroy a god’s shadow, or even Apophis’s shadow as part of an ex—um, the sort of spell you mentioned—”

“The sheut would be infinitely more powerful than a regular statue,” I guessed. “We could destroy him, possibly without destroying ourselves.”

Anubis glanced around us nervously. “Yes, but you can see why this sort of magic is secret. The gods would never want such knowledge in the hands of a mortal magician. This is why we always hide our shadows. If a magician were able to capture a god’s sheut and use it to threaten us—”

“Right.” My mouth felt dry. “But I’m on your side. I’d only use the spell on Apophis. Surely Thoth will understand that.”

“Perhaps.” Anubis didn’t sound convinced. “Start with Thoth, at least. Hopefully he’ll see the need to assist you. I fear, though, you may still need better guidance—more dangerous guidance.”

I gulped. “You said only one person could teach us the magic. Who?”

“The only magician crazy enough to ever research such a spell. His trial is tomorrow at sunset. You’ll have to visit your father before then.”

“Wait. What?”

Wind blew through the pavilion. Anubis’s hand tightened on mine.

“We have to hurry,” he said. “There’s more I need to tell you. Something is happening with the spirits of dead. They’re being… Look, there!”

He pointed to a pair of nearby specters. The woman danced barefoot in a simple white linen dress. The man wore breeches and a frock coat like a Colonial farmer, but his neck was canted at a funny angle, as if he’d been hanged. Black mist coiled around the man’s legs like ivy. Another three waltz steps, and he was completely engulfed. The murky tendrils pulled him into the ground, and he disappeared. The woman in white kept dancing by herself, apparently unaware that her partner had been consumed by evil fingers of smog.

“What—what was that?” I asked.

“We don’t know,” Anubis said. “As Apophis grows stronger, it’s happening more frequently. Souls of the dead are disappearing, being drawn farther down into the Duat. We don’t know where they’re going.”

I almost stumbled. “My mother. Is she all right?”

Anubis gave me a pained look, and I knew the answer. Mum had warned me—we might never see her again unless we discovered a way to defeat Apophis. She’d sent me that message urging me to find the serpent’s shadow. It had to be connected to her dilemma somehow.

“She’s missing,” I guessed. My heart pounded against my ribs. “It’s got something to do with this business about shadows, hasn’t it?”

“Sadie, I wish I knew. Your father is—he’s trying his best to find her, but—”

The wind interrupted him.

Have you ever stuck your hand out of a moving car and felt the air push against you? It was a bit like that, but ten times more powerful. A wedge of force pushed Anubis and me apart. I staggered backward, my feet no longer levitating.

“Sadie…” Anubis reached out, but the wind pushed him farther away.

“Stop that!” said a squeaky voice between us. “No public displays of affection on my watch!”

The air took on human form. At first it was just a faint silhouette. Then it became more solid and colorful. Before me stood a man in an old-fashioned aviator’s outfit—leather helmet, goggles, scarf, and a bomber’s jacket, like photos I’d seen of the Royal Air Force pilots during World War II. He wasn’t flesh and blood, though. His form swirled and shifted. I realized he was put together from blown rubbish: specks of dirt, scraps of paper, bits of dandelion fuzz, dried leaves—all churning about, but held together in such a tight collage by the wind that from a distance he might have passed for a normal mortal.

He wagged his finger at Anubis. “This is the final insult, boy!” His voice hissed like air from a balloon. “You have been warned numerous times.”

“Hold on!” I said. “Who are you? And Anubis is hardly a boy. He’s five thousand years old.”

“Exactly,” the aviator snapped. “A mere child. And I didn’t give you permission to speak, girl!”

The aviator exploded. The blast was so powerful, my ears popped and I fell on my bum. Around me, the other mortals—my friends, teachers, and all the students—simply collapsed. Anubis and the ghosts seemed unaffected. The aviator formed again, glaring down at me.

I struggled to my feet and tried to summon my staff from the Duat. No such luck.

“What have you done?” I demanded.

“Sadie, it’s all right,” Anubis said. “Your friends are only unconscious. Shu just lowered the air pressure.”

“Shoe?” I demanded. “Shoe who?”

Anubis pressed his fingers to his temples. “Sadie…this is Shu, my great-grandfather.”

Then it struck me: Shu was one of those ridiculous godly names I’d heard before. I tried to place it. “Ah. The god of…flip-flops. No, wait. Leaky balloons. No—”

“Air!” Shu hissed. “God of the air!”

His body dissolved into a tornado of debris. When he formed again, he was in Ancient Egyptian costume—bare-chested with a white loincloth and a giant ostrich feather sprouting from his braided headband.

He changed back into RAF clothes.

“Stick with the pilot’s outfit,” I said. “The ostrich feather really doesn’t work for you.”

Shu made an unfriendly whooshing sound. “I’d prefer to be invisible, thank you very much. But you mortals have polluted the air so badly, it’s getting harder and harder. It’s dreadful what you’ve done, the last few millennia! Haven’t you people heard of ‘Spare the Air’ days? Carpooling? Hybrid engines? And don’t get me started on cows. Did you know that every cow belches and farts over a hundred gallons of methane a day? There are one and a half billion cows in the world. Do you have any idea what that does to my respiratory system?”

“Uh…”

From his jacket pocket, Shu produced an inhaler and puffed on it. “Shocking!”

I raised an eyebrow at Anubis, who looked mortally embarrassed (or perhaps immortally embarrassed).

“Shu,” he said. “We were just talking. If you’ll let us finish—”

“Oh, talking!” Shu bellowed, no doubt releasing his own share of methane. “While holding hands, and dancing, and other degenerate behavior. Don’t play innocent, boy. I’ve been a chaperone before, you know. I kept your grandparents apart for eons.”

Suddenly I remembered the story of Nut and Geb, the sky and earth. Ra had commanded Nut’s father, Shu, to keep the two lovers apart so they would never have children who might someday usurp Ra’s throne. That strategy hadn’t worked, but apparently Shu was still trying.

The air god waved his hand in disgust at the unconscious mortals, some of whom were just starting to groan and stir. “And now, Anubis, I find you in this den of iniquity, this morass of questionable behavior, this…this—”

“School?” I suggested.

“Yes!” Shu nodded so vigorously, his head disintegrated into a cloud of leaves. “You heard the decree of the gods, boy. You’ve become entirely too close to this mortal. You are hereby banned from further contact!”

“What?” I shouted. “That’s ridiculous! Who decreed this?”

Shu made a sound like a blown-out tire. Either he was laughing or giving me a windy raspberry. “The entire council, girl! Led by Lord Horus and Lady Isis!”

I felt as if I were dissolving into scraps of rubbish myself.

Isis and Horus? I couldn’t believe it. Stabbed in the back by my two supposed friends. Isis and I were going to have words about this.

I turned to Anubis, hoping he’d tell me it was a lie.

He raised his hands miserably. “Sadie, I was trying to tell you. Gods are not allowed to become directly…um, involved with mortals. That’s only possible when a god inhabits a human form, and…and as you know, I’ve never worked that way.”

I gritted my teeth. I wanted to argue that Anubis had quite a nice form, but he’d told me often that he could only manifest in dreams, or in places of death. Unlike other gods, he’d never taken a human host.

It was so bloody unfair. We hadn’t even dated properly. One kiss six months ago, and Anubis was grounded from seeing me forever?

“You can’t be serious.” I’m not sure who made me angrier—the fussy air god chaperone or Anubis himself. “You’re not really going to let them rule you like this?”

“He has no choice!” Shu cried. The effort made him cough so badly, his chest exploded into dandelion fluff. He took another blast from his inhaler. “Brooklyn ozone levels—deplorable! Now, off with you, Anubis. No more contact with this mortal. It is not proper. And as for you, girl, stay away from him! You have more important things to do.”

“Oh, yes?” I said. “And what about you, Mr. Trash Tornado? We’re preparing for war, and the most important thing you can do is keep people from waltzing?”

The air pressure rose suddenly. Blood roared in my head.

“See here, girl,” Shu growled. “I’ve already helped you more than you deserve. I heeded that Russian boy’s prayer. I brought him here all the way from St. Petersburg to speak with you. So, shoo!”

The wind blasted me backward. The ghosts blew away like smoke. The unconscious mortals began to stir, shielding their faces from the debris.

“Russian boy?” I shouted over the gale. “What on earth are you talking about?”

Shu disbanded into rubbish and swirled around Anubis, lifting him off his feet.

“Sadie!” Anubis tried to fight his way toward me, but the storm was too strong. “Shu, at least let me tell her about Walt! She has a right to know!”

I could barely hear him above the wind. “Did you say, Walt?” I shouted. “What about him?”

Anubis said something I couldn’t make out. Then the flurry of debris completely obscured him.

When the wind died, both gods were gone. I stood alone on the dance floor, surrounded by dozens of kids and adults who were starting to wake up.

I was about to run to Carter to make sure he was all right. [Yes, Carter, honestly I was.]

Then, at the edge of the pavilion, a young man stepped into the light.

He wore a gray military outfit with a wool coat too heavy for the warm September night. His enormous ears seemed to be the only things holding up his oversized hat. A rifle was slung across his shoulder. He couldn’t have been more than seventeen; and though he was definitely not from any of the schools at the dance, he looked vaguely familiar.

St. Petersburg, Shu had said.

Yes. I’d met this boy briefly last spring. Carter and I had been running from the Hermitage Museum. This boy had tried to stop us. He’d been disguised as a guard, but revealed himself as a magician from the Russian Nome—one of the servants of the evil Vlad Menshikov.

I grabbed my staff from the Duat—successfully this time.

The boy raised his hands in surrender.

“Nyet!” he pleaded. Then, in halting English, he said: “Sadie Kane. We…need…to talk.”
SADIE


6. Amos Plays with Action Figures
HIS NAME WAS LEONID, and we agreed not to kill each other.

We sat on the steps of the gazebo and talked while the students and teachers struggled to wake up around us.

Leonid’s English was not good. My Russian was nonexistent, but I understood enough of his story to be alarmed. He’d escaped the Russian Nome and somehow convinced Shu to whisk him here to find me. Leonid remembered me from our invasion of the Hermitage. Apparently I’d made a strong impression on the young man. No surprise. I am rather memorable.

[Oh, stop laughing, Carter.]

Using words, hand gestures, and sound effects, Leonid tried to explain what had happened in St. Petersburg since the death of Vlad Menshikov. I couldn’t follow it all, but this much I understood: Kwai, Jacobi, Apophis, First Nome, many deaths, soon, very soon.

Teachers began corralling students and calling parents. Apparently they feared the mass blackout might have been caused by bad punch or hazardous gas (Drew’s perfume, perhaps) and they’d decided to evacuate the area. I suspected we’d have police and paramedics on the scene shortly. I wanted to be gone before then.

I dragged Leonid over to meet my brother, who was stumbling around, rubbing his eyes.

“What happened?” Carter asked. He scowled at Leonid. “Who—?”

I gave him the one-minute version: Anubis’s visit, Shu’s intervention, the Russian’s appearance. “Leonid has information about an impending attack on the First Nome,” I said. “The rebels will be after him.”

Carter scratched his head. “You want to hide him at Brooklyn House?”

“No,” I said. “I’ve got to take him to Amos straightaway.”

Leonid choked. “Amos? He turn into Set—eat face?”

“Amos will not eat your face,” I assured him. “Jacobi’s been telling you stories.”

Leonid still looked uneasy. “Amos not become Set?”

How to explain without making it sound worse? I didn’t know the correct Russian for: He was possessed by Set but it wasn’t his fault, and he’s much better now.

“No Set,” I said. “Good Amos.”

Carter studied the Russian. He looked at me with concern. “Sadie, what if this is a trap? You trust this guy?”

“Oh, I can handle Leonid. He doesn’t want me to morph him into a banana slug, do you, Leonid?”

“Nyet,” Leonid said solemnly. “No banana slug.”

“There, you see?”

“What about visiting Thoth?” Carter asked. “That can’t wait.”

I saw the worry in his eyes. I imagined he was thinking the same thing I was: our mum was in trouble. The spirits of the dead were disappearing, and it had something to do with the shadow of Apophis. We had to find the connection.

“You visit Thoth,” I said. “Take Walt. And, uh, keep an eye on him, all right? Anubis wanted to tell me something about him, but there wasn’t time. And in Dallas, when I looked at Walt in the Duat…”

I couldn’t make myself finish. Just thinking about Walt wrapped in mummy linen brought tears to my eyes.

Fortunately, Carter seemed to get the general idea. “I’ll keep him safe,” he promised. “How will you get to Egypt?”

I pondered that. Leonid had apparently flown here via Shu Airways, but I doubted that fussy aviator god would be willing to help me, and I didn’t want to ask.

“We’ll risk a portal,” I said. “I know they’ve been a bit wonky, but it’s just one quick jump. What could go wrong?”

“You could materialize inside a wall,” Carter said. “Or wind up scattered through the Duat in a million pieces.”

“Why, Carter, you care! But really, we’ll be fine. And we haven’t got much choice.”

I gave him a quick hug—I know, horribly sentimental, but I wanted to show solidarity. Then, before I could change my mind, I took Leonid’s hand and raced across campus.

My head was still spinning from my talk with Anubis. How dare Isis and Horus keep us apart when we weren’t even together! And what had Anubis wanted to tell me about Walt? Perhaps he’d wanted to end our ill-fated relationship and give his blessing for me to date Walt. (Lame.) Or perhaps he wanted to declare his undying love and fight Walt for my affections. (Highly unlikely, nor would I appreciate being fought over like a basketball.) Or perhaps—most probable—he’d wanted to break some bad news.

Anubis had visited Walt on several occasions that I knew of. They’d both been rather tight-lipped about what was discussed, but since Anubis was the guide of the dead, I assumed he’d been preparing Walt for death. Anubis might have wanted to warn me that the time was nigh—as if I needed another reminder.

Anubis: off-limits. Walt: at death’s door. If I lost both of the guys I liked, well…there wasn’t much point in saving the world.

All right, that was a slight exaggeration. But only slight.

On top of that, my mum was in trouble, and Sarah Jacobi’s rebels were planning some horrible attack on my uncle’s headquarters.

Why, then, did I feel so…hopeful?

An idea started to tug at me—a tiny glimmer of possibility. It wasn’t just the prospect that we might find a way to defeat the serpent. Anubis’s words kept playing in my mind: The shadow lingers. There must be a way to retrieve a soul from oblivion.

If a shadow could be used to bring back a mortal soul that had been destroyed, could it do the same for a god?

I was so lost in thought, I barely noticed when we reached the fine arts building. Leonid stopped me.

“This for portal?” He pointed to a block of carved limestone in the courtyard.

“Yes,” I said. “Thanks.”

Long story short: when I started at BAG, I reckoned it would be good to have an Egyptian relic close by for emergencies. So I did the logical thing: I borrowed a chunk of limestone frieze from the nearby Brooklyn Museum. Honestly, the museum had enough rocks. I didn’t think they’d miss this one.

I’d left a facsimile in its place and asked Alyssa to present the actual Egyptian frieze to her art teacher as her class project—an attempt to simulate an ancient art form. The teacher had been duly impressed. He’d installed “Alyssa’s” artwork in the courtyard outside his classroom. The carving showed mourners at a funeral, which I thought appropriate for a school setting.

It wasn’t a powerful or important piece of art, but all relics of Ancient Egypt have some amount of power, like magical batteries. With the right training, a magician can use them to jump-start spells that would otherwise be impossible, such as opening portals.

I’d got rather good at this particular magic. Leonid watched my back as I began to chant.

Most magicians wait for “auspicious moments” to open gates. They spend years memorizing a timetable of important anniversaries like the time of day each god was born, the alignment of the stars, and whatnot. I suppose I should have worried about such things, but I didn’t. Given the thousands of years of Egyptian history, there were so many auspicious moments that I simply chanted until I hit one. Of course, I had to hope my portal didn’t open during an inauspicious moment. That could have caused all sorts of nasty side effects—but what’s life without taking a few risks?

(Carter is shaking his head and muttering. I have no idea why.)

The air rippled in front of us. A circular doorway appeared—a swirling vortex of golden sand—and Leonid and I jumped through.

I’d like to say my spell worked perfectly and we ended up in the First Nome. Sadly, I was a bit off the mark.

The portal spit us out roughly a hundred meters above Cairo. I found myself free-falling through the cool night air toward the city lights below.

I didn’t panic. I could have cast any number of spells to get out of this situation. I could have even assumed the form of a kite (the bird of prey, not the kind with a string), although that wasn’t my favorite way to travel. Before I could decide on a plan of action, Leonid grabbed my hand.

The direction of the wind changed. Suddenly we were gliding over the city in a controlled descent. We set down softly in the desert just outside the city limits near a cluster of ruins that I knew from experience hid an entrance to the First Nome.

I looked at Leonid in amazement. “You summoned the power of Shu!”

“Shu,” he said grimly. “Yes. Necessary. I do…forbidden.”

I smiled with delight. “You clever boy! You learned the path of the gods on your own? I knew there was a reason I didn’t turn you into a banana slug.”

Leonid’s eyes widened. “No banana slug! Please!”

“It was a compliment, silly,” I said. “Forbidden is good! Sadie likes forbidden! Now, come on. You need to meet my uncle.”

No doubt Carter would describe the underground city in excruciating detail, with exact measurements of each room, boring history on every statue and hieroglyph, and background notes on the construction of the magical headquarters of the House of Life.

I will spare you that pain.

It’s big. It’s full of magic. It’s underground.

There. Sorted.

At the bottom of the entry tunnel, we crossed a stone bridge over a chasm, where I was challenged by a ba. The glowing bird spirit (with the head of a famous Egyptian I probably should’ve known) asked me a question: What color are the eyes of Anubis?

Brown. Duh. I suppose he was trying to trick me with an easy question.

The ba let us pass into the city proper. I hadn’t visited in six months, and I was distressed to see how few magicians were about. The First Nome had never been crowded. Egyptian magic had withered over the centuries as fewer and fewer young initiates learned the arts. But now most shops in the central cavern were closed. At the market stalls, no one was haggling over the price of ankhs or scorpion venom. A bored-looking amulet salesman perked up as we approached, then slumped as we passed by.

Our footsteps echoed in the silent tunnels. We crossed one of the subterranean rivers, then wound our way through the library quarter and the Chamber of Birds.

(Carter says I should tell you why it’s called that. It’s a cave full of all sorts of birds. Again—duh. [Carter, why are you banging your head against the table?])

I brought my Russian friend down a long corridor, past a sealed tunnel that had once led up to the Great Sphinx of Giza, and finally to the bronze doors of the Hall of Ages. It was my uncle’s hall now, so I strolled right in.

Impressive place? Certainly. If you filled it with water, the hall would’ve been large enough for a pod of whales. Running down the middle, a long blue carpet glittered like the River Nile. Along either side marched rows of columns, and between them shimmered curtains of light displaying scenes from Egypt’s past—all sorts of horrible, wonderful, heart-wrenching events.

I tried to avoid looking at them. I knew from experience that those images could be dangerously absorbing. Once I’d made the mistake of touching the lights, and the experience had almost turned my brain into oatmeal.

The first section of light was gold—the Age of the Gods. Farther along, the Old Kingdom glowed silver, then the Middle Kingdom in coppery brown, and so on.

Several times as we walked, I had to pull Leonid back from scenes that caught his eye. Honestly, I wasn’t much better.

I got teary-eyed when I saw a vision of Bes entertaining the other gods by doing cartwheels in a loincloth. (I cried because I missed seeing him so full of life, I mean, though the sight of Bes in a loincloth is enough to make anyone’s eyes burn.)

We passed the bronze curtain of light for the New Kingdom. I stopped abruptly. In the shifting mirage, a thin man in priestly robes held a wand and a knife over a black bull. The man muttered as if blessing the animal. I couldn’t tell much about the scene, but I recognized the man’s face—a beaky nose, high forehead, thin lips that twisted in a wicked smile as he ran the knife along the poor animal’s throat.

“That’s him,” I muttered.

I walked toward the curtain of light.

“Nyet.” Leonid grabbed my arm. “You tell me the lights are bad, stay away.”

“You—you’re right,” I said. “But that’s Uncle Vinnie.”

I was positive it was the same face that had appeared in the wall at the Dallas Museum, but how could that be? The scene I was looking at must have happened thousands of years ago.

“Not Vinnie,” Leonid said. “Khaemwaset.”

“Sorry?” I wasn’t sure if I’d heard him correctly, or even in what language he’d spoken. “Is that a name?”

“He is…” Leonid slipped into Russian, then sighed in exasperation. “Too difficult to explain. Let us see Amos, who will not eat my face.”

I forced myself to look away from the image. “Good idea. Let’s keep going.”

At the end of the hall, the curtains of red light for the Modern Age changed to dark purple. Supposedly this marked the beginning of a new age, though none of us knew exactly what sort of era it would be. If Apophis destroyed the world, I guessed it would be the Age of Extremely Short Lives.

I’d expected to see Amos sitting at the foot of the pharaoh’s throne. That was the traditional place for the Chief Lector, symbolizing his role as the pharaoh’s main advisor. Of course, the pharaohs rarely needed advising these days, as they’d all been dead for several thousand years.

The dais was empty.

That stumped me. I’d never considered where the Chief Lector hung out when he wasn’t on display. Did he have a dressing room, possibly with his name and a little star on the door?

“There.” Leonid pointed.

Once again, my clever Russian friend was right. On the back wall, behind the throne, a faint line of light shone along the floor—the bottom edge of a door.

“A creepy secret entrance,” I said. “Well done, Leonid.”

On the other side, we found a sort of war room. Amos and a young woman in camouflage clothes stood at opposite ends of a large table inlaid with a full-color world map. The table’s surface was crowded with tiny figurines—painted ships, monsters, magicians, cars, and markers with hieroglyphs.

Amos and the camouflage girl were so engrossed in their work, moving figurines across the map, they didn’t notice us at first.

Amos wore traditional linen robes. With his barrel-shaped figure, they made him look a bit like Friar Tuck, except with darker skin and cooler hair. His braided locks were decorated with gold beads. His round glasses flashed as he studied the map. Draped around his shoulders was the leopard-skin cape of the Chief Lector.

As for the young woman…oh, gods of Egypt. It was Zia.

I’d never seen her in modern clothes before. She wore camouflage cargo pants, hiking boots, and an olive-colored tank top that flattered her coppery skin. Her black hair was longer than I remembered. She looked so much more grown-up and gorgeous than she’d been six months ago, I was glad Carter hadn’t come along. He would’ve had difficulty picking up his jaw from the floor.

[Yes, you would have, Carter. She looked quite stunning, in a Commando Girl sort of way.]

Amos moved one of the figurines across the map. “Here,” he told Zia.

“All right,” she said. “But that leaves Paris undefended.”

I cleared my throat. “Are we interrupting?”

Amos turned and broke into a grin. “Sadie!”

He crushed me in a hug, then rubbed my head affectionately.

“Ow,” I said.

He chuckled. “I’m sorry. It’s just so good to see you.” He glanced at Leonid. “And this is—”

Zia cursed. She wedged herself between Amos and Leonid. “He’s one of the Russians! Why is he here?”

“Calm down,” I told her. “He’s a friend.”

I explained about Leonid’s appearance at the dance. Leonid tried to help, but he kept slipping into Russian.

“Wait,” Amos said. “Let’s make this easier.”

He touched Leonid’s forehead. “Med-wah.”

In the air above us, the hieroglyph for Speak burned red:“There,” Amos said. “That should help.”

Leonid’s eyebrows shot up. “You speak Russian?”

Amos smiled. “Actually for the next few minutes, we’ll all be speaking Ancient Egyptian, but it will sound to each of us like our native tongue.”

“Brilliant,” I said. “Leonid, you’d best make the most of your time.”

Leonid took off his army cap and fidgeted with the brim. “Sarah Jacobi and her lieutenant, Kwai…they mean to attack you.”

“We know that,” Amos said dryly.

“No, you don’t understand!” Leonid’s voice trembled with fear. “They are evil! They are working with Apophis!”

Perhaps it was a coincidence, but when he said that name, several figurines on the world map sparked and melted. My heart felt much the same way.

“Hold on,” I said. “Leonid, how do you know this?”

His ears turned pink. “After the death of Menshikov, Jacobi and Kwai came to our nome. We gave them refuge. Soon Jacobi took over, but my comrades did not object. They, ah, hate the Kanes very much.” He looked at me guiltily. “After you broke into our headquarters last spring…well, the other Russians blame you for Menshikov’s death and the rise of Apophis. They blame you for everything.”

“Quite used to that,” I said. “You didn’t feel the same?”

He pinched his oversized cap. “I saw your power. You defeated the tjesu-heru monster. You could have destroyed me, but you didn’t. You did not seem evil.”

“Thanks for that.”

“After we met, I became curious. I began reading old scrolls, learning to channel the power of the god Shu. I have always been a good air elementalist.”

Amos grunted. “That took courage, Leonid. Exploring the path of the gods on your own in the middle of the Russian nome? You were brave.”

“I was foolhardy.” Leonid’s forehead was damp with sweat. “Jacobi has killed magicians for lesser crimes. One of my friends, an old man named Mikhail, he once made the mistake of saying all Kanes might not be bad. Jacobi arrested him for treason. She gave him to Kwai, who does magic with—with lightning…terrible things. I heard Mikhail screaming in the dungeon for three nights before he died.”

Amos and Zia exchanged grave looks. I had a feeling this wasn’t the first time they’d heard about Kwai’s torture methods.

“I’m so sorry,” Amos said. “But how can you be sure Jacobi and Kwai are working for Apophis?”

The young Russian glanced at me for reassurance.

“You can trust Amos,” I promised. “He’ll protect you.”

Leonid chewed his lip. “Yesterday I was in one of the chambers deep under the Hermitage, a place I thought was secret. I was studying a scroll to summon Shu—very forbidden magic. I heard Jacobi and Kwai approaching, so I hid. I overheard the two of them speaking, but their voices were…splintered. I don’t know how to explain.”

“They were possessed?” Zia asked.

“Worse,” Leonid said. “They were each channeling dozens of voices. It was like a war council. I heard many monsters and demons. And presiding over the meeting was one voice, deeper and more powerful than the rest. I’d never heard anything like it, as if darkness could speak.”

“Apophis,” Amos said.

Leonid had gone very pale. “Please understand, most magicians in St. Petersburg, they are not evil. They are only scared and desperate to survive. Jacobi has convinced them she will save them. She has misled them with lies. She says the Kanes are demons. But she and Kwai…they are the monsters. They are no longer human. They have set up a camp at Abu Simbel. From there, they will lead the rebels against the First Nome.”

Amos turned to his map. He traced his finger south along the River Nile to a small lake. “I sense nothing at Abu Simbel. If they are there, they’ve managed to hide themselves completely from my magic.”

“They are there,” Leonid promised.

Zia scowled. “Under our very noses, within easy striking distance. We should’ve killed the rebels at Brooklyn House when we had the chance.”

Amos shook his head. “We are servants of Ma’at—order and justice. We don’t kill our enemies for things they might do in the future.”

“And now our enemies will kill us,” Zia said.

On the table map, two more figurines sparked and melted in Spain. A miniature ship broke into pieces off the coast of Japan.

Amos grimaced. “More losses.”

He chose a cobra figurine from Korea and pushed it toward the shipwreck. He swept away the melted magicians from Spain.

“What is that map?” I asked.

Zia moved a hieroglyph token from Germany to France. “Iskandar’s war map. As I once told you, he was an expert at statuary magic.”

I remembered. The old Chief Lector had been so good, he’d made a replica of Zia herself…but I decided not to bring that up.

“Those tokens stand for actual forces,” I guessed.

“Yes,” Amos said. “The map shows us our enemy’s movements, at least most of them. It also allows us to send our forces by magic to where they are needed.”

“And, uh, how are we doing?”

His expression told me all I needed to know.

“We are spread too thin,” Amos said. “Jacobi’s followers strike wherever we are weakest. Apophis sends his demons to terrorize our allies. The attacks seem coordinated.”

“Because they are,” Leonid said. “Kwai and Jacobi are under the serpent’s control.”

I shook my head in disbelief. “How could Kwai and Jacobi be so stupid? Don’t they understand Apophis is going to destroy the world?”

“Chaos is seductive,” Amos said. “No doubt Apophis has made them promises of power. He whispers in their ears, convincing them they are too important to be destroyed. They believe they can make a new world better than the old, and the change is worth any price—even mass annihilation.”

I couldn’t grasp how anyone could be so deluded, but Amos spoke as if he understood. Of course, Amos had been through this. He’d been possessed by Set, god of evil and Chaos. Compared to Apophis, Set was a minor nuisance, but he’d still been able to turn my uncle—one of the most powerful magicians in the world—into a helpless puppet. If Carter and I hadn’t defeated Set and forced him to return to the Duat…well, the consequences wouldn’t have been pretty.

Zia picked up a falcon figurine. She moved it toward Abu Simbel, but the little statue began to steam. She was forced to drop it.

“They’ve put up powerful wards,” she said. “We won’t be able to eavesdrop.”

“They will attack in three days,” Leonid said. “At the same time, Apophis will rise—at dawn on the autumn equinox.”

“Another equinox?” I grumbled. “Didn’t that last bit of nastiness happen on one of those? You Egyptians have an unhealthy obsession with equinoxes.”

Amos gave me a stern look. “Sadie, as I’m sure you’re aware, the equinox is a time of great magic significance, when day and night are equal. Besides, the autumn equinox marks the last day before darkness overtakes the light. It is the anniversary of Ra’s retreat into the heavens. I feared that Apophis might make his move at that time. It’s a most inauspicious day.”

“Inauspicious?” I frowned. “But inauspicious is bad. Why would they…oh.”

I realized for the forces of Chaos, our bad days must’ve been their good days. That meant they probably had a lot of good days.

Amos leaned on his staff. His hair seemed to be turning gray before my eyes. I remembered Michel Desjardins, the last Chief Lector, and how quickly he had aged. I couldn’t bear the idea of that happening to Amos.

“We don’t have the strength to defeat our enemies,” he said. “I will have to use other means.”

“Amos, no,” Zia said. “Please.”

I wasn’t sure what they were talking about. Zia sounded horrified, and anything that scared her, I didn’t want to know about.

“Actually,” I said, “Carter and I have a plan.”

I told them about our idea of using Apophis’s own shadow against him. Perhaps saying this in front of Leonid was reckless, but he had risked his life to warn us about Sarah Jacobi’s plans. He had trusted me. The least I could do was return the favor.

When I finished explaining, Amos gazed at his map. “I’ve never heard of such magic. Even if it’s possible—”

“It is,” I insisted. “Why else would Apophis delay his Doomsday attack so he could track down and destroy every scroll by this fellow Setne? Apophis is afraid we’ll figure out the spell and stop him.”

Zia crossed her arms. “But you can’t. You just said all copies were destroyed.”

“We’ll ask Thoth for help,” I said. “Carter’s on his way there now. And in the meantime…I have an errand to run. I may be able to test our theory about shadows.”

“How?” Amos asked.

I told him what I had in mind.

He looked as if he wanted to object, but he must’ve seen the defiance in my eyes. We’re related, after all. He knows how stubborn Kanes can be when they set their minds to something.

“Very well,” he said. “First you must eat and rest. You can leave at dawn. Zia, I want you to go with her.”

Zia looked startled. “Me? But I might…I mean, is it wise?”

Again I got the feeling I’d missed an important conversation. What had Amos and Zia been discussing?

“You’ll be fine,” Amos assured her. “Sadie will need your help. And I will arrange for someone else to watch Ra during the day.”

She looked quite nervous, which wasn’t like her. Zia and I had had our differences in the past, but she’d never been short of confidence. Now I almost felt worried for her.

“Cheer up,” I told her. “It’ll be a laugh. Quick trip to the Netherworld, fiery lake of doom. What could go wrong?”