CHAPTER
14. A French Guy Almost Kills Us
THE LAST COUPLE OF DAYS I’d seen a lot of crazy things, but the Hall of Ages took the prize.
Double rows of stone pillars held up a ceiling so high, you could’ve parked a blimp under it with no trouble. A shimmering blue carpet that looked like water ran down the center of the hall, which was so long, I couldn’t see the end even though it was brightly lit. Balls of fire floated around like helium basketballs, changing color whenever they bumped into one another. Millions of tiny hieroglyphic symbols also drifted through the air, randomly combining into words and then breaking apart.
I grabbed a pair of glowing red legs.They walked across my palm before jumping off and dissolving.
But the weirdest things were the displays.
I don’t know what else to call them. Between the columns on either side of us, images shifted, coming into focus and then blurring out again like holograms in a sandstorm.
“Come on,” Zia told us. “And don’t spend too much time looking.”
It was impossible not to. The first twenty feet or so, the magical scenes cast a golden light across the hall. A blazing sun rose above an ocean. A mountain emerged from the water, and I had the feeling I was watching the beginning of the world. Giants strode across the Nile Valley: a man with black skin and the head of a jackal, a lioness with bloody fangs, a beautiful woman with wings of light.
Sadie stepped off the rug. In a trance, she reached toward the images.
“Stay on the carpet!” Zia grabbed Sadie’s hand and pulled her back toward the center of the hall. “You are seeing the Age of the Gods. No mortal should dwell on these images.”
“But…” Sadie blinked. “They’re only pictures, aren’t they?”
“Memories,” Zia said, “so powerful they could destroy your mind.”
“Oh,” Sadie said in a small voice.
We kept walking. The images changed to silver. I saw armies clashing—Egyptians in kilts and sandals and leather armor, fighting with spears. A tall, dark-skinned man in red-and-white armor placed a double crown on his head: Narmer, the king who united Upper and Lower Egypt. Sadie was right: he did look a bit like Dad.
“This is the Old Kingdom,” I guessed. “The first great age of Egypt.”
Zia nodded. As we walked down the hall, we saw workers building the first step pyramid out of stone. Another few steps, and the biggest pyramid of all rose from the desert at Giza. Its outer layer of smooth white casing stones gleamed in the sun. Ten thousand workers gathered at its base and knelt before the pharaoh, who raised his hands to the sun, dedicating his own tomb.
“Khufu,” I said.
“The baboon?” Sadie asked, suddenly interested.
“No, the pharaoh who built the Great Pyramid,” I said. “It was the tallest structure in the world for almost four thousand years.”
Another few steps, and the images turned from silver to coppery.
“The Middle Kingdom,” Zia announced. “A bloody, chaotic time. And yet this is when the House of Life came to maturity.”
The scenes shifted more rapidly. We watched armies fighting, temples being built, ships sailing on the Nile, and magicians throwing fire. Every step covered hundreds of years, and yet the hall still went on forever. For the first time I understood just how ancient Egypt was.
We crossed another threshold, and the light turned bronze.
“The New Kingdom,” I guessed. “The last time Egypt was ruled by Egyptians.”
Zia said nothing, but I watched scenes passing that my dad had described to me: Hatshepsut, the greatest female pharaoh, putting on a fake beard and ruling Egypt as a man; Ramesses the Great leading his chariots into battle.
I saw magicians dueling in a palace. A man in tattered robes, with a shaggy black beard and wild eyes, threw down his staff, which turned into a serpent and devoured a dozen other snakes.
I got a lump in my throat. “Is that—”
“Musa,” Zia said. “Or Moshe, as his own people knew him. You call him Moses. The only foreigner ever to defeat the House in a magic duel.”
I stared at her. “You’re kidding, right?”
“We would not kid about such a thing.”
The scene shifted again. I saw a man standing over a table of battle figurines: wooden toy ships, soldiers, and chariots. The man was dressed like a pharaoh, but his face looked oddly familiar. He looked up and seemed to smile right at me. With a chill, I realized he had the same face as the ba, the bird-faced spirit who’d challenged me on the bridge.
“Who is that?” I asked.
“Nectanebo II,” Zia said. “The last native Egyptian king, and the last sorcerer pharaoh. He could move entire armies, create or destroy navies by moving pieces on his board, but in the end, it was not enough.”
We stepped over another line and the images shimmered blue. “These are the Ptolemaic times,” Zia said. “Alexander the Great conquered the known world, including Egypt. He set up his general Ptolemy as the new pharaoh, and founded a line of Greek kings to rule over Egypt.”
The Ptolemaic section of the hall was shorter, and seemed sad compared to all the others. The temples were smaller. The kings and queens looked desperate, or lazy, or simply apathetic. There were no great battles…except toward the end. I saw Romans march into the city of Alexandria. I saw a woman with dark hair and a white dress drop a snake into her blouse.
“Cleopatra,” Zia said, “the seventh queen of that name. She tried to stand against the might of Rome, and she lost. When she took her life, the last line of pharaohs ended. Egypt, the great nation, faded. Our language was forgotten. The ancient rites were suppressed. The House of Life survived, but we were forced into hiding.”
We passed into an area of red light, and history began to look familiar. I saw Arab armies riding into Egypt, then the Turks. Napoleon marched his army under the shadow of the pyramids. The British came and built the Suez Canal. Slowly Cairo grew into a modern city. And the old ruins faded farther and farther under the sands of the desert.
“Each year,” Zia said, “the Hall of Ages grows longer to encompass our history. Up until the present.”
I was so dazed I didn’t even realize we’d reached the end of the hall until Sadie grabbed my arm.
In front of us stood a dais and on it an empty throne, a gilded wooden chair with a flail and a shepherd’s crook carved in the back—the ancient symbols of the pharaoh.
On the step below the throne sat the oldest man I’d ever seen. His skin was like lunch-bag paper—brown, thin, and crinkled. White linen robes hung loosely off his small frame. A leopard skin was draped around his shoulders, and his hand shakily held a big wooden staff, which I was sure he was going to drop any minute. But weirdest of all, the glowing hieroglyphs in the air seemed to be coming from him. Multicolored symbols popped up all around him and floated away as if he were some sort of magic bubble machine.
At first I wasn’t sure he was even alive. His milky eyes stared into space. Then he focused on me, and electricity coursed through my body.
He wasn’t just looking at me. He was scanning me—reading my entire being.
Hide, something inside me said.
I didn’t know where the voice came from, but my stomach clenched. My whole body tensed as if I were bracing for a hit, and the electrical feeling subsided.
The old man raised an eyebrow as if I’d surprised him. He glanced behind him and said something in a language I didn’t recognize.
A second man stepped out of the shadows. I wanted to yelp. He was the guy who’d been with Zia in the British Museum—the one with the cream-colored robes and the forked beard.
The bearded man glared at Sadie and me.
“I am Desjardins,” he said with a French accent. “My master, Chief Lector Iskandar, welcomes you to the House of Life.”
I couldn’t think what to say to that, so of course I asked a stupid question. “He’s really old. Why isn’t he sitting on the throne?”
Desjardins’ nostrils flared, but the old dude, Iskandar, just chuckled, and said something else in that other language.
Desjardins translated stiffly: “The master says thank you for noticing; he is in fact really old. But the throne is for the pharaoh. It has been vacant since the fall of Egypt to Rome. It is…comment dit-on? Symbolic. The Chief Lector’s role is to serve and protect the pharaoh. Therefore he sits at the foot of the throne.”
I looked at Iskandar a little nervously. I wondered how many years he’d been sitting on that step. “If you…if he can understand English…what language is he speaking?”
Desjardins sniffed. “The Chief Lector understands many things. But he prefers to speak Alexandrian Greek, his birth tongue.”
Sadie cleared her throat. “Sorry, his birth tongue? Wasn’t Alexander the Great way back in the blue section, thousands of years ago? You make it sound like Lord Salamander is—”
“Lord Iskandar,” Desjardins hissed. “Show respect!”
Something clicked in my mind: back in Brooklyn, Amos had talked about the magicians’ law against summoning gods—a law made in Roman times by the Chief Lector…Iskandar. Surely it had to be a different guy. Maybe we were talking to Iskandar the XXVII or something.
The old man looked me in the eyes. He smiled, as if he knew exactly what I was thinking. He said something else in Greek, and Desjardins translated.
“The master says not to worry. You will not be held responsible for the past crimes of your family. At least, not until we have investigated you further.”
“Gee…thanks,” I said.
“Do not mock our generosity, boy,” Desjardins warned. “Your father broke our most important law twice: once at Cleopatra’s Needle, when he tried to summon the gods and your mother died assisting him. Then again at the British Museum, when your father was foolish enough to use the Rosetta Stone itself. Now your uncle too is missing—”
“You know what’s happened to Amos?” Sadie blurted out.
Desjardins scowled. “Not yet,” he admitted.
“You have to find him!” Sadie cried. “Don’t you have some sort of GPS magic or—”
“We are searching,” Desjardins said. “But you cannot worry about Amos. You must stay here. You must be…trained.”
I got the impression he was going to say a different word, something not as nice as trained.
Iskandar spoke directly to me. His tone sounded kindly.
“The master warns that the Demon Days begin tomorrow at sunset,” Desjardins translated. “You must be kept safe.”
“But we have to find our dad!” I said. “Dangerous gods are on the loose out there. We saw Serqet. And Set!”
At these names, Iskandar’s expression tightened. He turned and gave Desjardins what sounded like an order. Desjardins protested. Iskandar repeated his statement.
Desjardins clearly didn’t like it, but he bowed to his master. Then he turned toward me. “The Chief Lector wishes to hear your story.”
So I told him, with Sadie jumping in whenever I stopped to take a breath. The funny thing was, we both left out certain things without planning to. We didn’t mention Sadie’s magic abilities, or the encounter with the ba who’d called me a king. It was like I literally couldn’t mention those things. Whenever I tried, the voice inside my head whispered, Not that part. Be silent.
When I was done, I glanced at Zia. She said nothing, but she was studying me with a troubled expression.
Iskandar traced a circle on the step with the butt of his staff. More hieroglyphs popped into the air and floated away.
After several seconds, Desjardins seemed to grow impatient. He stepped forward and glared at us. “You are lying. That could not have been Set. He would need a powerful host to remain in this world. Very powerful.”
“Look, you,” Sadie said. “I don’t know what all this rubbish is about hosts, but I saw Set with my own eyes. You were there at the British Museum—you must have done, too. And if Carter saw him in Phoenix, Arizona, then…” She looked at me doubtfully. “Then he’s probably not crazy.”
“Thanks, Sis,” I mumbled, but Sadie was just getting started.
“And as for Serqet, she’s real too! Our friend, my cat, Bast, died protecting us!”
“So,” Desjardins said coldly, “you admit to consorting with gods. That makes our investigation much easier. Bast is not your friend. The gods caused the downfall of Egypt. It is forbidden to call on their powers. Magicians are sworn to keep the gods from interfering in the mortal world. We must use all our power to fight them.”
“Bast said you were paranoid,” Sadie added.
The magician clenched his fists, and the air tingled with the weird smell of ozone, like during a thunderstorm. The hairs on my neck stood straight up. Before anything bad could happen, Zia stepped in front of us.
“Lord Desjardins,” she pleaded, “there was something strange. When I ensnared the scorpion goddess, she re-formed almost instantly. I could not return her to the Duat, even with the Seven Ribbons. I could only break her hold on the host for a moment. Perhaps the rumors of other escapes—”
“What other escapes?” I asked.
She glanced at me reluctantly. “Other gods, many of them, released since last night from artifacts all over the world. Like a chain reaction—”
“Zia!” Desjardins snapped. “That information is not for sharing.”
“Look,” I said, “lord, sir, whatever—Bast warned us this would happen. She said Set would release more gods.”
“Master,” Zia pleaded, “if Ma’at is weakening, if Set is increasing chaos, perhaps that is why I could not banish Serqet.”
“Ridiculous,” Desjardins said. “You are skilled, Zia, but perhaps you were not skilled enough for this encounter. And as for these two, the contamination must be contained.”
Zia’s face reddened. She turned her attention to Iskandar. “Master, please. Give me a chance with them.”
“You forget your place,” Desjardins snapped. “These two are guilty and must be destroyed.”
My throat started closing up. I looked at Sadie. If we had to make a run for it down that long hall, I didn’t like our chances….
The old man finally looked up. He smiled at Zia with true affection. For a second I wondered if she were his great-great-great-granddaughter or something. He spoke in Greek, and Zia bowed deeply.
Desjardins looked ready to explode. He swept his robes away from his feet and marched behind the throne.
“The Chief Lector will allow Zia to test you,” he growled. “Meanwhile, I will seek out the truth—or the lies—in your story. You will be punished for the lies.”
I turned to Iskandar and copied Zia’s bow. Sadie did the same.
“Thank you, master,” I said.
The old man studied me for a long time. Again I felt as if he were trying to burn into my soul—not in an angry way. More out of concern. Then he mumbled something, and I understood two words: Nectanebo and ba.
He opened his hand and a flood of glowing hieroglyphs poured out, swarming around the dais. There was a blinding flash of light, and when I could see again, the dais was empty. The two men were gone.
Zia turned toward us, her expression grim. “I will show you to your quarters. In the morning, your testing begins. We will see what magic you know, and how you know it.”
I wasn’t sure what she meant by that, but I exchanged an uneasy look with Sadie.
“Sounds fun,” Sadie ventured. “And if we fail this test?”
Zia regarded her coldly. “This is not the sort of test you fail, Sadie Kane. You pass or you die.”
SADIE
15. A Godly Birthday Party
THEY TOOK CARTER TO A DIFFERENT dormitory, so I don’t know how he slept. But I couldn’t get a wink.
It would’ve been hard enough with Zia’s comments about passing our tests or dying, but the girls’ dormitory just wasn’t as posh as Amos’s mansion. The stone walls sweated moisture. Creepy pictures of Egyptian monsters danced across the ceiling in the torchlight. I got a floating cot to sleep in, and the other girls in training—initiates, Zia had called them—were much younger than me, so when the old dorm matron told them to go to sleep straightaway, they actually obeyed. The matron waved her hand and the torches went out. She shut the door behind her, and I could hear the sound of locks clicking.
Lovely. Imprisoned in a nursery school dungeon.
I stared into the dark until I heard the other girls snoring. A single thought kept bothering me: an urge I just couldn’t shake. Finally I crept out of bed and tugged on my boots.
I felt my way to the door. I tugged at the handle. Locked, as I suspected. I was tempted to kick it till I remembered what Zia had done in the Cairo Airport broom closet.
I pressed my palm against the door and whispered, “Sahad.”
Locks clicked. The door swung open. Handy trick.
Outside, the corridors were dark and empty. Apparently, there wasn’t much nightlife in the First Nome. I sneaked through the city back the way we’d come and saw nothing but an occasional cobra slithering across the floor. After the last couple of days, that didn’t even faze me. I thought about trying to find Carter, but I wasn’t sure where they’d taken him, and honestly, I wanted to do this on my own.
After our last argument in New York, I wasn’t sure how I felt about my brother. The idea that he could be jealous of my life while he got to travel the world with Dad—please! And he had the nerve to call my life normal? All right, I had a few mates at school like Liz and Emma, but my life was hardly easy. If Carter made a social faux pas or met people he didn’t like, he could just move on! I had to stay put. I couldn’t answer simple questions like “Where are your parents?” or “What does your family do?” or even “Where are you from?” without exposing just how odd my situation was. I was always the different girl. The mixed-race girl, the American who wasn’t American, the girl whose mother had died, the girl with the absent father, the girl who made trouble in class, the girl who couldn’t concentrate on her lessons. After a while one learns that blending in simply doesn’t work. If people are going to single me out, I might as well give them something to stare at. Red stripes in my hair? Why not! Combat boots with the school uniform? Absolutely. Headmaster says, “I’ll have to call your parents, young lady.” I say, “Good luck.” Carter didn’t know anything about my life.
But enough of that. The point was, I decided to do this particular bit of exploring alone, and after a few wrong turns, I found my way back to the Hall of Ages.
What was I up to, you may ask? I certainly didn’t want to meet Monsieur Evil again or creepy old Lord Salamander.
But I did want to see those images—memories, Zia had called them.
I pushed open the bronze doors. Inside, the hall seemed deserted. No balls of fire floated around the ceiling. No glowing hieroglyphs. But images still shimmered between the columns, washing the hall with strange, multicolored light.
I took a few nervous steps.
I wanted another look at the Age of the Gods. On our first trip through the hall, something about those images had shaken me. I knew Carter thought I’d gone into a dangerous trance, and Zia had warned that the scenes would melt my brain; but I had a feeling she was just trying to scare me off. I felt a connection to those images, like there was an answer within—a vital piece of information I needed.
I stepped off the carpet and approached the curtain of golden light. I saw sand dunes shifting in the wind, storm clouds brewing, crocodiles sliding down the Nile. I saw a vast hall full of revelers. I touched the image.
And I was in the palace of the gods.
Huge beings swirled around me, changing shape from human to animal to pure energy. On a throne in the center of the room sat a muscular African man in rich black robes. He had a handsome face and warm brown eyes. His hands looked strong enough to crush rocks.
The other gods celebrated round him. Music played—a sound so powerful that the air burned. At the man’s side stood a beautiful woman in white, her belly swollen as if she were a few months pregnant. Her form flickered; at times she seemed to have multicolored wings. Then she turned in my direction and I gasped. She had my mother’s face.
She didn’t seem to notice me. In fact, none of the gods did, until a voice behind me said, “Are you a ghost?”
I turned and saw a good-looking boy of about sixteen, dressed in black robes. His complexion was pale, but he had lovely brown eyes like the man on the throne. His black hair was long and tousled—rather wild, but it worked for me. He tilted his head, and it finally occurred to me that he’d asked me a question.
I tried to think of something to say. Excuse me? Hello? Marry me? Anything would’ve done. But all I could manage was a shake of the head.
“Not a ghost, eh?” he mused. “A ba then?” He gestured towards the throne. “Watch, but do not interfere.”
Somehow I wasn’t interested in watching the throne so much, but the boy in black dissolved into a shadow and disappeared, leaving me no further distraction.
“Isis,” said the man on the throne.
The pregnant woman turned towards him and beamed. “My lord Osiris. Happy birthday.”
“Thank you, my love. And soon we shall mark the birth of our son—Horus, the great one! His new incarnation shall be his greatest yet. He shall bring peace and prosperity to the world.”
Isis took her husband’s hand. Music kept playing around them, gods celebrating, the very air swirling in a dance of creation.
Suddenly the palace doors blew open. A hot wind made the torches sputter.
A man strode into the hall. He was tall and strong, almost a twin to Osiris, but with dark red skin, blood-colored robes, and a pointed beard. He looked human, except when he smiled. Then his teeth turned to fangs. His face flickered—sometimes human, sometimes strangely wolflike. I had to stifle a scream, because I’d seen that wolfish face before.
The dancing stopped. The music died.
Osiris rose from his throne. “Set,” he said in a dangerous tone. “Why have you come?”
Set laughed, and the tension in the room broke. Despite his cruel eyes, he had a wonderful laugh—nothing like the screeching he’d done at the British Museum. It was carefree and friendly, as if he couldn’t possibly mean any harm.
“I come to celebrate my brother’s birthday, of course!” he exclaimed. “And I bring entertainment!”
He gestured behind him. Four huge men with the heads of wolves marched into the room, carrying a jewel-encrusted golden coffin.
My heart began to race. It was the same box Set had used to imprison my dad at the British Museum.
No! I wanted to scream. Don’t trust him!
But the assembled gods oohed and aahed, admiring the box, which was painted with gold and red hieroglyphs, trimmed with jade and opals. The wolf-men set down the box, and I saw it had no lid. The interior was lined with black linen.
“This sleeping casket,” Set announced, “was made by my finest craftsmen, using the most expensive materials. Its value is beyond measure. The god who lies within, even for a night, will see his powers increase tenfold! His wisdom will never falter. His strength will never fail. It is a gift”—he smiled slyly at Osiris—“for the one and only god who fits within perfectly!”
I wouldn’t have queued up first, but the gods surged forward. They pushed each other out of the way to get at the golden coffin. Some climbed in but were too short. Others were much too big. Even when they tried to change their shapes, the gods had no luck, as if the magic of the box were thwarting them. No one fit exactly. Gods grumbled and complained as others, anxious to try, pushed them to the floor.
Set turned to Osiris with a good-natured laugh. “Well, brother, we have no winner yet. Will you try? Only the best of the gods can succeed.”
Osiris’s eyes gleamed. Apparently he wasn’t the god of brains, because he seemed completely taken in by the box’s beauty. All the other gods looked at him expectantly, and I could see what he was thinking: if he fit in the box, what a brilliant birthday present. Even Set, his wicked brother, would have to admit that he was the rightful king of the gods.
Only Isis seemed troubled. She laid her hand on her husband’s shoulder. “My lord, do not. Set does not bring presents.”
“I am offended!” Set sounded genuinely hurt. “Can I not celebrate my brother’s birthday? Are we so estranged that I cannot even apologize to the king?”
Osiris smiled at Isis. “My dear, it is only a game. Fear nothing.”
He rose from his throne. The gods applauded as he approached the box.
“All hail Osiris!” Set cried.
The king of the gods lowered himself into the box, and when he glanced in my direction, just for a moment, he had my father’s face.
No! I thought again. Don’t do it!
But Osiris lay down. The coffin fit him exactly.
A cheer went up from the gods, but before Osiris could rise, Set clapped his hands. A golden lid materialized above the box and slammed down on top of it.
Osiris shouted in rage, but his cries were muffled.
Golden latches fastened around the lid. The other gods surged forward to intervene—even the boy in black I’d seen earlier reappeared—but Set was faster. He stamped his foot so hard, the stone floor trembled. The gods toppled over each other like dominoes. The wolf-men drew their spears, and the gods scrambled away in terror.
Set said a magic word, and a boiling cauldron appeared out of thin air. It poured its contents over the coffin—molten lead, coating the box, sealing it shut, probably heating the interior to a thousand degrees.
“Villain!” Isis wailed. She advanced on Set and began to speak a spell, but Set held up his hand. Isis rose from the floor, clawing at her mouth, her lips pressed as if an invisible force were suffocating her.
“Not today, lovely Isis,” Set purred. “Today, I am king. And your child shall never be born!”
Suddenly, another goddess—a slender woman in a blue dress—charged out of the crowd. “Husband, no!”
She tackled Set, who momentarily lost his concentration. Isis fell to the floor, gasping. The other goddess yelled, “Flee!”
Isis turned and ran.
Set rose. I thought he would hit the goddess in blue, but he only snarled. “Foolish wife! Whose side are you on?”
He stamped his foot again, and the golden coffin sank into the floor.
Set raced after Isis. At the edge of the palace, Isis turned into a small bird of prey and soared into the air. Set sprouted demon’s wings and launched himself in pursuit.
Then suddenly I was the bird. I was Isis, flying desperately over the Nile. I could sense Set behind me—closing. Closing.
You must escape, the voice of Isis said in my mind. Avenge Osiris. Crown Horus king!
Just when I thought my heart would burst, I felt a hand on my shoulder. The images evaporated.
The old master, Iskandar, stood next to me, his face pinched with concern. Glowing hieroglyphs danced round him.
“Forgive the interruption,” he said in perfect English. “But you were almost dead.”
That’s when my knees turned to water, and I lost consciousness.
When I awoke, I was curled at Iskandar’s feet on the steps below the empty throne. We were alone in the hall, which was mostly dark except for the light from the hieroglyphs that always seemed to glow around him.
“Welcome back,” he said. “You’re lucky you survived.”
I wasn’t so sure. My head felt like it had been boiled in oil.
“I’m sorry,” I said. “I didn’t mean to—”
“Look at the images? And yet you did. Your ba left your body and entered the past. Hadn’t you been warned?”
“Yes,” I admitted. “But…I was drawn to the pictures.”
“Mmm.” Iskandar stared into space, as if remembering something from long ago. “They are hard to resist.”
“You speak perfect English,” I noticed.
Iskandar smiled. “How do you know I’m speaking English? Perhaps you are speaking Greek.”
I hoped he was kidding, but I couldn’t tell. He seemed so frail and warm, and yet…it was like sitting next to a nuclear reactor. I had a feeling he was full of more danger than I wanted to know.
“You’re not really that old, are you?” I asked. “I mean, old enough to remember Ptolemaic times?”
“I am exactly that old, my dear. I was born in the reign of Cleopatra VII.”
“Oh, please.”
“I assure you, it’s true. It was my sorrow to behold the last days of Egypt, before that foolhardy queen lost our kingdom to the Romans. I was the last magician to be trained before the House went underground. Many of our most powerful secrets were lost, including the spells my master used to extend my life. Magicians these days still live long—sometimes centuries—but I have been alive for two millennia.”
“So you’re immortal?”
His chuckle turned into a racking cough. He doubled over and cupped his hands over his mouth. I wanted to help, but I wasn’t sure how. The glowing hieroglyphs flickered and dimmed around him.
Finally the coughing subsided.
He took a shaky breath. “Hardly immortal, my dear. In fact…” His voice trailed off. “But never mind that. What did you see in your vision?”
I probably should’ve kept quiet. I didn’t want to be turned into a bug for breaking any rules, and the vision had terrified me—especially the moment when I’d changed into the bird of prey. But Iskandar’s kindly expression made it hard to hold back. I ended up telling him everything. Well, almost everything. I left out the bit about the good-looking boy, and yes, I know it was silly, but I was embarrassed. I reckoned that part could’ve been my own crazed imagination at work, as Ancient Egyptian gods could not have been that gorgeous.
Iskandar sat for a moment, tapping his staff against the steps. “You saw a very old event, Sadie—Set taking the throne of Egypt by force. He hid Osiris’s coffin, you know, and Isis searched the entire world to find it.”
“So she got him back eventually?”
“Not exactly. Osiris was resurrected—but only in the Underworld. He became the king of the dead. When their son, Horus, grew up, Horus challenged Set for the throne of Egypt and won after many hard battles. That is why Horus was called the Avenger. As I said—an old story, but one that the gods have repeated many times in our history.”
“Repeated?”
“The gods follow patterns. In some ways they are quite predictable: acting out the same squabbles, the same jealousies down through the ages. Only the settings change, and the hosts.”
There was that word again: hosts. I thought about the poor woman in the New York museum who’d turned into the goddess Serqet.
“In my vision,” I said, “Isis and Osiris were married. Horus was about to be born as their son. But in another story Carter told me, all three of them were siblings, children of the sky goddess.”
“Yes,” Iskandar agreed. “This can be confusing for those who do not know the nature of gods. They cannot walk the earth in their pure form—at least, not for more than a few moments. They must have hosts.”
“Humans, you mean.”
“Or powerful objects, such as statues, amulets, monuments, certain models of cars. But they prefer human form. You see gods have great power, but only humans have creativity, the power to change history rather than simply repeat it. Humans can…how do you moderns say it…think outside the cup.”
“The box,” I suggested.
“Yes. The combination of human creativity and godly power can be quite formidable. At any rate, when Osiris and Isis first walked the earth, their hosts were brother and sister. But mortal hosts are not permanent. They die, they wear out. Later in history, Osiris and Isis took new forms—humans who were husband and wife. Horus, who in one lifetime was their brother, was born into a new life as their son.”
“That’s confusing,” I said. “And a little gross.”
Iskandar shrugged. “The gods do not think of relationships the way we humans do. Their hosts are merely like changes of clothes. This is why the ancient stories seem so mixed up. Sometimes the gods are described as married, or siblings, or parent and child, depending on their hosts. The pharaoh himself was called a living god, you know. Egyptologists believe this was just a lot of propaganda, but in fact it was often literally true. The greatest of the pharaohs became hosts for gods, usually Horus. He gave them power and wisdom, and let them build Egypt into a mighty empire.”
“But that’s good, isn’t it? Why is it against the law to host a god?”
Iskandar’s face darkened. “Gods have different agendas than humans do, Sadie. They can overpower their hosts, literally burn them out. That is why so many hosts die young. Tutankhamen, poor boy, died at nineteen. Cleopatra VII was even worse. She tried to host the spirit of Isis without knowing what she was doing, and it shattered her mind. In the old days, the House of Life taught the use of divine magic. Initiates could study the path of Horus, or Isis, or Sekhmet, or any number of gods, learning to channel their powers. We had many more initiates back then.”
Iskandar looked round the empty hall, as if imagining it filled with magicians. “Some adepts could call upon the gods only from time to time. Others attempted to host their spirits…with varying degrees of success. The ultimate goal was to become the ‘eye’ of the god—a perfect union of the two souls, mortal and immortal. Very few achieved this, even among the pharaohs, who were born to the task. Many destroyed themselves trying.” He turned up his palm, which had the most deeply etched lifeline I’d ever seen. “When Egypt finally fell to the Romans, it became clear to us—to me—that mankind, our rulers, even the strongest magicians, no longer had the strength of will to master a god’s power. The only ones who could…” His voice faltered.
“What?”
“Nothing, my dear. I talk too much. An old man’s weakness.”
“It’s the blood of the pharaohs, isn’t it?”
He fixed me in his gaze. His eyes no longer looked milky. They burned with intensity. “You are a remarkable young girl. You remind me of your mother.”
My mouth fell open. “You knew her?”
“Of course. She trained here, as did your father. Your mother…well, aside from being a brilliant scientist, she had the gift of divination. One of the most difficult forms of magic, and she was the first in centuries to possess it.”
“Divination?”
“Seeing the future. Tricky business, never perfect, but she saw things that made her seek advice from…unconventional places, things that made even this old man question some long-held beliefs…”
He drifted off into Memoryland again, which was infuriating enough when my grandparents did it, but when it’s an all-powerful magician who has valuable information, it’s enough to drive one mad.
“Iskandar?”
He looked at me with mild surprise, as if he’d forgotten I was there. “I’m sorry, Sadie. I should come to the point: you have a hard path ahead of you, but I’m convinced now it’s a path you must take, for all our sakes. Your brother will need your guidance.”
I was tempted to laugh. “Carter, need my guidance? For what? What path do you mean?”
“All in good time. Things must take their course.”
Typical adult answer. I tried to bite back my frustration. “And what if I need guidance?”
“Zia,” he said, without hesitation. “She is my best pupil, and she is wise. When the time comes, she will know how to help you.”
“Right,” I said, a bit disappointed. “Zia.”
“For now you should rest, my dear. And it seems I, too, can rest at last.” He sounded sad but relieved. I didn’t know what he was talking about, but he didn’t give me the chance to ask.
“I am sorry our time together was so brief,” he said. “Sleep well, Sadie Kane.”
“But—”
Iskandar touched my forehead. And I fell into a deep, dreamless sleep.
SADIE
16. How Zia Lost Her Eyebrows
I WOKE TO A BUCKET OF ICE WATER IN MY FACE.
“Sadie! Get up,” Zia said.
“God!” I yelled. “Was that necessary?”
“No,” Zia admitted.
I wanted to strangle her, except I was dripping wet, shivering, and still disoriented. How long had I slept? It felt like only a few minutes, but the dormitory was empty. All the other cots were made. The girls must’ve already gone to their morning lessons.
Zia tossed me a towel and some fresh linen clothes. “We’ll meet Carter in the cleansing room.”
“I just got a bath, thanks very much. What I need is a proper breakfast.”
“The cleansing prepares you for magic.” Zia slung her bag of tricks over her shoulder and unfolded the long black staff she’d used in New York. “If you survive, we’ll see about food.”
I was tired of being reminded that I might die, but I got dressed and followed her out.
After another endless series of tunnels, we came to a chamber with a roaring waterfall. There was no ceiling, just a shaft above us that seemed to go up forever. Water fell from the darkness into a fountain, splashing over a five-meter-tall statue of that bird-headed god. What was his name—Tooth? No, Thoth. The water cascaded over his head, collected in his palms, then spilled out into the pool.
Carter stood beside the fountain. He was dressed in linen with Dad’s workbag over one shoulder and his sword strapped to his back. His hair was rumpled, as if he hadn’t slept well. At least he hadn’t been doused in ice water. Seeing him, I felt a strange sense of relief. I thought about Iskandar’s words last night: Your brother will need your guidance.
“What?” Carter asked. “You’re staring at me funny.”
“Nothing,” I said quickly. “How’d you sleep?”
“Badly. I’ll…I’ll tell you about it later.”
Was it my imagination, or did he frown in Zia’s direction? Hmm, possible romantic trouble between Miss Magic and my brother? I made a mental note to interrogate him next time we were alone.
Zia went to a nearby cabinet. She brought out two ceramic cups, dipped them into the fountain, then offered them to us. “Drink.”
I glanced at Carter. “After you.”
“It’s only water,” Zia assured me, “but purified by contact with Thoth. It will focus your mind.”
I didn’t see how a statue could purify water. Then I remembered what Iskandar had said, how gods could inhabit anything.
I took a drink. Immediately I felt like I’d had a good strong cup of Gran’s tea. My brain buzzed. My eyesight sharpened. I felt so hyperactive, I almost didn’t miss my chewing gum—almost.
Carter sipped from his cup. “Wow.”
“Now the tattoos,” Zia announced.
“Brilliant!” I said.
“On your tongue,” she added.
“Excuse me?”
Zia stuck out her tongue. Right in the middle was a blue hieroglyph.
“Nith ith Naat,” she tried to say with her tongue out. Then she realized her mistake and stuck her tongue back in. “I mean, this is Ma’at, the symbol of order and harmony. It will help you speak magic clearly. One mistake with a spell—”
“Let me guess,” I said. “We’ll die.”
From her cabinet of horrors, Zia produced a fine-tipped paintbrush and a bowl of blue dye. “It doesn’t hurt. And it’s not permanent.”
“How does it taste?” Carter wondered.
Zia smiled. “Stick out your tongue.”
To answer Carter’s question, the tattoo tasted like burning car tires.
“Ugh.” I spit a blue gob of “order and harmony” into the fountain. “Never mind breakfast. Lost my appetite.”
Zia pulled a leather satchel out of the cabinet. “Carter will be allowed to keep your father’s magic implements, plus a new staff and wand. Generally speaking, the wand is for defense, the staff is for offense, although, Carter, you may prefer to use your khopesh.”
“Khopesh?”
“The curved sword,” Zia said. “A favored weapon of the pharaoh’s guard. It can be used in combat magic. As for Sadie, you will need a full kit.”
“How come he gets Dad’s kit?” I complained.
“He is the eldest,” she said, as if that explained everything. Typical.
Zia tossed me the leather satchel. Inside was an ivory wand, a rod that I supposed turned into a staff, some paper, an ink set, a bit of twine, and a lovely chunk of wax. I was less than thrilled.
“What about a little wax man?” I asked. “I want a Doughboy.”
“If you mean a figurine, you must make one yourself. You will be taught how, if you have the skill. We will determine your specialty later.”
“Specialty?” Carter asked. “You mean like Nectanebo specialized in statues?”
Zia nodded. “Nectanebo was extremely skilled in statuary magic. He could make shabti so lifelike, they could pass for human. No one has ever been greater at statuary…except perhaps Iskandar. But there are many other disciplines: Healer. Amulet maker. Animal charmer. Elementalist. Combat magician. Necromancer.”
“Diviner?” I asked.
Zia looked at me curiously. “Yes, although that is quite rare. Why do you—”
I cleared my throat. “So how do we know our specialty?”
“It will become clear soon enough,” Zia promised, “but a good magician knows a bit of everything, which is why we start with a basic test. Let us go to the library.”
The First Nome’s library was like Amos’s, but a hundred times bigger, with circular rooms lined with honeycomb shelves that seemed to go on forever, like the world’s largest beehive. Clay shabti statues kept popping in and out, retrieving scroll canisters and disappearing, but we saw no other people.
Zia brought us to a wooden table and spread out a long, blank papyrus scroll. She picked up a stylus and dipped it in ink.
“The Egyptian word shesh means scribe or writer, but it can also mean magician. This is because magic, at its most basic, turns words into reality. You will create a scroll. Using your own magic, you will send power into the words on paper. When spoken, the words will unleash the magic.”
She handed the stylus to Carter.
“I don’t get it,” he protested.
“A simple word,” she suggested. “It can be anything.”
“In English?”
Zia curled her lip. “If you must. Any language will work, but hieroglyphics are best. They are the language of creation, of magic, of Ma’at. You must be careful, however.”
Before she could explain, Carter drew a simple hieroglyph of a bird.
The picture wriggled, peeled itself off the papyrus, and flew away. It splattered Carter’s head with some hieroglyphic droppings on its way out. I couldn’t help laughing at Carter’s expression.
“A beginner’s mistake,” Zia said, scowling at me to be quiet. “If you use a symbol that stands for something alive, it is wise to write it only partially—leave off a wing, or the legs. Otherwise the magic you channel could make it come alive.”
“And poop on its creator.” Carter sighed, wiping off his hair with a bit of scrap papyrus. “That’s why our father’s wax statue, Doughboy, has no legs, right?”
“The same principle,” Zia agreed. “Now, try again.”
Carter stared at Zia’s staff, which was covered in hieroglyphics. He picked the most obvious one and copied it on the papyrus—the symbol for fire.
Uh-oh, I thought. But the word did not come alive, which would’ve been rather exciting. It simply dissolved.
“Keep trying,” Zia urged.
“Why am I so tired?” Carter wondered.
He definitely looked exhausted. His face was beaded with sweat.
“You’re channeling magic from within,” Zia said. “For me, fire is easy. But it may not be the most natural type of magic for you. Try something else. Summon…summon a sword.”
Zia showed him how to form the hieroglyph, and Carter wrote it on the papyrus. Nothing happened.
“Speak it,” Zia said.
“Sword,” Carter said. The word glowed and vanished, and a butter knife lay on the papyrus.
I laughed. “Terrifying!”
Carter looked like he was about to pass out, but he managed a grin. He picked up the knife and threatened to poke me with it.
“Very good for a first time,” Zia said. “Remember, you are not creating the knife yourself. You are summoning it from Ma’at—the creative power of the universe. Hieroglyphs are the code we use. That’s why they are called Divine Words. The more powerful the magician, the easier it becomes to control the language.”
I caught my breath. “Those hieroglyphs floating in the Hall of Ages. They seemed to gather around Iskandar. Was he summoning them?”
“Not exactly,” Zia said. “His presence is so strong, he makes the language of the universe visible simply by being in the room. No matter what our specialty, each magician’s greatest hope is to become a speaker of the Divine Words—to know the language of creation so well that we can fashion reality simply by speaking, not even using a scroll.”
“Like saying shatter,” I ventured. “And having a door explode.”
Zia scowled. “Yes, but such a thing would take years of practice.”
“Really? Well—”
Out of the corner of my eye, I saw Carter shaking his head, silently warning me to shut up.
“Um…” I stammered. “Some day, I’ll learn to do that.”
Zia raised an eyebrow. “First, master the scroll.”
I was getting tired of her attitude, so I picked up the stylus and wrote Fire in English.
Zia leaned forward and frowned. “You shouldn’t—”
Before she could finish, a column of flame erupted in her face. I screamed, sure I’d done something horrible, but when the fire died Zia was still there, looking astonished, her eyebrows singed and her bangs smoldering.
“Oh, god,” I said. “Sorry, sorry. Do I die now?”
For three heartbeats, Zia stared at me.
“Now,” she announced. “I think you are ready to duel.”
We used another magic gateway, which Zia summoned right on the library wall. We stepped into a circle of swirling sand and popped out the other side, covered in dust and grit, in the front of some ruins. The harsh sunlight almost blinded me.
“I hate portals,” Carter muttered, brushing the sand out of his hair.
Then he looked around and his eyes widened. “This is Luxor! That’s, like, hundreds of miles south of Cairo.”
I sighed. “And that amazes you after teleporting from New York?”
He was too busy checking out our surroundings to answer.
I suppose the ruins were all right, though once you’ve seen one pile of crumbly Egyptian stuff, you’ve seen them all, I say. We stood on a wide avenue flanked by human-headed beasties, most of which were broken. The road went on behind us as far as I could see, but in front of us it ended at a temple much bigger than the one in the New York museum.
The walls were at least six stories high. Big stone pharaohs stood guard on either side of the entrance, and a single obelisk stood on the left-hand side. It looked as if one used to stand on the right as well, but it was now gone.
“Luxor is a modern name,” Zia said. “This was once the city of Thebes. This temple was one of the most important in Egypt. It is the best place for us to practice.”
“Because it’s already destroyed?” I asked.
Zia gave me one of her famous scowls. “No, Sadie—because it is still full of magic. And it was sacred to your family.”
“Our family?” Carter asked.
Zia didn’t explain, as usual. She just gestured for us to follow.
“I don’t like those ugly sphinxes,” I mumbled as we walked down the path.
“Those ugly sphinxes are creatures of law and order,” Zia said, “protectors of Egypt. They are on our side.”
“If you say so.”
Carter nudged me as we passed the obelisk. “You know the missing one is in Paris.”
I rolled my eyes. “Thank you, Mr. Wikipedia. I thought they were in New York and London.”
“That’s a different pair,” Carter said, like I was supposed to care. “The other Luxor obelisk is in Paris.”
“Wish I was in Paris,” I said. “Lot better than this place.”
We walked into a dusty courtyard surrounded by crumbling pillars and statues with various missing body parts. Still, I could tell the place had once been quite impressive.
“Where are the people?” I asked. “Middle of the day, winter holidays. Shouldn’t there be loads of tourists?”
Zia made a distasteful expression. “Usually, yes. I have encouraged them to stay away for a few hours.”
“How?”
“Common minds are easy to manipulate.” She looked pointedly at me, and I remembered how she’d forced me to talk in the New York museum. Oh, yes, she was just begging for more scorched eyebrows.
“Now, to the duel.” She summoned her staff and drew two circles in the sand about ten meters apart. She directed me to stand in one of them and Carter in the other.
“I’ve got to duel him?” I asked.
I found the idea preposterous. The only thing Carter had shown aptitude for was summoning butter knives and pooping birds. Well, all right, and that bit on the chasm bridge deflecting the daggers, but still—what if I hurt him? As annoying as Carter might be, I didn’t want to accidentally summon that glyph I’d made in Amos’s house and explode him to bits.
Perhaps Carter was thinking the same thing, because he’d started to sweat. “What if we do something wrong?” he asked.
“I will oversee the duel,” Zia promised. “We will start slowly. The first magician to knock the other out of his or her circle wins.”
“But we haven’t been trained!” I protested.
“One learns by doing,” Zia said. “This is not school, Sadie. You cannot learn magic by sitting at a desk and taking notes. You can only learn magic by doing magic.”
“But—”
“Summon whatever power you can,” Zia said. “Use whatever you have available. Begin!”
I looked at Carter doubtfully. Use whatever I have? I opened the leather satchel and looked inside. A lump of wax? Probably not. I drew the wand and rod. Immediately, the rod expanded until I was holding a two-meter-long white staff.
Carter drew his sword, though I couldn’t imagine what he’d do with it. Rather hard to hit me from ten meters away.
I wanted this over, so I raised my staff like I’d seen Zia do. I thought the word Fire.
A small flame sputtered to life on the end of the staff. I willed it to get bigger. The fire momentarily brightened, but then my eyesight went fuzzy. The flame died. I fell to my knees, feeling as if I’d run a marathon.
“You okay?” Carter called.
“No,” I complained.
“If she knocks herself out, do I win?” he asked.
“Shut up!” I said.
“Sadie, you must be careful,” Zia called. “You drew from your own reserves, not from the staff. You can quickly deplete your magic.”
I got shakily to my feet. “Explain?”
“A magician begins a duel full of magic, the way you might be full after a good meal—”
“Which I never got,” I reminded her.
“Each time you do magic,” Zia continued, “you expend energy. You can draw energy from yourself, but you must know your limits. Otherwise you could exhaust yourself, or worse.”
I swallowed and looked at my smoldering staff. “How much worse?”
“You could literally burn up.”
I hesitated, thinking how to ask my next question without saying too much. “But I’ve done magic before. Sometimes it doesn’t exhaust me. Why?”
From around her neck, Zia unclasped an amulet. She threw it into the air, and with a flash it turned into a giant vulture. The massive black bird soared over the ruins. As soon as it was out of sight, Zia extended her hand and the amulet appeared in her palm.
“Magic can be drawn from many sources,” she said. “It can be stored in scrolls, wands, or staffs. Amulets are especially powerful. Magic can also be drawn straight from Ma’at, using the Divine Words, but this is difficult. Or”—she locked eyes with me—“it can be summoned from the gods.”
“Why are you looking at me?” I demanded. “I didn’t summon any gods. They just seem to find me!”
She put on her necklace but said nothing.
“Hold on,” Carter said. “You claimed this place was sacred to our family.”
“It was,” Zia agreed.
“But wasn’t this…” Carter frowned. “Didn’t the pharaohs have a yearly festival here or something?”
“Indeed,” she said. “The pharaoh would walk down the processional path all the way from Karnak to Luxor. He would enter the temple and become one with the gods. Sometimes, this was purely ceremonial. Sometimes, with the great pharaohs like Ramesses, here—” Zia pointed to one of the huge crumbling statues.
“They actually hosted the gods,” I interrupted, remembering what Iskandar had said.
Zia narrowed her eyes. “And yet you claim to know nothing of your family’s past.”
“Wait a second,” Carter protested. “You’re saying we’re related to—”
“The gods choose their hosts carefully,” Zia said. “They always prefer the blood of the pharaohs. When a magician has the blood of two royal families…”
I exchanged looks with Carter. Something Bast said came back to me: “Your family was born to magic.” And Amos had told us that both sides of our family had a complicated history with the gods, and that Carter and I were the most powerful children to be born in centuries. A bad feeling settled over me, like an itchy blanket prickling against my skin.
“Our parents were from different royal lines,” I said. “Dad…he must’ve been descended from Narmer, the first pharaoh. I told you he looked like that picture!”
“That’s not possible,” Carter said. “That was five thousand years ago.” But I could see his mind was racing. “Then the Fausts…” He turned to Zia. “Ramesses the Great built this courtyard. You’re telling me our mom’s family is descended from him?”
Zia sighed. “Don’t tell me your parents kept this from you. Why do you think you are so dangerous to us?”
“You think we’re hosting gods,” I said, absolutely stunned. “That’s what you’re worried about—just because of something our great-times-a-thousand grandparents did? That’s completely daft.”
“Then prove it!” Zia said. “Duel, and show me how weak your magic is!”
She turned her back on us, as if we were completely unimportant.
Something inside me snapped. I’d had the worst two days ever. I’d lost my father, my home, and my cat, been attacked by monsters and had ice water dumped on my head. Now this witch was turning her back on me. She didn’t want to train us. She wanted to see how dangerous we were.
Well, fine.
“Um, Sadie?” Carter called. He must’ve seen from my expression that I was beyond reason.
I focused on my staff. Maybe not fire. Cats have always liked me. Maybe…
I threw my staff straight at Zia. It hit the ground at her heels and immediately transformed into a snarling she-lion. Zia whirled in surprise, but then everything went wrong.
The lion turned and charged at Carter, as if she knew I was supposed to be dueling him.
I had a split second to think: What have I done?
Then the cat lunged…and Carter’s form flickered. He rose off the ground, surrounded by a golden holographic shell like the one Bast had used, except that his giant image was a warrior with the head of a falcon. Carter swung his sword, and the falcon warrior did likewise, slicing the lion with a shimmering blade of energy. The cat dissolved in midair, and my staff clattered to the ground, cut neatly in half.
Carter’s avatar shimmered, then disappeared. He dropped to the ground and grinned. “Fun.”
He didn’t even look tired. Once I got over my relief that I hadn’t killed him, I realized I didn’t feel tired either. If anything, I had more energy.
I turned defiantly to Zia. “Well? Better, right?”
Her face was ashen. “The falcon. He—he summoned—”
Before she could finish, footsteps pounded on the stones. A young initiate raced into the courtyard, looking panicked. Tears streaked his dusty face. He said something to Zia in hurried Arabic. When Zia got his message, she sat down hard in the sand. She covered her face and began to tremble.
Carter and I left our dueling circles and ran to her.
“Zia?” Carter said. “What’s wrong?”
She took a deep breath, trying to gather her composure. When she looked up, her eyes were red. She said something to the adept, who nodded and ran back the way he’d come.
“News from the First Nome,” she said shakily. “Iskandar…” Her voice broke.
I felt as if a giant fist had punched me in the stomach. I thought about Iskandar’s strange words last night: It seems I, too, can rest at last. “He’s dead, isn’t he? That’s what he meant.”
Zia stared at me. “What do you mean: ‘That’s what he meant’?”
“I…” I was about to say that I’d spoken with Iskandar the night before. Then I realized this might not be a good thing to mention. “Nothing. How did it happen?”
“In his sleep,” Zia said. “He—he had been ailing for years, of course. But still…”
“It’s okay,” Carter said. “I know he was important to you.”
She wiped at her tears, then rose unsteadily. “You don’t understand. Desjardins is next in line. As soon as he is named Chief Lector, he will order you executed.”
“But we haven’t done anything!” I said.
Zia’s eyes flashed with anger. “You still don’t realize how dangerous you are? You are hosting gods.”
“Ridiculous,” I insisted, but an uneasy feeling was building inside me. If it were true…no, it couldn’t be! Besides, how could anyone, even a poxy old nutter like Desjardins, seriously execute children for something they weren’t even aware of?
“He will order me to bring you in,” Zia warned, “and I will have to obey.”
“You can’t!” Carter cried. “You saw what happened in the museum. We’re not the problem. Set is. And if Desjardins isn’t taking that seriously…well, maybe he’s part of the problem too.”
Zia gripped her staff. I was sure she was going to fry us with a fireball, but she hesitated.
“Zia.” I decided to take a risk. “Iskandar talked with me last night. He caught me sneaking around the Hall of Ages.”
She looked at me in shock. I reckoned I had only seconds before that shock turned to anger.
“He said you were his best pupil,” I recalled. “He said you were wise. He also said Carter and I have a difficult path ahead of us, and you would know how to help us when the time came.”
Her staff smoldered. Her eyes reminded me of glass about to shatter.
“Desjardins will kill us,” I persisted. “Do you think that’s what Iskandar had in mind?”
I counted to five, six, seven. Just when I was sure she was going to blast us, she lowered her staff. “Use the obelisk.”
“What?” I asked.
“The obelisk at the entrance, fool! You have five minutes, perhaps less, before Desjardins sends orders for your execution. Flee, and destroy Set. The Demon Days begin at sundown. All portals will stop working. You need to get as close as possible to Set before that happens.”
“Hold on,” I said. “I meant you should come with us and help us! We can’t even use an obelisk, much less destroy Set!”
“I cannot betray the House,” she said. “You have four minutes now. If you can’t operate the obelisk, you’ll die.”
That was enough incentive for me. I started to drag Carter off, but Zia called: “Sadie?”
When I looked back, Zia’s eyes were full of bitterness.
“Desjardins will order me to hunt you down,” she warned. “Do you understand?”
Unfortunately, I did. The next time we met, we would be enemies.
I grabbed Carter’s hand and ran.