“Sadie, it’s all right.” Walt’s voice sounded deeper and more confident, as if he were older in the Duat. “Speak your spell. Hurry.”
The criosphinx flexed its jaws. The gold chains groaned. The other criosphinx had backed Carter against a wall. Felix was on his knees, his purple aura failing in a swirl of dark spirits. Alyssa was losing her battle against the crumbling room as chunks of the ceiling fell around her. The Anubis statue grabbed Khufu’s tail and held him upside down while the baboon howled and wrapped his arms around the gold cabinet.
Now or never: I had to restore order.
I channeled the power of Isis, drawing so deeply on my own magic reserves, I could feel my soul start to burn. I forced myself to focus, and I spoke the most powerful of all divine words: “Ma’at.”
The hieroglyph burned in front of me—small and bright like a miniature sun:
“Good!” Walt said. “Keep at it!” Somehow he’d managed to pull in the chains and grab the sphinx’s snout. While the creature bore down on him with all its force, Walt’s strange gray aura was spreading across the monster’s body like an infection. The criosphinx hissed and writhed. I caught a whiff of decay like the air from a tomb—so strong that I almost lost my concentration.
“Sadie,” Walt urged, “maintain the spell!”
I focused on the hieroglyph. I channeled all my energy into that symbol for order and creation. The word shone brighter. The coils of the serpent burned away like fog in sunlight. The two criosphinxes crumbled to dust. The canopic jars fell and shattered. The Anubis statue dropped Khufu on his head. The army of shabti froze around Alyssa, and her earth magic spread through the room, sealing cracks and shoring up walls.
I felt Apophis retreating deeper into the Duat, hissing in anger.
Then I promptly collapsed.
“I told you she could do it,” said a kindly voice.
My mother’s voice…but of course that was impossible. She was dead, which meant I spoke with her only occasionally, and only in the Underworld.
My vision returned, hazy and dim. Two women hovered over me. One was my mum—her blond hair clipped back, her deep blue eyes sparkling with pride. She was transparent, as ghosts tend to be; but her voice was warm and very much alive. “It isn’t the end yet, Sadie. You must carry on.”
Next to her stood Isis in her white silky gown, her wings of rainbow light flickering behind her. Her hair was glossy black, woven with strands of diamonds. Her face was as beautiful as my mum’s, but more queenly, less warm.
Don’t misunderstand. I knew from sharing Isis’s thoughts that she cared for me in her own way, but gods are not human. They have trouble thinking of us as more than useful tools or cute pets. To gods, a human life span doesn’t seem much longer than that of the average gerbil.
“I would not have believed it,” Isis said. “The last magician to summon Ma’at was Hatshepsut herself, and even she could only do it while wearing a fake beard.”
I had no idea what that meant. I decided I didn’t want to know.
I tried to move but couldn’t. I felt as if I were floating at the bottom of a bathtub, suspended in warm water, the two women’s faces rippling at me from just above the surface.
“Sadie, listen carefully,” my mother said. “Don’t blame yourself for the deaths. When you make your plan, your father will object. You must convince him. Tell him it’s the only way to save the souls of the dead. Tell him…” Her expression turned grim. “Tell him it’s the only way he’ll see me again. You must succeed, my sweet.”
I wanted to ask what she meant, but I couldn’t seem to speak.
Isis touched my forehead. Her fingers were as cold as snow. “We must not tax her any further. Farewell for now, Sadie. The time rapidly approaches when we must join together again. You are strong. Even stronger than your mother. Together we will rule the world.”
“You mean, Together we will defeat Apophis,” my mother corrected.
“Of course,” Isis said. “That’s what I meant.”
Their faces blurred together. They spoke in a single voice: “I love you.”
A blizzard swept across my eyes. My surroundings changed, and I was standing in a dark graveyard with Anubis. Not the musty old jackal-headed god as he appeared in Egyptian tomb art, but Anubis as I usually saw him—a teenaged boy with warm brown eyes, tousled black hair, and a face that was ridiculously, annoyingly gorgeous. I mean, please—being a god, he had an unfair advantage. He could look like anything he wanted. Why did he always have to appear in this form that twisted my insides to pretzels?
“Wonderful,” I managed to say. “If you’re here, I must be dead.”
Anubis smiled. “Not dead, though you came close. That was a risky move.”
A burning sensation started in my face and worked its way down my neck. I wasn’t sure if it was embarrassment, anger, or delight at seeing him.
“Where have you been?” I demanded. “Six months, not a word.”
His smile melted. “They wouldn’t let me see you.”
“Who wouldn’t let you?”
“There are rules,” he said. “Even now they’re watching; but you’re close enough to death that I can manage a few moments. I need to tell you: you have the right idea. Look at what isn’t there. It’s the only way you might survive.”
“Right,” I grumbled. “Thanks for not speaking in riddles.”
The warm sensation reached my heart. It began to beat, and suddenly I realized I’d been without a heartbeat since I’d passed out. That probably wasn’t good.
“Sadie, there’s something else.” Anubis’s voice became watery. His image began to fade. “I need to tell you—”
“Tell me in person,” I said. “None of this ‘death vision’ nonsense.”
“I can’t. They won’t let me.”