The Throne of Fire

paid a lot of attention to suits). The fabric shimmered like some bizarre mix of silk and aluminum foil. His shirt was black and collarless, and several pounds of platinum chains hung around his neck. The biggest piece of bling was a silver crescent amulet. When his fingers drummed on the back of my chair, his rings and platinum Rolex flashed. If I’d seen him in the mortal world, I might’ve guessed he was a young Native American billionaire casino owner. But here in the Duat, with that crescent-shaped amulet around his neck…

“Moon pie!” Ra cackled with delight.

“You’re Khonsu,” I guessed. “The moon god.”

He gave me a wolfish grin, looking at me as if I were an appetizer.

“At your service,” he said. “Care to play a game?”

“Not you,” Bes growled.

Khonsu spread his arms in a big air hug. “Bes, old buddy! How’ve you been?”

“Don’t ‘old buddy’ me, you scam artist.”

“I’m hurt!” Khonsu sat down on my right and leaned toward me conspiratorially. “Poor Bes gambled with me ages ago, you see. He wanted more time with Bast. He wagered a few feet of his height. I’m afraid he lost.”

“That’s not what happened!” Bes roared.

“Gentlemen,” my father said in his sternest Dad tone. “You are both guests at my table. I won’t have any fighting.”

“Absolutely, Osiris.” Khonsu beamed at him. “I’m honored to be here. And these are your famous children? Wonderful! Are you ready to play, kids?”

“Julius, they don’t understand the risks,” our mother protested. “We can’t let them do this.”

“Hang on,” Sadie said. “Do what, exactly?”

Khonsu snapped his fingers, and all the food on the table disappeared, replaced by a glowing silver senet board. “Haven’t you heard about me, Sadie? Didn’t Isis tell you some stories? Or Nut? Now, there was a gambler! The sky goddess wouldn’t stop playing until she’d won five whole days from me. Do you know the odds against winning that much time? Astronomical! Of course, she’s covered with stars, so I suppose she is astronomical.”

Khonsu laughed at his own joke. He didn’t seem bothered that no one joined him.

“I remember,” I said. “You gambled with Nut, and she won enough moonlight to create five extra days, the Demon Days. That let her get around Ra’s commandment that her five children couldn’t be born on any day of the year.”

“Nuts,” Ra muttered. “Bad nuts.”

The moon god raised an eyebrow. “Dear me, Ra is in bad shape, isn’t he? But yes, Carter Kane. You’re absolutely right.

I’m the moon god, but I also have some influence over time. I can lengthen or shorten the lives of mortals. Even gods can be affected by my powers. The moon is changeable, you see. Its light waxes and wanes. In my hands, time can also wax and wane. You need—what, about three extra hours? I can weave that for you out of moonlight, if you and your sister are willing to gamble for it. I can make it so that the gates of the Eighth House have not yet closed.”

I didn’t understand how he could possibly do that—back up time, insert three extra hours into the night—but for the first time since Sunny Acres, I felt a small spark of hope. “If you can help, why not just give us the extra time? The fate of the world is at stake.”

Khonsu laughed. “Good one! Give you time! No, seriously. If I started giving away something that valuable, Ma’at would crumble. Besides, you can’t play senet without gambling. Bes can tell you that.”

Bes spit a chocolate grasshopper leg out of his mouth. “Don’t do it, Carter. You know what they said about Khonsu in the old days? Some of the pyramids have a poem about him carved into the stones. It’s called the ‘Cannibal Hymn.’ For a price, Khonsu would help the pharaoh slay any gods who were bothering him. Khonsu would devour their souls and gain their strength.”

The moon god rolled his eyes. “Ancient history, Bes! I haven’t devoured a soul in…what month is this? March? At any rate, I’ve completely adapted to this modern world. I’m quite civilized now. You should see my penthouse at the Luxor in Las Vegas. I mean, Thank you! America has a proper civilization!”

He smiled at me, his silver eyes flashing like a shark’s. “So what do you say, Carter? Sadie? Play me at senet. Three pieces for me, three for you. You’ll need three hours of moonlight, so you two will need one additional person to stake a wager. For every piece your team manages to move off the board, I’ll grant you an extra hour. If you win, that’s three extra hours—just enough time to make it past the gates of the Eighth House.”

“And if we lose?” I asked.

“Oh…you know.” Khonsu waved his hand as if this were an annoying technicality. “For each piece I move off the board, I’ll take a ren from one of you.”

Sadie sat forward. “You’ll take our secret names—as in, we have to share them with you?”

“Share…” Khonsu stroked his ponytail, as if trying to remember the meaning of that word. “No, no sharing. I’ll devour your ren, you see.”

“Erase part of our souls,” Sadie said. “Take our memories, our identity.”

The moon god shrugged. “On the bright side, you wouldn’t die. You’d just—”

“Turn into a vegetable,” Sadie guessed. “Like Ra, there.”

“Don’t want vegetables,” Ra muttered irritably. He tried to chew on Bes’s shirt, but the dwarf god scooted away.

“Three hours,” I said. “Wagered against three souls.”

“Carter, Sadie, you don’t have to do this,” my mother said. “We don’t expect you to take this risk.”

I’d seen her so many times in pictures and in my memories, but for the first time it really struck me how much she looked like Sadie—or how much Sadie was starting to look like her.

They both had the same fiery determination in their eyes. They both tilted their chins up when they were expecting a fight. And they both weren’t very good at hiding their feelings. I could tell from Mom’s shaky voice that she realized what had to happen. She was telling us we had options, but she knew very well that we didn’t.

I looked at Sadie, and we came to a silent agreement.

“Mom, it’s okay,” I said. “You gave your life to close Apophis’s prison. How can we back out?”

Khonsu rubbed his hands. “Ah, yes, Apophis’s prison! Your friend Menshikov is there right now, loosening the Serpent’s bonds. I have so many bets on what will happen! Will you get there in time to stop him? Will you return Ra to the world? Will you defeat Menshikov? I’m giving a hundred to one on that!”

Mom turned desperately to my father. “Julius, tell them! It’s too dangerous.”

My dad was still holding a plate of half-eaten birthday cake. He stared at the melting ice cream as if it were the saddest thing in the world.

“Carter and Sadie,” he said at last, “I brought Khonsu here so that you’d have the choice. But whatever you do, I’m still proud of you both. If the world ends tonight, that won’t change.”

He met my eyes, and I could see how much it hurt him to think about losing us. Last Christmas at the British Museum, he’d sacrificed his life to release Osiris and restore balance to the Duat. He’d left Sadie and me alone, and I’d resented him a long time for that. Now I realized what it was like to be in his position. He’d been willing to give up everything, even his life, for a bigger purpose.

“I understand, Dad,” I told him. “We’re Kanes. We don’t run from hard choices.”

He didn’t answer, but he nodded slowly. His eyes burned with fierce pride.

“For once,” Sadie said, “Carter’s right. Khonsu, we’ll play your stupid game.”

“Excellent!” Khonsu said. “That’s two souls. Two hours to win. Ah, but you’ll need three hours to get through the gates on time, won’t you? Hmm. I’m afraid you can’t use Ra. He’s not in his right mind. Your mother is already dead. Your father is the judge of the underworld, so he’s disqualified from soul wagering….”

“I’ll do it,” Bes said. His face was grim but determined.

“Old buddy!” Khonsu cried. “I’m delighted.”

“Stuff it, moon god,” Bes said. “I don’t like it, but I’ll do it.”

“Bes,” I said, “you’ve done enough for us. Bast would never expect you—”

“I’m not doing it for Bast!” he grumbled. Then he took a deep breath. “Look, you kids are the real deal. Last