The Complete Kane Chronicles

CHAPTER


8. My Sister, the Flowerpot
THE RIDE BACK WASN’T FUN.

Walt and I held on to the boat while our teeth chattered and our eyes jiggled. The magic fog had turned the color of blood. Ghostly voices whispered angrily, like they’d decided to riot and loot the ethereal world.

Sooner than I expected, Freak pushed his way out of the Duat. We found ourselves over the New Jersey dockyards, our boat trailing steam as Freak bobbed wearily through the air. In the distance, the Manhattan skyline gleamed gold in the sunrise.

Walt and I hadn’t spoken during the trip. The Duat tends to put a damper on conversation. Now he regarded me sheepishly.

“I should explain some things,” he said.

I can’t pretend I wasn’t curious. As his sickness had progressed, Walt had gotten more and more secretive. I wondered what he’d been talking about with Thoth.

But it wasn’t my business. After Sadie learned my secret name last spring and got a free tour of my innermost thoughts, I’d become sensitive about respecting people’s privacy.

“Look, Walt, it’s your personal life,” I said. “If you don’t want to tell—”

“But it’s not just personal. You need to know what’s going on. I—I won’t be around much longer.”

I gazed down at the harbor, the Statue of Liberty passing below us. For months I’d known Walt was dying. It never got easier to accept. I remembered what Apophis had said at the Dallas Museum: Walt wouldn’t live long enough to see the end of the world.

“Are you sure?” I asked. “Isn’t there some way—?”

“Anubis is sure,” he said. “I’ve got until sunset tomorrow, at the very latest.”

I didn’t want to hear another impossible deadline. By sunset tonight, we had to save the ghost of an evil magician. By sunset tomorrow, Walt would die. And the sunrise after that, if we were really lucky, we could look forward to Doomsday.

I never liked being thwarted. Whenever I felt like something was impossible, I usually tried even harder out of sheer stubbornness.

But at this point, I felt like Apophis was having a good laugh at my expense.

Oh, you’re not a quitter? he seemed to be asking. How about now? What if we give you a few more impossible tasks? Are you a quitter now?

Anger made a small hard knot in my gut. I kicked the side of the boat and nearly broke my foot.

Walt blinked. “Carter, it’s—”

“Don’t say it’s all right!” I snapped. “It’s not all right.”

I wasn’t mad at him. I was mad at the unfairness of his stupid curse, and the fact that I kept failing people who depended on me. My parents had died to give Sadie and me a chance to save the world, which we were close to botching. In Dallas, dozens of good magicians had died because they’d tried to help me. Now we were about to lose Walt.

Sure, he was important to Sadie. But I relied on him just as much. Walt was my unofficial lieutenant at Brooklyn House. The other kids listened to him. He was a calming presence in every crisis, the deciding vote in every debate. I could trust him with any secret—and even with making the execration statue of Apophis, which I couldn’t tell my uncle about. If Walt died…

“I won’t let it happen,” I said. “I refuse.”

Wild thoughts ran through my mind: Maybe Anubis was lying to Walt about his imminent death, trying to push Walt away from Sadie. (Okay, unlikely. Sadie wasn’t that much of a prize.)

[Yeah, Sadie, I really said that. Just checking to see if you were still paying attention.]

Maybe Walt could beat the odds. People survived cancer miraculously. Why not ancient curses? Maybe we could put him in suspended animation like Iskandar had done for Zia, until we found an antidote. Sure, his family had been searching for a cure unsuccessfully for centuries. Jaz, our best healer, had tried everything with no luck. But maybe we’d overlooked something.

“Carter,” Walt said. “Will you let me finish? We’ve got to make plans.”

“How can you be so calm?” I demanded.

Walt fingered his shen necklace, the twin of the one he’d given Sadie. “I’ve known about my curse for years. I won’t let it stop me from doing what I need to. One way or another, I’m going to help you beat Apophis.”

“How?” I said. “You just told me—”

“Anubis has an idea,” Walt said. “He’s been helping me make sense of my powers.”

“You mean…” I glanced at Walt’s hands. Several times I’d seen him turn objects to ashes simply by touching them, the way he’d done to that criosphinx in Dallas. The power didn’t come from any of his magic items. None of us understood it, and as Walt’s disease progressed, he seemed less and less able to control it, which made me think twice about giving the guy a high five.

Walt flexed his fingers. “Anubis thinks he understands why I have that ability. And there’s more. He thinks there might be a way to extend my life.”

That was such good news that I let out a shaky laugh. “Why didn’t you say so? He can cure you?”

“No,” Walt said. “Not a cure. And it’s risky. It’s never been done before.”

“That’s what you were talking to Thoth about.”

Walt nodded. “Even if Anubis’s plan works, there could be…side effects. You might not like it.” He lowered his voice. “Sadie might not like it.”

Unfortunately, I had a vivid imagination. I envisioned Walt turning into some sort of undead creature—a withered mummy, a ghostly ba, or a disfigured demon. In Egyptian magic, side effects could be pretty extreme.

I tried not to let my emotions show. “We want you to live. Don’t worry about Sadie.”

I could tell from Walt’s eyes that he worried about Sadie a lot. Seriously, what did he see in my sister?

[Stop hitting me, Sadie. I’m just being honest.]

Walt flexed his fingers. Maybe it was my imagination, but I thought I detected wisps of gray steam curling from his hands, as if just talking about his strange power had made it turn active.

“I won’t make the decision yet,” Walt said. “Not until I’m on my last breath. I want to talk to Sadie first, explain to her…”

He rested his hand on the side of the boat. That was a mistake. The woven reeds turned gray under his touch.

“Walt, stop!” I yelped.

He jerked his hand away, but it was too late. The boat crumbled to ashes.

We lunged for the ropes. Thankfully they did not crumble—maybe because Walt was paying more attention now. Freak squawked as the boat disappeared, and suddenly Walt and I were dangling under the griffin’s belly, holding on to the ropes for dear life and bonking into each other as we flew above the skyscrapers of Manhattan.

“Walt!” I yelled over the wind. “You really need to get a handle on that power!”

“Sorry!” he shouted back.

My arms were aching, but somehow we made it to Brooklyn House without plummeting to our deaths. Freak set us down on the roof, where Bast was waiting, her mouth agape.

“Why are you swinging from ropes?” she demanded.

“Because it’s so fun,” I growled. “What’s the news?”

Behind the chimneys, a frail voice warbled: “Ha-lllooooo!”

The ancient sun god Ra popped out. He gave us a toothless grin and hobbled around the roof, muttering, “Weasels, weasels. Cookie, cookie, cookie!” He reached into the folds of his loincloth and tossed cookie crumbs in the air like confetti—and yes, it was just as disgusting as it sounds.

Bast tensed her arms, and her knives shot into her hands. Probably just an involuntary reflex; but she looked tempted to use those blades on someone—anyone. She reluctantly slipped the blades back into her sleeves.

“The news?” she said. “I’m on babysitting duty, thanks to your Uncle Amos, who asked me for a favor. And Sadie’s shabti is waiting for you downstairs. Shall we?”

Explaining Sadie and her shabti would take a whole separate recording.

My sister had no talent for crafting magical statues. That didn’t stop her from trying. She’d gotten this harebrained idea that she could create the perfect shabti to be her avatar, speak with her voice, and do all her chores like a remote-controlled robot. All her previous attempts had exploded or gone haywire, terrorizing Khufu and the initiates. Last week she’d created a magical Thermos with googly eyes that levitated around the room, yelling, “Exterminate! Exterminate!” until it smacked me in the head.

Sadie’s latest shabti was Sadie Junior—a gardener’s nightmare.

Not being much of an artist, Sadie had fashioned a vaguely human figure out of red ceramic flowerpots, held together by magic, string, and duct tape. The face was an upside-down pot with a smiley face drawn in black marker.

“About time.” The pot creature was waiting in my room when Walt and I came in. Its mouth didn’t move, but Sadie’s voice echoed from inside the face pot as if she were trapped within the shabti. That thought made me happy.

“Stop smiling!” she ordered. “I can see you, Carter. Oh…and, uh, hullo, Walt.”

The pot monster made squeaky grinding noises as it stood up straight. One clunky arm rose and tried to fix Sadie’s nonexistent hair. Leave it to Sadie to be self-conscious around boys, even when she’s made out of pots and duct tape.

We traded stories. Sadie told us about the impending attack on the First Nome that was supposed to go down at sunrise on the equinox, and the alliance between Sarah Jacobi’s forces and Apophis. Wonderful news. Just great.

In return, I told Sadie about our visit with Thoth. I shared the visions Apophis had shown me about our mother’s precarious situation in the Duat (which made the pot monster shudder) and the end of the world (which didn’t seem to surprise her at all). I didn’t tell Sadie about Apophis’s offer to spare me if I gave up Ra. I didn’t feel comfortable announcing that with Ra just outside the door, singing songs about cookies. But I told her about the evil ghost Setne, whose trial would start at sunset in the Hall of Judgment.

“Uncle Vinnie,” Sadie said.

“Pardon?” I asked.

“The face that spoke to me at the Dallas Museum,” she said. “It was obviously Setne himself. He warned me that we would need his help to understand the shadow execration spell. He said we’d have to ‘pull some strings’ and free him before sunset tonight. He meant the trial. We’ll have to convince Dad to free him.”

“I did mention that Thoth said he’s a murderous psychopath, right?”

The pot monster made a clucking sound. “Carter, it’ll be fine. Befriending psychopaths is one of our specialties.”

She turned her flowerpot head toward Walt. “You’ll be coming along, I hope?”

Her tone had a hint of reproach, like she was still upset that Walt hadn’t attended the school dance/mass blackout party.

“I’ll be there,” he promised. “I’m fine.”

He shot me a warning look, but I wasn’t going to contradict him. Whatever he and Anubis were plotting, I could wait for him to explain it to Sadie. Jumping in the middle of the whole Sadie-Walt-Anubis drama sounded about as much fun as diving into a food processor.

“Right,” Sadie said. “We’ll meet you two at the Hall of Judgment before sunset tonight. That should give us time to finish up.”

“Finish up?” I asked. “And who is us?”

It’s hard to read expressions on a smiley-face pot, but Sadie’s hesitation told me enough. “You aren’t in the First Nome anymore,” I guessed. “What are you doing?”

“A small errand,” Sadie said. “I’m off to see Bes.”

I frowned. Sadie went to see Bes in his nursing home almost every week, which was fine and all, but why now? “Uh, you do understand we’re in a hurry.”

“It’s necessary,” she insisted. “I’ve got an idea that might help us with our shadow project. Don’t fret. Zia’s with me.”

“Zia?” It was my turn to feel self-conscious. If I were a flowerpot, I would’ve checked my hair. “That’s why Bast is watching Ra today? Why exactly are you and Zia—?”

“Stop worrying,” Sadie chided. “I’ll take good care of her. And no, Carter, she hasn’t been talking about you. I have no idea how she feels about you.”

“What?” I wanted to punch Sadie Junior in her ceramic face. “I didn’t say anything like that!”

“Now, now,” she chided. “I don’t think Zia cares what you wear. It’s not a date. Just please brush your teeth for once.”

“I’m going to kill you,” I said.

“Love you too, brother, dear. Ta!”

The pottery creature crumbled into pieces, leaving a mound of shards and a red clay face smiling up at me.

Walt and I joined Bast outside my room. We leaned on the rail overlooking the Great Room while Ra skipped back and forth on the balcony, singing nursery songs in Ancient Egyptian.

Down below, our initiates were getting ready for the school day. Julian had a breakfast sausage sticking out of his mouth as he rummaged through his backpack. Felix and Sean were arguing over who stole whose math textbook. Little Shelby was chasing the other ankle-biters with a fistful of crayons that shot rainbow-colored sparks.

I’d never had a big family, but living at Brooklyn House, I felt like I had a dozen brothers and sisters. Despite the craziness, I enjoyed it…which made my next decision even harder.

I told Bast about our plan to visit the Hall of Judgment.

“I don’t like it,” she said.

Walt managed a laugh. “Is there a plan you’d like better?”

She tilted her head. “Now that you mention it, no. I don’t like plans. I’m a cat. Still, if half the things I’ve heard about Setne are true—”

“I know,” I said. “But it’s our only shot.”

She wrinkled her nose. “You don’t want me to come along? You’re sure? Maybe I could get Nut or Shu to watch Ra—”

“No,” I said. “Amos is going to need help at the First Nome. He doesn’t have the numbers to fend off an attack from both the rebel magicians and Apophis.”

Bast nodded. “I can’t enter the First Nome, but I can patrol outside. If Apophis shows himself, I will engage him in battle.”

“He’ll be at full strength,” Walt warned. “He’s getting stronger by the hour.”

She lifted her chin defiantly. “I’ve fought him before, Walt Stone. I know him better than anyone. Besides, I owe it to Carter’s family. And to Lord Ra.”

“Kitty!” Ra appeared behind us, patted Bast on the head, and skipped away. “Meow, meow, meow!”

Watching him prance around, I wanted to scream and throw things. We’d risked everything to revive the old sun god, hoping we’d get a divine pharaoh who could stand toe-to-toe with Apophis. Instead we got a wrinkly, bald troll in a loincloth.

Give me Ra, Apophis had urged. I know you hate him.

I tried to put it out of my mind, but I couldn’t quite shake that image of an island in the Sea of Chaos—a personal paradise where the people I loved would be safe. I knew it was a lie. Apophis would never deliver on that promise. But I could understand how Sarah Jacobi and Kwai might be tempted.

Besides, Apophis knew how to strike a nerve. I did resent Ra for being so weak. Horus agreed with me.

We don’t need the old fool. The war god’s voice spoke inside my head. I’m not saying you should give him to Apophis, but he is useless. We should put him aside and take the throne of the gods for ourselves.

He made it sound so tempting—such an obvious solution.

But, no. If Apophis wanted me to give up Ra, then Ra must be valuable in some way. The sun god still had a role to play. I just had to figure out what it was.

“Carter?” Bast frowned. “I know you’re worried about me, but your parents saved me from the abyss for a reason. Your mother foresaw that I would make a difference in the final battle. I will fight Apophis to the death if necessary. He won’t get past me.”

I wavered. Bast had already helped us so much. She had almost been destroyed fighting the crocodile god Sobek. She’d enlisted her friend Bes to help us, and then seen him reduced to an empty shell. She’d helped us restore her old master, Ra, to the world, and now she was stuck babysitting him. I didn’t want to ask her to face Apophis again, but she was right. She knew the enemy better than anyone—except maybe Ra, when he was in his right mind.

“All right,” I said. “But Amos will need more help than you can give, Bast. He’ll need magicians.”

Walt frowned. “Who? After the disaster in Dallas, we don’t have many friends left. We could contact S?o Paulo and Vancouver—they’re still with us—but they won’t be able to spare many people. They’ll be worried about protecting their own nomes.”

I shook my head. “Amos needs magicians who know the path of the gods. He needs us. All of us.”

Walt digested that silently. “You mean, abandon Brooklyn House.”

Below us, the ankle-biters shrieked with joy as Shelby tried to tag them with her sparking crayons. Khufu sat on the fireplace mantel eating Cheerios, watching ten-year-old Tucker bounce a basketball off the statue of Thoth. Jaz was putting a bandage on Alyssa’s forehead. (Probably she’d been attacked by Sadie’s rogue Thermos, which was still on the loose.) In the middle of all this, Cleo was sitting on the sofa, engrossed in a book.

Brooklyn House was the first real home some of them had ever known. We’d promised to keep them safe and teach them to use their powers. Now I was about to send them unprepared into the most dangerous battle of all time.

“Carter,” Bast said, “they’re not ready.”

“They have to be,” I said. “If the First Nome falls, it’s all over. Apophis will attack us in Egypt, at the source of our power. We have to stand together with the Chief Lector.”

“One last battle.” Walt gazed sadly at the Great Room, maybe wondering whether or not he’d die before that battle happened. “Should we break the news to others?”

“Not yet,” I said. “The rebel magicians’ attack on the First Nome won’t happen until tomorrow. Let the kids have one last day at school. Bast, when they come home this afternoon, I want you to lead them to Egypt. Use Freak, use whatever magic you have to. If all goes well in the Underworld, Sadie and I will join you before the attack.”

“If all goes well,” Bast said dryly. “Yes, that happens a lot.”

She glanced over at the sun god, who was trying to eat the doorknob to Sadie’s room. “What about Ra?” she asked. “If Apophis is going to attack in two days…”

“Ra has to keep making his nightly journey,” I said. “That’s part of Ma’at. We can’t mess with it. But on the morning of the equinox, he’ll need to be in Egypt. He’ll have to face Apophis.”

“Like that?” Bast gestured toward the old god. “In his loincloth?”

“I know,” I admitted. “It sounds crazy. But Apophis still thinks Ra is a threat. Maybe facing Apophis in battle will remind Ra who he is. He might rise to the challenge and become…what he used to be.”

Walt and Bast didn’t answer. I could tell from their expressions that they didn’t buy it. Neither did I. Ra was gumming Sadie’s doorknob with intent to kill, but I didn’t think he’d be much good against the Lord of Chaos.

Still, it felt good to have a plan of action. That was much better than standing around, dwelling on the hopelessness of our situation.

“Use today to organize,” I told Bast. “Gather up the most valuable scrolls, amulets, weapons—anything we can use to help the First Nome. Let Amos know you’re coming. Walt and I will head to the Underworld and meet Sadie. We’ll rendezvous with you in Cairo.”

Bast pursed her lips. “All right, Carter. But be careful of Setne. However bad you think he is? He’s ten times worse.”

“Hey, we defeated the god of evil,” I reminded her.

Bast shook her head. “Set is a god. He doesn’t change. Even with a god of Chaos, you can pretty much predict how he’ll act. Setne, on the other hand…he has both power and human unpredictability. Don’t trust him. Swear to me.”

“That’s easy,” I said. “I promise.”

Walt folded his arms. “So how are we going to get to the Underworld? Portals are unreliable. We’re leaving Freak here, and the boat is destroyed—”

“I have another boat in mind,” I said, trying to believe it was a good idea. “I’m going to summon an old friend.”
SADIE


9. Zia Breaks Up a Lava Fight
I’D BECOME QUITE AN EXPERT at visiting the godly nursing home—which was a sad statement on my life.

The first time Carter and I found our way there, we had traveled the River of Night, plunged down a fiery waterfall, and almost died in a lake of lava. Since then, I’d discovered I could simply call on Isis to transport me, as she could open doorways to many locations in the Duat. Honestly, though, dealing with Isis was almost as annoying as swimming through fire.

After my shabti conversation with Carter, I joined Zia on a limestone cliff overlooking the Nile. It was already midday in Egypt. Getting over portal-lag had taken me longer than I’d expected. After changing into more sensible clothes, I’d had a quick lunch and one more strategy talk with Amos deep in the Hall of Ages. Then Zia and I had climbed back to the surface. Now we stood at a ruined shrine to Isis on the river just south of Cairo. It was a good place to summon the goddess, but we didn’t have much time.

Zia still wore her combat outfit—camouflage cargo pants and an olive tank top. Her staff was slung over her back, and her wand hung at her belt. She rummaged through her pack, checking her supplies one last time.

“What did Carter say?” she asked.

[That’s right, brother dear. I stepped out of earshot before I contacted you, so Zia didn’t hear any of those teasing comments. Honestly, I’m not that mean.]

I told her what we’d discussed, but I couldn’t bring myself to share how my mum’s spirit was in danger. I’d known about the problem in general terms since I’d spoken with Anubis, of course, but the knowledge that our mother’s ghost was huddled under a cliff somewhere in the Duat, resisting the pull of the serpent’s shadow—well, that bit of information had lodged in my chest like a bullet. If I tried to touch it, I feared it would go straight to my heart and kill me.

I explained about my villainous ghost friend Uncle Vinnie, and how we intended to solicit his help.

Zia looked appalled. “Setne? As in the Setne? Does Carter realize—?”

“Yep.”

“And Thoth suggested this?”

“Yep.”

“And you’re actually going along with it?”

“Yep.”

She gazed down the Nile. Perhaps she was thinking of her home village, which had stood on the banks of this river until it was destroyed by the forces of Apophis. Perhaps she was imagining her entire homeland crumbling into the Sea of Chaos.

I expected her to tell me that our plan was insane. I thought she might abandon me and go back to the First Nome.

But I suppose she had got used to the Kane family—poor girl. She must’ve known by now that all our plans were insane.

“Fine,” she said. “How do we reach this…nursing home of the gods?”

“Just a mo’.” I closed my eyes and concentrated.

Yoo-hoo, Isis? I thought. Anyone home?

Sadie, the goddess answered immediately.

In my mind she appeared as a regal woman with dark braided hair. Her dress was gossamer white. Her prismatic wings shimmered like sunlight rippling through clear water.

I wanted to smack her.

Well, well, I said. If it isn’t my good friend who decides whom I can and can’t date.

She had the nerve to look surprised. Are you speaking of Anubis?

Right, first try! I should’ve left it at that since I needed Isis’s help. But seeing her floating there all shiny and queenly made me angrier than ever. Where do you get the nerve, eh? Going behind my back, lobbying to keep Anubis away from me. How is that your business?

Surprisingly, Isis kept her temper. Sadie, there are things you don’t understand. There are rules.

Rules? I demanded. The world is about to end, and you’re worried about which boys are socially acceptable for me?

Isis steepled her fingers. The two issues are more connected than you realize. The traditions of Ma’at must be followed, or Chaos wins. Immortals and mortals can only interact in specific, limited ways. Besides, you cannot afford to be distracted. I’m doing you a favor.

A favor! I said. If you want to do me a real favor, we need passage to the Fourth House of the Night—the House of Rest, Sunny Acres, or whatever you want to call it. After that, you can butt out of my private life!

Perhaps that was rude of me, but Isis had stepped over the line. Besides, why should I act proper with a goddess who had previously rented space in my head? Isis should have known me better!

The goddess sighed. Sadie, proximity to the gods is dangerous. It must be regulated with utmost care. You know this. Your uncle is still tainted from his experience with Set. Even your friend Zia is struggling.

What do you mean? I asked.

If you join with me, you’ll understand, Isis promised. Your mind will be clear. It’s past time we united again and combined our strength.

There it was: the sales pitch. Every time I called on Isis, she tried to persuade me to meld with her as we’d done before—mortal and god inhabiting one body, acting with a single will. Each time, I said no.

So, I ventured, proximity to the gods is dangerous, but you’re anxious to join forces with me again. I’m glad you’re looking out for my safety.

Isis narrowed her eyes. Our situation is different, Sadie. You need my strength.

Certainly it was tempting. Having the full power of a goddess at my command was quite a rush. As the Eye of Isis, I would feel confident, unstoppable, completely without fear. One could get addicted to such power—and that was the problem.

Isis could be a good friend, but her agenda wasn’t always best for the mortal world—or for Sadie Kane.

She was driven by her loyalty to her son Horus. She’d do anything to see him on the throne of the gods. She was ambitious, vengeful, power-hungry, and envious of anyone who might have more magic than she did.

She claimed my mind would be clearer if I let her in. What she really meant was that I’d start seeing things her way. It would be harder to separate my thoughts from hers. I might even come to believe she was right by keeping Anubis and me apart. (Horrifying idea.)

Unfortunately, Isis had a point about joining forces. Sooner or later we’d have to. There was no other way I’d have the power to challenge Apophis.

But now wasn’t the time. I wanted to remain Sadie Kane as long as possible—just my own wonderful self without any godly hitchhiker.

Soon, I told Isis. I have things to do first. I need to be sure my decisions are my own. Now, about that doorway to the House of Rest…

Isis was quite good at looking hurt and disapproving at the same time, which must have made her an impossible mother. I almost felt sorry for Horus.

Sadie Kane, she said, you are my favorite mortal, my chosen magician. And still you do not trust me.

I didn’t bother to contradict her. Isis knew how I felt.

The goddess spread her arms in resignation. Very well. But the path of the gods is the only answer. For all the Kanes, and for that one. She nodded in Zia’s direction. You will need to advise her, Sadie. She must learn the path quickly.

What do you mean? I asked again. I really wished she would stop talking in riddles. Gods are so annoying that way.

Zia was a much more experienced magician than I was. I didn’t know how I could advise her. Besides, Zia was a fire elementalist. She tolerated us Kanes, but she had never shown the slightest interest in the path of the gods.

Good luck, Isis said. I will await your call.

The image of the goddess rippled and vanished. When I opened my eyes, a square of darkness the size of a doorway hovered in the air.

“Sadie?” Zia asked. “You were silent for so long, I was getting worried.”

“No need.” I tried for a smile. “Isis just likes to talk. Next stop, the Fourth House of the Night.”

I’ll be honest. I never quite understood the difference between the swirling sand portals that magicians can summon with artifacts and the doors of darkness that gods are able to conjure. Perhaps the gods use a more advanced wireless network. Perhaps they simply have better aim.

Whatever the reason, Isis’s portal worked much more reliably than the one I’d created to get to Cairo. It deposited us right in the lobby of Sunny Acres.

As soon as we stepped through, Zia scanned our surroundings and frowned. “Where is everyone?”

Good question. We’d arrived at the correct godly nursing home—the same potted plants, the same massive lobby with windows looking out on the Lake of Fire, the same rows of limestone columns plastered with tacky posters of smiling seniors and mottos like: These Are Your Golden Centuries!

But the nurses’ station was unattended. IV poles were clustered in one corner like they were having a conference. The sofas were empty. The coffee tables were littered with half-played games of checkers and senet. Ugh, I hate senet.

I stared at an empty wheelchair, wondering where its occupant had gone, when suddenly the chair burst into flames, collapsing in a pile of charred leather and half-melted steel.

I stumbled backward. Behind me, Zia held a ball of white-hot fire in her hand. Her eyes were as wild as a cornered animal’s.

“Are you mad?” I yelled. “What are you—?”

She lobbed her second fireball at the nurses’ station. A vase full of daisies exploded in a shower of flaming petals and pottery shards.

“Zia!”

She didn’t seem to hear me. She summoned another fireball and took aim at the sofas.

I should have run for cover. I wasn’t prepared to die saving badly upholstered furniture. Instead, I lunged at her and grabbed her wrist. “Zia, stop it!”

She glared at me with flames in her eyes—and I mean that quite literally. Her irises had become disks of orange fire.

This was terrifying, of course, but I stood my ground. Over the past year I’d got rather used to surprises—what with my cat being a goddess, my brother turning into a falcon, and Felix producing penguins in the fireplace several times a week.

“Zia,” I said firmly. “We can’t burn down the nursing home. What’s got into you?”

A look of confusion passed over her face. She stopped struggling. Her eyes returned to normal.

She stared at the melted wheelchair, then the smoldering remains of the bouquet on the carpet. “Did I—?”

“Decide those daisies needed to die?” I finished. “Yes, you did.”

She extinguished her fireball, which was lucky, as it was starting to bake my face. “I’m sorry,” she muttered. “I—I thought I had it under control.…”

“Under control?” I let go of her hand. “You mean to say you’ve been throwing a lot of random fireballs lately?”

She still looked bewildered, her gaze drifting around the lobby. “N-no…maybe. I’ve been having blackouts. I come to, and I don’t remember what I’ve done.”

“Like just now?”

She nodded. “Amos said…at first he thought it might be a side effect of my time in that tomb.”

Ah, the tomb. For months, Zia had been trapped in a watery sarcophagus while her shabti ran about impersonating her. The Chief Lector Iskandar had thought this would protect the real Zia—from Set? From Apophis? We still weren’t sure. At any rate, it didn’t strike me as the most brilliant idea for a supposedly wise two-thousand-year-old magician to have come up with. During her slumbers, Zia had endured horrible nightmares about her village burning and Apophis destroying the world. I suppose that might lead to some nasty post-traumatic stress.

“You said Amos thought that at first,” I noted. “There’s more to the story, then?”

Zia gazed at the melted wheelchair. The light from outside turned her hair the color of rusted iron.

“He was here,” she murmured. “He was here for eons, trapped.”

I took a moment to process that. “You mean Ra.”

“He was miserable and alone,” she said. “He had been forced to abdicate his throne. He left the mortal world and lost the will to live.”

I stamped out a smoldering daisy on the carpet. “I don’t know, Zia. He looked quite happy when we woke him up, singing and grinning and so on.”

“No.” Zia walked toward the windows, as if drawn by the lovely view of brimstone. “His mind is still sleeping. I’ve spent time with him, Sadie. I’ve watched his expressions while he naps. I’ve heard him whimpering and mumbling. That old body is a cage, a prison. The true Ra is trapped inside.”

She was starting to worry me now. Fireballs I could deal with. Incoherent rambling—not so much.

“I suppose it makes sense you’d have sympathy with Ra,” I ventured. “You’re a fire elementalist. He’s a fiery sort of god. You were trapped in that tomb. Ra was trapped in a nursing home. Perhaps that’s what caused your blackout just now. This place reminded you of your own imprisonment.”

That’s right—Sadie Kane, junior psychologist. And why not? I’d spent enough time diagnosing my crazed mates Liz and Emma back in London.

Zia stared out at the burning lake. I had the feeling that my attempt at therapy might not have been so therapeutic.

“Amos tried to help me,” she said. “He knows what I’m going through. He cast a spell on me to focus my mind, but…” She shook her head. “It’s been getting worse. This is the first day in weeks that I haven’t taken care of Ra, and the more time I spend with him, the fuzzier my thoughts get. When I summon fire now, I have trouble controlling it. Even simple spells I’ve done for years—I channel too much power. If that happens during a blackout…”

I understood why she sounded frightened. Magicians have to be careful with spells. If we channel too much power, we might inadvertently exhaust our reserves. Then the spell would tap directly into the magician’s life force—with unpleasant consequences.

You will need to advise her, Isis had told me. She must learn the path quickly.

An uncomfortable thought began to form. I remembered Ra’s delight when he had first met Zia, the way he’d tried to give her his last remaining scarab beetle. He’d babbled on and on about zebras…possibly meaning Zia. And now Zia was starting to empathize with the old god, even trying to burn down the nursing home where he’d been trapped for so long.

That couldn’t be good. But how could I advise her when I had no idea what was happening?

Isis’s warnings rattled around in my head: The path of the gods was the answer for all the Kanes. Zia was struggling. Amos was still tainted by his time with Set.

“Zia…” I hesitated. “You said Amos knows what you’re going through. Is that why he asked Bast to watch Ra today? To give you time away from the sun god?”

“I—I suppose.”

I tried to steady my breathing. Then I asked the harder question: “In the war room, Amos said he might have to use other means to fight his enemies. He hasn’t…um, he hasn’t been having trouble with Set?”

Zia wouldn’t meet my eyes. “Sadie, I promised him—”

“Oh, gods of Egypt! He’s calling on Set? Trying to channel his power, after all Set did to him? Please, no.”

She didn’t answer, which was an answer in itself.

“He’ll be overwhelmed!” I cried. “If the rebel magicians find out that the Chief Lector is meddling with the god of evil, just as they suspected—”

“Set isn’t just the god of evil,” Zia reminded me. “He is Ra’s lieutenant. He defended the sun god against Apophis.”

“You think that makes it all better?” I shook my head in disbelief. “And now Amos thinks you’re having trouble with Ra? Does he think Ra is trying to…” I pointed to Zia’s head.

“Sadie, please…” Her voice trailed off in misery.

I suppose it wasn’t fair for me to press her. She seemed even more confused than I was.

Still, I hated the idea of Zia being disoriented so close to our final battle—blacking out, throwing random fireballs, losing control of her own power. Even worse was the possibility that Amos had some sort of link with Set—that he might actually have chosen to let that horrible god back into his head.

The thought tied my gut into tyets—Isis knots.

I imagined my old enemy Michel Desjardins scowling. Ne voyez-vous pas, Sadie Kane? This is what comes from the path of the gods. This is why the magic was forbidden.

I kicked the melted remains of the wheelchair. One bent wheel squeaked and wobbled.

“We’ll have to table that conversation,” I decided. “We’re running out of time. Now…where have all the old folks gone?”

Zia pointed out the window. “There,” she said calmly. “They’re having a beach day.”

We made our way down to the black sand beach by the Lake of Fire. It wouldn’t have been my top vacation spot, but elderly gods were lounging on deck chairs under brightly colored umbrellas. Others snored on beach towels or sat in their wheelchairs and stared at the boiling vista.

One shriveled bird-headed goddess in a one-piece bathing suit was building a sand pyramid. Two old men—I assumed they were fire gods—stood waist-deep in the blazing surf, laughing and splashing lava in each other’s faces.

Tawaret the caretaker beamed when she saw us.

“Sadie!” she called. “You’re early this week! And you’ve brought a friend.”

Normally, I wouldn’t have stood still as an upright grinning female hippo charged toward me for a hug, but I’d got used to Tawaret.

She’d traded her high heels for flip-flops. Otherwise she was dressed in her usual white nurse’s uniform. Her mascara and lipstick were tastefully done, for a hippo, and her luxuriant black hair was pinned under a nurse’s cap. Her ill-fitting blouse opened over an enormous belly—possibly a sign of permanent pregnancy, as she was the goddess of childbirth, or possibly a sign of eating too many cupcakes. I’d never been entirely sure.

She embraced me without crushing me, which I greatly appreciated. Her lilac perfume reminded me of my Gran, and the tinge of sulfur on her clothes reminded me of Gramps.

“Tawaret,” I said, “this is Zia Rashid.”

Tawaret’s smile faded. “Oh…Oh, I see.”

I’d never seen the hippo goddess so uneasy. Did she somehow know that Zia had melted her wheelchair and torched her daisies?

As the silence got awkward, Tawaret recovered her smile. “Sorry, yes. Hello, Zia. It’s just that you look…well, never mind! Are you a friend of Bes’s too?”

“Uh, not really,” Zia admitted. “I mean, I suppose, but—”

“We’re here on a mission,” I said. “Things in the upper world have gone a bit wonky.”

I told Tawaret about the rebel magicians, Apophis’s plans for attack, and our mad scheme to find the serpent’s shadow and stomp it to death.

Tawaret mashed her hippoish hands together. “Oh, dear. Doomsday tomorrow? Bingo night was supposed to be Friday. My poor darlings will be so disappointed.…”

She glanced down the beach at her senile charges, some of whom were drooling in their sleep or eating black sand or trying to talk to the lava.

Tawaret sighed. “I suppose it would be kinder not to tell them. They’ve been here for eons, forgotten by the mortal world. Now they have to perish along with everyone else. They don’t deserve such a fate.”

I wanted to remind her that no one deserved such a fate—not my friends, not my family, and certainly not a brilliant young woman named Sadie Kane, who had her whole life ahead of her. But Tawaret was so kindhearted, I didn’t want to sound selfish. She didn’t seem concerned for herself at all, just the fading gods she cared for.

“We’re not giving up yet,” I promised.

“But this plan of yours!” Tawaret shuddered, causing a tsunami of jiggling hippo flesh. “It’s impossible!”

“Like reviving the sun god?” I asked.

She conceded that with a shrug. “Very well, dear. I’ll admit you’ve done the impossible before. Nevertheless…” She glanced at Zia, as if my friend’s presence still made her nervous. “Well, I’m sure you know what you’re doing. How can I help?”

“May we see Bes?” I asked.

“Of course…but I’m afraid he hasn’t changed.”

She led us down the beach. The past few months I’d visited Bes at least once a week, so I knew many of the elderly gods by sight. I spotted Heket the frog goddess perched atop a beach umbrella as if it were a lily pad. Her tongue shot out to catch something from the air. Did they have flies in the Duat?

Farther on, I saw the goose god Gengen-Wer, whose name—I kid you not—meant the Great Honker. The first time Tawaret told me that, I almost spewed tea. His Supreme Honkiness was waddling along the beach, squawking at the other gods and startling them out of their sleep.

Yet every time I visited, the crowd changed. Some gods disappeared. Others popped up—gods of cities that no longer existed; gods who had only been worshipped for a few centuries before being replaced by others; gods so old, they’d forgot their own names. Most civilizations left behind pottery shards or monuments or literature. Egypt was so old, it had left behind a landfill’s worth of deities.

Halfway down the beach, we passed the two old codgers who’d been playing in the lava. Now they were wrestling waist-deep in the lake. One pummeled the other with an ankh and warbled, “It’s my pudding! My pudding!”

“Oh dear,” Tawaret said. “Fire-embracer and Hot Foot are at it again.”

I choked back a laugh. “Hot Foot? What sort of godly name is that?”

Tawaret studied the fiery surf, as if looking for a way to navigate through it without getting incinerated. “They’re gods from the Hall of Judgment, dear. Poor things. There used to be forty-two of them, each in charge of judging a different crime. Even in the old days, we could never keep them all straight. Now…” She shrugged. “They’re quite forgotten, sadly. Fire-embracer, the one with the ankh—he used to be the god of robberies. I’m afraid it made him paranoid. He always thinks Hot Foot has stolen his pudding. I’ll have to break up the fight.”

“Let me,” Zia said.

Tawaret stiffened. “You, my…dear?”

I got the feeling she was going to say something other than dear.

“The fire won’t bother me,” Zia assured her. “You two go ahead.”

I wasn’t sure how Zia could be so confident. Perhaps she simply preferred swimming in flames to seeing Bes in his present state. If so, I couldn’t blame her. The experience was unsettling.

Whatever the case, Zia strode toward the surf and waded straight in like a flame-retardant Baywatch lifeguard.

Tawaret and I continued along the beach. We reached the dock where Ra’s sun boat had anchored the first time Carter and I had visited this place.

Bes sat at the end of the pier in a comfy leather chair, which Tawaret must have brought down especially for him. He wore a fresh red-and-blue Hawaiian shirt and khaki shorts. His face was thinner than it had been last spring, but otherwise he looked unchanged—the same scraggly nest of black hair, the same bristly mane that passed for a beard, the same lovably grotesque face that reminded me of a pug dog’s.

But Bes’s soul was gone. He stared vacantly at the lake, not reacting at all when I knelt next to him and gripped his furry hand.

I remembered the first time he’d saved my life—picking me up in a limo full of rubbish, driving me to Waterloo Bridge, then scaring away two gods who had been chasing me. He had jumped out of the car wearing nothing but a Speedo and screamed, “Boo!”

Yes, he’d been a true friend.

“Dear Bes,” I said, “we’re going to try to help you.”

I told him everything that had happened since my last visit. I knew he couldn’t hear me. Since his secret name had been stolen, his mind simply wasn’t there. But talking to him made me feel better.

Tawaret sniffled. I knew she had loved Bes forever, though Bes hadn’t always returned her feelings. He couldn’t have had a better caretaker.

“Oh, Sadie…” The hippo goddess wiped away a tear. “If you truly could help him, I—I’d do anything. But how is it possible?”

“Shadows,” I said. “This bloke Setne…he found a way to use shadows for an execration spell. If the sheut is a backup copy of the soul, and if Setne’s magic could be used in reverse…”

Tawaret’s eyes widened. “You believe you could use Bes’s shadow to bring him back?”

“Yes.” I knew it sounded mad, but I had to believe. Saying it aloud to Tawaret, who cared about Bes even more than I did…well, I simply couldn’t let her down. Besides, if we could do this for Bes, then who knew? Perhaps we could use the same magic to get the sun god Ra back in fighting shape. First things first, however. I intended to keep my promise to the dwarf god.

“Here’s the tricky bit,” I said. “I’m hoping you can help me locate Bes’s shadow. I don’t know much about gods and their sheuts and whatnot. I understand that you often hide them?”

Tawaret shifted nervously, her feet creaking on the pier boards. “Um, yes…”

“I’m hoping they’re a bit like secret names,” I forged on. “Since I can’t ask Bes where he keeps his shadow, I thought I’d ask the person who was closest to him. I thought you’d have the best chance of knowing.”

Seeing a hippo blush is quite odd. It almost made Tawaret look delicate—in a massive sort of way.

“I—I saw his shadow once,” she admitted. “During one of our best moments together. We were sitting on the temple wall in Sa?s.”

“Sorry?”

“A city in the Nile Delta,” Tawaret explained. “The home of a friend of ours—the hunting goddess Neith. She liked to invite Bes and me on her hunting excursions. We would, ah, flush her prey for her.”

I imagined Tawaret and Bes, two gods with super-ugly powers, plowing through the marshes hand in hand, yelling “Boo!” to scare up bevies of quail. I decided to keep that image to myself.

“At any rate,” Tawaret continued, “one night after dinner, Bes and I were sitting alone on the walls of Neith’s temple, watching the moon rise over the Nile.”

She gazed at the dwarf god with such adoring eyes, I couldn’t help but imagine myself on that temple wall, sharing a romantic evening with Anubis…no, Walt…no… Gah! My life was horrid.

I sighed unhappily. “Go on, please.”

“We talked about nothing in particular,” Tawaret remembered. “We held hands. That was all. But I felt so close to him. Just for a moment, I looked at the mud-brick wall next to us, and I saw Bes’s shadow in the torchlight. Normally gods don’t keep their shadows so close. He must’ve trusted me a great deal to reveal it. I asked him about it, and he laughed. He said, ‘This is a good place for my shadow. I think I’ll leave it here. That way it can always be happy, even when I’m not.’”

The story was so sweet and sad, I could hardly bear it.

Down the shore, the old god Fire-embracer shrieked something about pudding. Zia was standing in the surf, trying to keep the two gods apart as they splashed her with lava from both sides. Amazingly, it didn’t seem to bother her.

I turned to Tawaret. “That night in Sa?s—how long ago was it?”

“A few thousand years.”

My heart sank. “Any chance the shadow would still be there?”

She shrugged helplessly. “Sa?s was destroyed centuries ago. The temple is gone. Farmers pulled down the ancient buildings and used the mud bricks for fertilizer. Most of the land has reverted to marshes.”

Blast. I’d never been a fan of Egyptian ruins. From time to time, I’d been tempted to pull down a few temples myself. But just this once, I wished the ruins had survived. I wanted to cuff those farmers.

“Then there’s no hope?” I asked.

“Oh, there’s always hope,” Tawaret said. “You could search the area, calling on Bes’s shadow. You’re his friend. It might appear to you if it’s still there. And if Neith is still in the area, she might be able to help. That is, if she doesn’t hunt you instead…”

I decided not to dwell on that possibility. I had enough problems. “We’ll have to try. If we can find the shadow and puzzle out the proper spell—”

“But, Sadie,” the goddess said, “you have so little time. You have to stop Apophis! How can you help Bes, too?”

I looked at the dwarf god. Then I bent down and kissed his bumpy forehead. “I made a promise,” I said. “Besides, we’ll need him if we’re going to win.”

Did I really believe that? I knew Bes couldn’t scare Apophis away simply by yelling “Boo!” no matter how ghastly he looked in his Speedo. In the sort of battle we were facing, I wasn’t sure one more god would even make a difference. And I was even less sure that this reverse shadow idea could work on Ra. But I had to try with Bes. If the world ended the day after tomorrow, I would not go to my death without first knowing I’d done everything I could to save my friend.

Of all the goddesses I’d met, Tawaret was the most likely to understand my motives.

She put her hands protectively on Bes’s shoulders. “In that case, Sadie Kane, I wish you luck—for Bes, and for all of us.”

I left her on the dock, standing behind Bes as if the two gods were enjoying a romantic sunset together.

On the beach, I rejoined Zia, who was brushing ashes out of her hair. Except for a few burn holes in her trousers, she looked perfectly fine.

She gestured at Fire-embracer and Hot Foot, who were once again playing nice in the lava. “They’re not so bad,” Zia said. “They just needed some attention.”

“Like pets,” I said. “Or my brother.”

Zia actually smiled. “Did you find the information you need?”

“I think so,” I said. “But first, we need to get to the Hall of Judgment. It’s almost time for Setne’s trial.”

“How do we get there?” Zia asked. “Another doorway?”

I stared across the Lake of Fire, pondering that problem. I remembered the Hall of Judgment being on an island somewhere on this lake, but Duat geography is a bit dodgy. For all I knew, the hall was on a totally different level of the Duat, or the lake was six billion miles wide. I didn’t fancy the idea of walking around the shore through unknown territory, or taking a swim. And I certainly didn’t feel like arguing with Isis again.

Then I saw something across the fiery waves—the silhouette of a familiar steamboat approaching, twin smokestacks trailing luminous gold smoke and a paddle wheel churning through the lava.

My brother—bless his heart—was absolutely mad.

“Problem solved,” I told Zia. “Carter will give us a ride.”
SADIE


10. “Take Your Daughter to Work Day” Goes Horribly Wrong
AS THEY APPROACHED THE DOCK, Carter and Walt waved at us from the bow of the Egyptian Queen. Next to them stood the captain, Bloodstained Blade, who looked quite dashing in his riverboat pilot’s uniform, except for the fact that his head was a blood-speckled double-sided ax.

“That’s a demon,” Zia said nervously.

“Yes,” I agreed.

“Is it safe?”

I raised an eyebrow at her.

“Of course not,” she muttered. “I’m traveling with the Kanes.”

The crew of glowing orbs zipped around the boat, pulling lines and lowering the gangplank.

Carter looked tired. He wore jeans and a rumpled shirt with specks of barbecue sauce on it. His hair was wet and flat on one side as if he’d fallen asleep in the shower.

Walt looked much better—well, really, there was no contest. He wore his usual sleeveless shirt and workout pants, and managed a smile for me even though his posture made it obvious he was in pain. The shen charm on my necklace seemed to heat up, or perhaps that was just my body temperature rising.

Zia and I climbed the gangplank. Bloodstained Blade bowed, which was quite unnerving, as his head could’ve sliced a watermelon in half.

“Welcome aboard, Lady Kane.” His voice was a metallic hum from the edge of his frontal blade. “I am at your service.”

“Thanks ever so,” I said. “Carter, may I speak with you?”

I grabbed his ear and pulled him toward the deckhouse.

“Ow!” he complained as I dragged him along. I suppose doing that in front of Zia wasn’t nice, but I thought I might as well give her pointers on how best to handle my brother.

Walt and Zia followed us into the main dining room. As usual, the mahogany table was laden with platters of fresh food. The chandelier illuminated colorful wall murals of Egyptian gods, the gilded columns, and the ornately molded ceiling.

I let go of Carter’s ear and snarled, “Have you lost your mind?”

“Ow!” he yelled again. “What is your problem?”

“My problem,” I said, lowering my voice, “is that you summoned this boat again and its demon captain, who Bast warned would slit our throats if he ever got the opportunity!”

“He’s under a magic binding,” Carter argued. “He was fine last time.”

“Last time Bast was with us,” I reminded him. “And if you think I trust a demon named Bloodstained Blade farther than I can—”

“Guys,” Walt interrupted.

Bloodstained Blade entered the dining room, dipping his ax head under the doorframe. “Lord and Lady Kane, the journey is short from here. We will arrive at the Hall of Judgment in approximately twenty minutes.”

“Thanks, BSB,” Carter said as he rubbed his ear. “We’ll join you on deck soon.”

“Very good,” said the demon. “What are your orders when we arrive?”

I tensed, hoping Carter had thought ahead. Bast had warned us that demons needed very clear instructions to stay under control.

“You’ll wait for us while we visit the Hall of Judgment,” Carter announced. “When we return, you’ll take us where we wish to go.”

“As you say.” Bloodstained Blade’s tone had a hint of disappointment—or was that my imagination?

After he left, Zia frowned. “Carter, in this case I agree with Sadie. How can you trust that creature? Where did you get this ship?”

“It belonged to our parents,” Carter said.

He and I shared a look, silently agreeing that was enough said. Our mum and dad had sailed this riverboat up the Thames to Cleopatra’s Needle the night Mum had died releasing Bast from the abyss. Afterward, Dad had sat in this very room, grieving, with only the cat goddess and the demon captain for company.

Bloodstained Blade had accepted us as his new masters. He’d followed our orders before, but that was little comfort. I didn’t trust him. I didn’t like being on this ship.

On the other hand, we needed to get to the Hall of Judgment. I was hungry and thirsty, and I supposed I could endure a twenty-minute voyage if it meant enjoying a chilled Ribena and a plate of tandoori chicken with naan.

The four of us sat around the table. We ate while we compared stories. All in all, it was quite possibly the most awkward double date in history. We had no shortage of dire emergencies to talk about, but the tension in the room was as thick as Cairo smog.

Carter hadn’t seen Zia in person for months. I could tell he was trying not to stare. Zia was clearly uncomfortable sitting so close to him. She kept leaning away, which no doubt hurt his feelings. Perhaps she was just worried about having another fireball-throwing episode. As for me, I was elated to be next to Walt, but at the same time, I was desperately worried about him. I couldn’t forget how he’d looked wrapped in glowing mummy linen, and I wondered what Anubis had wanted to tell me about Walt’s situation. Walt tried to hide it, but he was obviously in great pain. His hands trembled as he picked up his peanut butter sandwich.

Carter told me about the pending evacuation of Brooklyn House, which Bast was overseeing. My heart nearly broke when I thought of little Shelby, wonderful silly Felix, shy Cleo, and all the rest going off to defend the First Nome against an impossible attack, but I knew Carter was right. There was no other choice.

Carter kept hesitating, as if waiting for Walt to contribute information. Walt stayed silent. Clearly he was holding something back. Somehow or other, I’d have to get Walt alone and grill him for details.

In return, I told Carter about our visit to the House of Rest. I shared my suspicions that Amos might be calling on Set for extra power. Zia didn’t contradict me, and the news didn’t sit well with my brother. After several minutes of swearing and pacing the room, he finally calmed down enough to say, “We can’t let that happen. He’ll be destroyed.”

“I know,” I said. “But we can best help him by moving forward.”

I didn’t mention Zia’s blackout in the nursing home. In Carter’s present state of mind, I thought that might be too much for him. But I did tell him what Tawaret had said about the possible location of Bes’s shadow.

“The ruins of Sa?s…” He frowned. “I think Dad mentioned that place. He said there wasn’t much left. But even if we could find the shadow, we don’t have time. We’ve got to stop Apophis.”

“I made a promise,” I insisted. “Besides, we need Bes. Think of it as a trial run. Saving his shadow will give us a chance to practice this sort of magic before we try it on Apophis—um, in reverse, of course. It might even give us a way to revive Ra.”

“But—”

“She’s got a point,” Walt interrupted.

I’m not sure who was more surprised—Carter, or me.

“Even if we get Setne’s help,” Walt said, “trapping a shadow in a statue is going to be difficult. I’d feel better if we could try it on a friendly target first. I could show you how it’s done while—while I still have time.”

“Walt,” I said, “please, don’t talk like that.”

“When you face Apophis,” he continued, “you’ll have only one chance to get the spell right. It would be better to have some practice.”

When you face Apophis. He said it so calmly, but his meaning was clear: he wouldn’t be around when that happened.

Carter nudged his half-eaten pizza. “I just…I don’t see how we can do it all in time. I know this is a personal mission for you, Sadie, but—”

“She has to,” Zia said gently. “Carter, you once went off on a personal mission in the middle of a crisis, didn’t you? That worked out.” She put her hand on Carter’s. “Sometimes you have to follow your heart.”

Carter looked like he was trying to swallow a golf ball. Before he could say anything, the ship’s bell sounded.

In the corner of the dining room, a loudspeaker crackled with Bloodstained Blade’s voice: “My lords and ladies, we have reached the Hall of Judgment.”

The black temple looked just as I remembered. We made our way up the steps from the dock and passed between rows of obsidian columns that marched into the gloom. Sinister-looking scenes of Underworld life glittered on the floor and in friezes circling the pillars—black designs on black stone. Despite the reed torches that burned every few meters, the air was so hazy with volcanic ash, I couldn’t see far in front of us.

As we moved deeper into the temple, voices whispered around us. Out of the corner of my eye, I saw groups of spirits drifting across the pavilion—ghostly shapes camouflaged in the smoky air. Some moved aimlessly—crying softly or tearing at their clothes in despair. Others carried armfuls of papyrus scrolls. These ghosts looked more solid and purposeful, as if they were waiting for something.

“Petitioners,” Walt said. “They’ve brought their case files, hoping for an audience with Osiris. He was gone so long…there must be a real backlog of cases.”

Walt’s step seemed lighter. His eyes looked more alert, his body less weighed down by pain. He was so close to death, I’d feared this trip to the Underworld might be hard for him, but if anything he seemed more at ease than the rest of us.

“How do you know?” I asked.

Walt hesitated. “I’m not sure. It just seems…correct.”

“And the ghosts without scrolls?”

“Refugees,” he said. “They’re hoping this place will protect them.”

I didn’t ask what from. I remembered the ghost at the Brooklyn Academy dance who’d been engulfed in black tendrils and dragged underground. I thought about the vision Carter had described—our mother huddled beneath a cliff somewhere in the Duat, resisting the pull of a dark force in the distance.

“We need to hurry.” I started to forge ahead, but Zia grabbed my arm.

“There,” she said. “Look.”

The smoke parted. Twenty meters ahead stood a massive set of obsidian doors. In front of them, an animal the size of a greyhound sat on its haunches—an oversized jackal with thick black fur, fluffy pointed ears, and a face somewhere between a fox and a wolf. Its moon-colored eyes glittered in the darkness.

It snarled at us, but I wasn’t put off. I may be biased, but I think jackals are cute and cuddly, even if they were known for digging up graves in Ancient Egypt.

“It’s just Anubis,” I said hopefully. “This is where we met him last time.”

“That’s not Anubis,” Walt warned.

“Of course it is,” I told him. “Watch.”

“Sadie, don’t,” Carter said, but I walked toward the guardian.

“Hullo, Anubis,” I called. “It’s just me, Sadie.”

The cute fuzzy jackal bared his fangs. His mouth began to froth. His adorable yellow eyes sent an unmistakable message: One more step, and I’ll chew your head off.

I froze. “Right…that’s not Anubis, unless he’s having a really bad day.”

“This is where we met him before,” Carter said. “Why isn’t he here?”

“It’s one of his minions,” Walt ventured. “Anubis must be…elsewhere.”

Again, he sounded awfully sure, and I felt a strange pang of jealousy. Walt and Anubis seemed to have spent more time talking with each other than with me. Walt was suddenly an expert on all things deathly. Meanwhile, I couldn’t even be near Anubis without invoking the wrath of his chaperone—Shu, the god of hot air. It wasn’t bloody fair!

Zia moved next to me, gripping her staff. “So, what now? Do we have to defeat it to pass?”

I imagined her lobbing some of her daisy-destroying fireballs. That’s all we needed—a yelping, flaming jackal running through my father’s courtyard.

“No,” Walt said, stepping forward. “It’s just a gatekeeper. It needs to know our business.”

“Walt,” Carter said, “if you’re wrong…”

Walt raised his hands and slowly approached the jackal. “I am Walt Stone,” he said. “This is Carter and Sadie Kane. And this is Zia…”

“Rashid,” Zia supplied.

“We have business at the Hall of Judgment,” Walt said.

The jackal snarled, but it sounded more inquisitive, not so chew-your-head-off hostile.

“We have testimony to offer,” Walt continued. “Information relevant to the trial of Setne.”

“Walt,” Carter whispered, “when did you become a junior lawyer?”

I shushed him. Walt’s plan seemed to be working. The jackal tilted its head as if listening, then rose and padded away into the darkness. The obsidian double doors swung open silently.

“Well done, Walt,” I said. “How did you…?”

He faced me, and my heart did a somersault. Just for a moment I thought he looked like… No. Obviously my mixed-up emotions were playing with my mind. “Um, how did you know what to say?”

Walt shrugged. “I took a guess.”

Just as quickly as they’d opened, the doors began to close.

“Hurry!” Carter warned. We sprinted into the courtroom of the dead.

At the start of the autumn semester—my first experience in an American school—our teacher had asked us to write down our parents’ contact information and what they did for a living, in case they could help with career day. I had never heard of career day. Once I understood what it was, I couldn’t stop giggling.

Could your dad come talk about his work? I imagined the headmistress asking.

Possibly, Mrs. Laird…I’d say. Except he’s dead, you see. Well, not completely dead. He’s more of a resurrected god. He judges mortal spirits and feeds the hearts of the wicked to his pet monster. Oh, and he has blue skin. I’m sure he’d make quite an impression on career day, for all those students aspiring to grow up and become Ancient Egyptian deities.

The Hall of Judgment had changed since my last visit. The room tended to mirror the thoughts of Osiris, so it often looked like a ghostly replica of my family’s old apartment in Los Angeles, from the happier times when we all lived together.

Now, possibly because Dad was on duty, the place was fully Egyptian. The circular chamber was lined with stone pillars carved in lotus flower designs. Braziers of magic fire washed the walls in green and blue light. In the center of the room stood the scales of justice, two large golden saucers balanced from an iron T.

Kneeling before the scales was the ghost of a man in a pinstriped suit, nervously reciting from a scroll. I understood why he was tense. On either side of him stood a large reptilian demon with green skin, a cobra head, and a wicked-looking pole arm poised over the ghost’s head.

Dad sat at the far end of the room on a golden dais, with a blue-skinned Egyptian attendant at his side. Seeing my father in the Duat was always disorienting, because he appeared to be two people at once. On one level, he looked like he had in life—a handsome, muscular man with chocolate-brown skin, a bald scalp, and a neatly trimmed goatee. He wore an elegant silk suit and a dark traveling coat, like a businessman about to board a private jet.

On a deeper level of reality, however, he appeared as Osiris, god of the dead. He was dressed as a pharaoh in sandals, an embroidered linen kilt, and rows of gold and coral neckbands on his bare chest. His skin was the color of a summer sky. Across his lap lay a crook and flail—the symbols of Egyptian kingship.

As strange as it was seeing my father with blue skin and a skirt, I was so happy to be near him again, I quite forgot about the court proceedings.

“Dad!” I ran toward him.

(Carter says I was foolish, but Dad was the king of the court, wasn’t he? Why shouldn’t I be allowed to run up to say hello?)

I was halfway across when the snake demons crossed their pole arms and blocked my path.

“It’s all right,” Dad said, looking a bit startled. “Let her through.”

I flew into his arms, knocking the crook and flail out of his lap.

He hugged me warmly, chuckling with affection. For a moment I felt like a little girl again, safe in his embrace. Then he held me at arm’s length, and I could see how weary he was. He had bags under his eyes. His face was gaunt. Even the powerful blue aura of Osiris, which normally surrounded him like the corona of a star, flickered weakly.

“Sadie, my love,” he said in a strained voice. “Why have you come? I’m working.”

I tried not to feel hurt. “But, Dad, this is important!”

Carter, Walt, and Zia approached the dais. My father’s expression turned grim.

“I see,” he said. “First let me finish this trial. Children, stand here on my right. And please, don’t interrupt.”

My dad’s attendant stamped his foot. “My lord, this is most irregular!”

He was an odd-looking fellow—an elderly blue Egyptian man with a huge scroll in his arms. Too solid to be a ghost, too blue to be human, he was almost as decrepit as Ra, wearing nothing but a loincloth, sandals, and an ill-fitting wig. I suppose that glossy black wedge of fake hair was meant to look manly in an Ancient Egyptian sort of way, but along with the kohl eyeliner and the rouge on his cheeks, the old boy looked like a grotesque Cleopatra impersonator.

The roll of papyrus he held was simply enormous. Years ago, I’d gone to synagogue with my friend Liz, and the Torah they kept there was tiny in comparison.

“It’s all right, Disturber,” my father told him. “We may continue now.”

“But, my lord—” The old man (was his name really Disturber?) became so agitated he lost control of his scroll. The bottom dropped out and unraveled, bouncing down the steps like a papyrus carpet.

“Oh, bother, bother, bother!” Disturber struggled to reel in his document.

My father suppressed a smile. He turned back to the ghost in the pinstriped suit, who was still kneeling at the scales. “My apologies, Robert Windham. You may finish your testimony.”

The ghost bowed and scraped. “Y-yes, Lord Osiris.”

He referred to his notes and began rattling off a list of crimes he wasn’t guilty of—murder, theft, and selling cattle under false pretenses.

I turned to Walt and whispered, “He’s a modern chap, isn’t he? What’s he doing in Osiris’s court?”

I was a bit troubled to find that Walt once again had an answer.

“The afterlife looks different to every soul,” he said, “depending on what they believe. For that guy, Egypt must’ve made a strong impression. Maybe he read the stories when he was young.”

“And if someone doesn’t believe in any afterlife?” I asked.

Walt gave me a sad look. “Then that’s what they experience.”

On the other side of the dais, the blue god Disturber hissed at us to be quiet. Why is it when adults try to silence kids, they always make more noise than the noise they’re trying to stop?

The ghost of Robert Windham seemed to be winding down his testimony. “I haven’t given false witness against my neighbors. Um, sorry, I can’t read this last line—”

“Fish!” Disturber yelped crossly. “Have you stolen any fish from the holy lakes?”

“I lived in Kansas,” the ghost said. “So…no.”

My father rose from his throne. “Very well. Let his heart be weighed.”

One of the snake demons produced a linen parcel the size of a child’s fist.

Next to me, Carter inhaled sharply. “His heart is in there?”

“Shh!” Disturber said so loudly his wig almost fell off. “Bring forth the Destroyer of Souls!”

On the far wall of the chamber, a doggy door burst open. Ammit ran into the room in great excitement. The poor dear wasn’t very coordinated. His miniature lion chest and forearms were sleek and agile, but his back half was a stubby and much-less-agile hippo bum. He kept sliding sideways, swerving into pillars, and knocking over braziers. Each time he crashed, he shook his lion’s mane and crocodile snout and yipped happily.

(Carter is scolding me, as always. He says Ammit is female. I’ll admit I can’t prove it either way, but I’ve always thought of Ammit as a boy monster. He’s much too hyper to be otherwise, and the way he marks his territory…but never mind.)

“There’s my baby!” I cried, quite carried away. “There’s my Poochiekins!”

Ammit ran at me and leaped into my arms, nuzzling me with his rough snout.

“My lord Osiris!” Disturber lost the bottom of his scroll again, which unraveled around his legs. “This is an outrage!”

“Sadie,” Dad said firmly, “please do not refer to the Devourer of Souls as Poochiekins.”

“Sorry,” I muttered, and let Ammit down.

One of the snake demons set Robert Windham’s heart on the scales of justice. I’d seen many pictures of Anubis performing this duty, and I wished he were here now. Anubis would’ve been much more interesting to watch than some snake demon.

On the opposite scale, the Feather of Truth appeared. (Don’t get me started on the Feather of Truth.)

The scales wavered. The two saucers stopped, just about even. The pinstriped ghost sobbed with relief. Ammit whimpered disappointedly.

“Most impressive,” my father said. “Robert Windham, you have been found sufficiently virtuous, despite the fact you were an investment banker.”

“Red Cross donations, baby!” the ghost yelled.

“Yes, well,” Dad said dryly, “you may proceed to the afterlife.”

A door opened to the left of the dais. The snake demons hauled Robert Windham to his feet.

“Thank you!” he yelled, as the demons escorted him out. “And if you need any financial advice, Lord Osiris, I still believe in the long term viability of the market—”

The door shut behind him.

Disturber sniffed indignantly. “Horrible man.”

My father shrugged. “A modern soul who appreciated the ancient ways of Egypt. He couldn’t have been all bad.” Dad turned to us. “Children, this is Disturber, one of my advisors and gods of judgment.”

“Sorry?” I pretended not to have heard. “Did you say he’s disturbed?”

“Disturber is my name!” the god shouted angrily. “I judge those who are guilty of losing their temper!”

“Yes.” Despite my father’s weariness, his eyes sparkled with amusement. “That was Disturber’s traditional duty, although now that he’s my last minister, he helps me with all my cases. There used to be forty-two judgment gods for different crimes, you see, but—”

“Like Hot Foot and Fire-embracer,” Zia said.

Disturber gasped. “How do you know of them?”

“We saw them,” Zia said. “In the Fourth House of the Night.”

“You—saw—” Disturber almost dropped his scroll altogether. “Lord Osiris, we must save them immediately! My brethren—”

“We will discuss it,” Dad promised. “First, I want to hear what brings my children to the Duat.”

We took turns explaining: the rebel magicians and their secret alliance with Apophis, their impending attack on the First Nome, and our hope to find a new sort of execration spell that might stop Apophis for good.

Some of our news surprised and troubled our father—like the fact that many magicians had fled the First Nome, leaving it so poorly defended that we’d sent our initiates from Brooklyn House to help, and that Amos was flirting with the powers of Set.

“No,” Dad said. “No, he can’t! These magicians who’ve abandoned him—inexcusable! The House of Life must rally to the Chief Lector.” He began to rise. “I should go to my brother—”

“My lord,” Disturber said, “you are not a magician anymore. You are Osiris.”

Dad grimaced, but he eased back into his throne. “Yes. Yes, of course. Please, children, continue.”

Some of our news Dad already knew. His shoulders slumped when we mentioned the spirits of the dead who were disappearing, and the vision of our mum lost somewhere in the deep Duat, fighting against the pull of a dark force that Carter and I were certain was the shadow of Apophis.

“I have searched for your mother everywhere,” Dad said despondently. “This force that is taking the spirits—whether it’s the serpent’s shadow or something else—I cannot stop it. I can’t even find it. Your mother…”

His expression turned brittle as ice. I understood what he was feeling. For years he had lived with guilt because he couldn’t prevent our mum’s death. Now she was in danger again, and even though he was the lord of the dead, he felt helpless to save her.

“We can find her,” I promised. “All of this is connected, Dad. We have a plan.”

Carter and I explained about the sheut, and how it might be used for a king-sized execration spell.

My father sat forward. His eyes narrowed. “Anubis told you this? He revealed the nature of the sheut to a mortal?”

His blue aura flickered dangerously. I’d never been scared of my dad, but I’ll admit I took a step back. “Well…it wasn’t just Anubis.”

“Thoth helped,” Carter said. “And some of it we guessed—”

“Thoth!” my father spat. “This is dangerous knowledge, children. Much too dangerous. I won’t have you—”

“Dad!” I shouted. I think I surprised him, but my patience had finally snapped. I’d had quite enough of gods telling me what I shouldn’t or couldn’t do. “Apophis’s shadow is what’s drawing the souls of the dead. It has to be! It’s feeding on them, getting stronger as Apophis prepares to rise.”

I hadn’t really processed that idea before, but as I spoke the words, they felt like the truth—horrifying, but the truth.

“We’ve got to find the shadow and capture it,” I insisted. “Then we can use it to banish the serpent. It’s our only chance—unless you want us to use a standard execration. We’ve got the statue ready to go for that, don’t we, Carter?”

Carter patted his backpack. “The spell will kill us,” he said. “And it probably won’t work. But if that’s our only option…”

Zia looked horrified. “Carter, you didn’t tell me! You made a statue of—of him? You’d sacrifice yourself to—”

“No,” our father said. The anger drained out of him. He slumped forward and put his face in his hands. “No, you’re right, Sadie. A small chance is better than none. I just couldn’t bear it if you…” He sat up and took a breath, trying to regain his composure. “How can I help? I assume you came here for a reason, but you’re asking for magic I don’t possess.”

“Yes, well,” I said, “that’s the tricky part.”

Before I could say more, the sound of a gong reverberated through the chamber. The main doors began to open.

“My lord,” Disturber said, “the next trial begins.”

“Not now!” my father snapped. “Can’t it be delayed?”

“No, my lord.” The blue god lowered his voice. “This is his trial. You know…”

“Oh, by the twelve gates of the night,” Dad cursed. “Children, this trial is very serious.”

“Yes,” I said. “Actually, that’s what—”

“We’ll talk afterward,” Dad cut me off. “And please, whatever you do, don’t speak to the accused or make eye contact with him. This spirit is particularly—”

The gong sounded again. A troop of demons marched in, surrounding the accused. I didn’t have to ask who he was.

Setne had arrived.

The guards were intimidating enough—six red-skinned warriors with guillotine blades for heads.

Even without them, I could tell Setne was dangerous from all the magical precautions. Glowing hieroglyphs spiraled around him like the rings of Saturn—a collection of anti-magic symbols like: Suppress, Dampen, Stay, Shut up, Powerless, and Don’t even think about it.

Setne’s wrists were bound together with pink strips of cloth. Two more pink bands were tied around his waist. One was fastened around his neck, and two more connected his ankles so he shuffled as he walked. To the casual observer, the pink ribbons might’ve looked like the Hello Kitty incarceration play set, but I knew from personal experience that they were some of the most powerful magic bonds in the world.

“The Seven Ribbons of Hathor,” Walt whispered. “I wish I could make some of those.”

“I’ve got some,” Zia murmured. “But the recharge time is really long. Mine won’t be ready until December.”

Walt looked at her in awe.

The guillotine demons fanned out on either side of the accused.

Setne himself didn’t look like trouble, certainly not someone worthy of so much security. He was quite small—not Bes small, mind you, but still a diminutive man. His arms and legs were scrawny. His chest was a xylophone of ribs. Yet he stuck out his chin and smiled confidently as if he owned the world—which isn’t easy when one is wearing only a loincloth and some pink ribbons.

Without a doubt, his face was the same one I’d seen in the wall at the Dallas Museum, and again in the Hall of Ages. He’d been the priest who sacrificed that bull in the shimmering vision from the New Kingdom.

He had the same hawkish nose, heavy-lidded eyes, and thin cruel lips. Most priests from ancient times were bald, but Setne’s hair was dark and thick, slicked back with oil like a 1950s tough boy. If I’d seen him in Piccadilly Circus (with more clothes on, hopefully) I would’ve steered clear, assuming he was handing out advertisements or trying to sell scalped tickets to a West End show. Sleazy and annoying? Yes. Dangerous? Not really.

The guillotine demons pushed him to his knees. Setne seemed to find that amusing. His eyes flickered over the room, registering each one of us. I tried not to make eye contact, but it was difficult. Setne recognized me and winked. Somehow I knew that he could read my jumbled emotions quite well, and that he found them funny.

He inclined his head toward the throne. “Lord Osiris, all this fuss for me? You shouldn’t have.”

My father didn’t answer. With a grim expression, he gestured at Disturber, who shuffled through his scroll until he found the proper spot.

“Setne, also known as Prince Khaemwaset—”

“Oh, wow…” Setne grinned at me, and I fought the urge to smile back. “Haven’t heard that name in a while. That’s ancient history, right there!”

Disturber huffed. “You stand accused of heinous crimes! You have blasphemed against the gods four thousand and ninety-two times.”

“Ninety-one,” Setne corrected. “That crack about Lord Horus—that was just a misunderstanding.” He winked at Carter. “Am I right, pal?”

How in the world did he know about Carter and Horus?

Disturber shuffled his scroll. “You have used magic for evil purposes, including twenty-three murders—”

“Self-defense!” Setne tried to spread his hands, but the ribbons restrained him.

“—including one incident where you were paid to kill with magic,” Disturber said.

Setne shrugged. “That was self-defense for my employer.”

“You plotted against three separate pharaohs,” Disturber continued. “You tried to overthrow the House of Life on six occasions. Most grievous of all, you robbed the tombs of the dead to steal books of magic.”

Setne laughed easily. He glanced at me as if to say, Can you believe this guy?

“Look, Disturber,” he said, “that is your name, right? A handsome, intelligent judgment god like you—you’ve got to be overworked and underappreciated. I feel for you, I really do. You’ve got better things to do than dig up my old history. Besides, all these charges—I answered them already in my previous trials.”

“Oh.” Disturber looked confused. He adjusted his wig self-consciously and turned to my dad. “Should we let him go, then, my lord?”

“No, Disturber.” Dad sat forward. “The prisoner is using divine words to influence your mind, warping the most sacred magic of Ma’at. Even in his bindings, he is dangerous.”

Setne examined his fingernails. “Lord Osiris, I’m flattered, but honestly, these charges—”

“Silence!” Dad thrust his hand toward the prisoner. The swirling hieroglyphs glowed brighter around him. The Ribbons of Hathor tightened.

Setne began to choke. His smug expression melted, replaced by absolute hatred. I could feel his anger. He wanted to kill my father, kill us all.

“Dad!” I said. “Please, don’t!”

My father frowned at me, clearly unhappy with the interruption. He snapped his fingers, and Setne’s bonds eased. The ghost magician coughed and retched.

“Khaemwaset, son of Ramses,” my father said calmly, “you have been sentenced to oblivion more than once. The first time you managed to plead for a reduced sentence, volunteering to serve the pharaoh with your magic—”

“Yes,” Setne croaked. He tried to recover his poise, but his smile was twisted with pain. “I’m skilled labor, my lord. It would be a crime to destroy me.”

“Yet you escaped en route,” my father said. “You killed your guards and spent the next three hundred years sowing Chaos across Egypt.”

Setne shrugged. “It wasn’t that bad. Just a bit of fun.”

“You were captured and sentenced again,” my father continued, “three more times. In each instance, you connived your way to freedom. And since the gods have been absent from the world, you’ve run amok, doing as you pleased, committing crimes and terrorizing mortals.”

“My lord, that’s unfair,” Setne protested. “First of all, I missed you gods. Honestly, it was a dull few millennia without you. As for these so-called crimes, well, some people might say the French Revolution was a first-class party! I know I enjoyed myself. And Archduke Ferdinand? A total bore. If you knew him, you would’ve assassinated him too.”

“Enough!” Dad said. “You are done. I am the host of Osiris now. I will not tolerate the existence of a villain like you, even as a spirit. This time you are out of tricks.”

Ammit yipped excitedly. The guillotine guards chopped their blades up and down as if they were clapping. Disturber cried, “Hear, hear!”

As for Setne…he threw back his head and laughed.

My father looked stunned, then outraged. He raised his hand to tighten the Ribbons of Hathor, but Setne said, “Wait, my lord. Here’s the thing. I’m not out of tricks. Ask your children over there. Ask their friends. Those kids need my help.”

“No more lies,” my father growled. “Your heart shall be weighed, again, and Ammit will devour—”

“Dad!” I shrieked. “He’s right! We do need him.”

My father turned toward me. I could practically see the grief and rage roiling inside him. He’d lost his wife again. He was powerless to assist his brother. A battle for the end of the world was about to begin, and his children were on the front line. Dad needed to serve justice on this ghost magician. He needed to feel that he could do something right.

“Dad, please, listen,” I said. “I know it’s dangerous. I know you’ll hate this. But we came here because of Setne. What we told you earlier about our plan—Setne’s got the knowledge we need.”

“Sadie’s right,” Carter said. “Please, Dad. You asked how you could help. Give us custody of Setne. He’s the key to defeating Apophis.”

At the sound of that name, a cold wind blew through the courtroom. The braziers sputtered. Ammit whimpered and put his paws over his snout. Even the guillotine demons shuffled nervously.

“No,” Dad said. “Absolutely not. Setne is influencing you with his magic. He is a servant of Chaos.”

“My lord,” Setne said, his tone suddenly soft and respectful, “I’m a lot of things, but a servant of the snake? No. I don’t want the world destroyed. There’s nothing in that for me. Listen to the girl. Let her tell you her plan.”

The words worked their way into my mind. I realized Setne was using magic, commanding me to speak. I steeled myself against the urge. Sadly, Setne was ordering me to do something I loved—talk. It all came spilling out: How we’d tried to save the Book of Overcoming Apophis in Dallas, how Setne had spoken with me there, how we’d found the shadow box and struck on the idea of using the sheut. I explained my hopes to revive Bes and destroy Apophis.

“It’s impossible,” Dad said. “Even if it wasn’t, Setne can’t be trusted. I would never release him, especially not to my children. He’d kill you at the first opportunity!”

“Dad,” Carter said, “we’re not children anymore. We can do this.”

The agony in my father’s face was hard to bear. I forced back my tears and approached the throne.

“Dad, I know you love us.” I gripped his hand. “I know you want to protect us, but you risked everything to give us a chance at saving the world. Now it’s time we did that. This is the only way.”

“She’s right.” Setne managed to sound regretful, as if he were sorry he might get a reprieve. “Also, my lord, it’s the only way to save the spirits of the dead before the shadow of Apophis destroys them all—including your wife.”

My father’s face turned from sky blue to deep indigo. He gripped the throne like he wanted to tear off the armrests.

I thought Setne had gone too far.

Then my father’s hands relaxed. The anger in his eyes changed to desperation and hunger.

“Guards,” he said, “give the prisoner the Feather of Truth. He will hold it while he explains himself. If he lies, he will perish in flames.”

One of the guillotine demons plucked the feather from the scales of justice. Setne looked unconcerned as the glowing plume was placed in his hands.

“Right!” he began. “So your kids are correct. I did create a shadow execration spell. In theory, it could be used to destroy a god—or even Apophis. I never tried. Unfortunately, it can only be cast by a living magician. I died before I could test it. Not that I wanted to kill any gods, my lord. I was just thinking I’d use it to blackmail them into doing my bidding.”

“Blackmail…the gods,” Dad growled.

Setne smiled guiltily. “This was back in my misguided youth. Anyway, I recorded the formula in several copies of the Book of Overcoming Apophis.”

Walt grunted. “Which have all been destroyed.”

“Okay,” Setne said, “but my original notes would still be in the margins of the Book of Thoth that I…that I stole. See? Being honest. I guarantee you even Apophis hasn’t found that book. I hid it too well. I can show you where it is. The book will explain how to find the shadow of Apophis, how to capture it, and how to cast the execration.”

“Can’t you just tell us how?” Carter asked.

Setne pouted. “Young master, I’d love to. But I don’t have the whole book memorized. And it’s been millennia since I wrote that spell. If I told you one wrong word in the incantation, well…we wouldn’t want any mistakes. But I can lead you to the book. Once we get it—”

“We?” Zia asked. “Why can’t you just give us directions to the book? Why do you need to come along?”

The ghost grinned. “Because, doll, I’m the only one who can retrieve it. Traps, curses…you know. Besides, you’ll need my help deciphering the notes. The spell is complicated! But don’t worry. All you gotta do is keep these Ribbons of Hathor on me. It’s Zia, right? You’ve got experience using them.”

“How did you know—?”

“If I cause you any trouble,” Setne continued, “you can tie me up good like a Harvest Day present. But I won’t try to escape—at least not until I lead you to the Book of Thoth and then get you safely to the shadow of Apophis. Nobody knows the deepest levels of the Duat like I do. I’m your best hope for a guide.”

The Feather of Truth didn’t react. Setne didn’t go up in flames, so I guessed he wasn’t lying.

“Four of us,” Carter said. “One of him.”

“Except he killed his guards last time,” Walt pointed out.

“So we’ll be more careful,” Carter said. “All of us together should be able to keep him under control.”

Setne winced. “Oh, except…see, Sadie’s got her little side task, doesn’t she? She’s gotta find the shadow of Bes. And actually, it’s a good idea.”

I blinked. “It is?”

“Absolutely, doll,” Setne said. “We don’t have much time. More specifically, your friend Walt there doesn’t have much time.”

I wanted to kill the ghost, except he was already dead. I suddenly hated that smug smile.

I gritted my teeth. “Go on.”

“Walt Stone—sorry, pal, but you won’t survive long enough to get the Book of Thoth, travel to the shadow of Apophis, and use the spell. There just isn’t time left on your clock. But getting Bes’s shadow—that won’t take as long. It’ll be a good test of the magic. If it works, great! If it doesn’t…well, we’ve only lost one dwarf god.”

I wanted to stomp his face, but he gestured for patience.

“What I’m thinking,” he said, “is we split up. Carter and Zia, you two go with me to get the Book of Thoth. Meanwhile, Sadie takes Walt to the ruins of Sa?s to find the dwarf’s shadow. I’ll give you some notes on how to capture it, but the spell is just theory. In practice, you’ll need Walt’s charm-making skill to pull it off. He’ll have to improvise if anything goes wrong. If Walt succeeds, then Sadie will know how to capture a shadow. If Walt dies afterward—and I’m sorry, but casting a spell like that will probably do him in—then Sadie can rendezvous with us in the Duat, and we’ll hunt down the snake’s shadow. Everybody wins!”

I wasn’t sure whether to weep or scream. I only managed to keep my calm because I sensed that Setne would find any reaction extremely funny.

He faced my father. “What do you say, Lord Osiris? It’s a chance to get your wife back, defeat Apophis, restore Bes’s soul, save the world! All I ask is that when I come back, the court take my good deeds into consideration when you sentence me. How fair is that, huh?”

The chamber was silent except for the crackling fires in the braziers.

Finally Disturber seemed to shake himself out of a trance. “My lord…what is your ruling?”

Dad looked at me. I could tell he hated this plan. But Setne had tempted him with the one thing he couldn’t pass up: a chance to save our mum. The vile ghost had promised me one last day alone with Walt, which I wanted more than anything, and a chance to save Bes, which was a close second. He’d put Carter and Zia together and promised them a chance to save the world.

He’d put hooks in all of us and reeled us in like fish from a sacred lake. But despite the fact that I knew we were being played, I couldn’t find a reason to say no.

“We have to, Dad,” I said.

He lowered his head. “Yes, we do. May Ma’at protect us all.”

“Oh, we’ll have fun!” Setne said cheerfully. “Shall we get going? Doomsday isn’t gonna wait!”