time to wedge my staff in its mouth.
Jerrod laughed. “Nice try, girl!”
I felt the dragon’s jaws pressing on the staff. It was only a matter of seconds before the wood snapped, and then I’d be a komodo dragon’s snack. A little help, I told Isis. Carefully, very carefully, I tapped in to her strength. Doing so without letting her take over was like riding a surfboard over a tidal wave, trying desperately to stay on my feet. I felt five thousand years of experience, knowledge, and power course through me. She offered me options, and I selected the simplest. I channeled power through my staff and felt it grow hot in my hands, glowing white. The dragon hissed and gurgled as my staff elongated, forcing the creature’s jaws open wider, wider, and then: boom!
The dragon shattered into kindling and sent the splintered remains of Jerrod’s staff raining down around me.
Jerrod had only a moment to look stunned before I threw my wand and whapped him solidly on the forehead. His eyes crossed, and he collapsed on the pavement. My wand returned to my hand.
That would’ve been a lovely happy ending…except I’d forgotten about Wayne. The cowboy-hatted magician stumbled out the door, almost tripping over his friend, but he recovered with lightning speed.
He shouted, “Wind!” and my staff flew out of my hands and into his.
He smiled cruelly. “Well fought, darlin’. But elemental magic is always quickest.”
He struck the ends of both staffs, his and mine, against the pavement. A wave rippled over the dirt and pavement as if the ground had become liquid, knocking me off my feet and sending my wand flying. I scrambled backwards on hands and knees, but I could hear Wayne chanting, summoning fire from the staffs.
Rope, Isis said. Every magician carries rope.
Panic had made my mind go blank, but my hand instinctively went for my magic bag. I pulled out a small bit of twine. Hardly a rope, but it triggered a memory-something Zia had done in the New York museum. I threw the twine at Wayne and yelled a word Isis suggested: “Tas!”
A golden hieroglyph burned in the air over Wayne’s head:
The twine whipped toward him like an angry snake, growing longer and thicker as it flew. Wayne’s eyes widened. He stumbled back and sent jets of flame shooting from both staffs, but the rope was too quick. It lashed round his ankles and toppled him sideways, wrapping round his whole body until he was encased in a twine cocoon from chin to toes. He struggled and screamed and called me quite a few unflattering names.
I got up unsteadily. Jerrod was still out cold. I retrieved my staff, which had fallen next to Wayne. He continued straining against the twine and cursing in Egyptian, which sounded strange with an American Southern accent.
Finish him, Isis warned. He can still speak. He will not rest until he destroys you.
“Fire!” Wayne screamed. “Water! Cheese!”
Even the cheese command did not work. I reckoned his rage was throwing his magic off balance, making it impossible to focus, but I knew he would recover soon.
“Silence,” I said.
Wayne’s voice abruptly stopped working. He kept screaming, but no sound came out.
“I’m not your enemy,” I told him. “But I can’t have you killing me, either.”
Something wriggled in my pocket, and I remembered Carter. I took him out. He looked okay, except of course for the fact he was still a lizard.
“I’ll try to change you back,” I told him. “Hopefully I don’t make things worse.”
He made a little croak that didn’t convey much confidence.
I closed my eyes and imagined Carter as he should be: a tall boy of fourteen, badly dressed, very human, very annoying. Carter began to feel heavy in my hands. I put him down and watched as the lizard grew into a vaguely human blob. By the count of three, my brother was lying on his stomach, his sword and pack next to him on the lawn.
He spit grass out of his mouth. “How’d you do that?”
“I don’t know,” I admitted. “You just seemed…wrong.”
“Thanks a lot.” He got up and checked to make sure he had all his fingers. Then he saw the two magicians and his mouth fell open. “What did you do to them?”
“Just tied one up. Knocked one out. Magic.”
“No, I mean…” He faltered, searching for words, then gave up and pointed.
I looked at the magicians and yelped. Wayne wasn’t moving. His eyes and mouth were open, but he wasn’t blinking or breathing. Next to him, Jerrod looked just as frozen. As we watched, their mouths began to glow as if they’d swallowed matches. Two tiny yellow orbs of fire popped out from between their lips and shot into the air, disappearing in the sunlight.
“What-what was that?” I asked. “Are they dead?”
Carter approached them cautiously and put his hand on Wayne’s neck. “It doesn’t even feel like skin. More like rock.”
“No, they were human! I didn’t turn them to rock!”
Carter felt Jerrod’s forehead where I’d whacked him with my wand. “It’s cracked.”
“What?”
Carter picked up his sword. Before I could even scream, he brought the hilt down on Jerrod’s face and the magician’s head cracked into shards like a flowerpot.
“They’re made of clay,” Carter said. “They’re both shabti.”
He kicked Wayne’s arm and I heard it crunch under the twine.
“But they were casting spells,” I said. “And talking. They were real.”
As we watched, the shabti crumbled to dust, leaving nothing behind but my bit of twine, two staffs, and some grungy clothes.
“Thoth was testing us,” Carter said. “Those balls of fire, though…” He frowned as if trying to recall something important.
“Probably the magic that animated them,” I guessed. “Flying back to their master-like a recording of what they did?”
It sounded like a solid theory to me, but Carter seemed awfully troubled. He pointed to the blasted back door of Graceland. “Is the whole house like that?”
“Worse.” I looked at the ruined Elvis jumpsuit under Jerrod’s clothes and scattered rhinestones. Maybe Elvis had no taste, but I still felt bad about trashing the King’s palace. If the place had been important to Dad…Suddenly an idea perked me up. “What was it Amos said, when he repaired that saucer?”
Carter frowned. “This is a whole house, Sadie. Not a saucer.”
“Got it,” I said. “Hi-nehm!”
A gold hieroglyphic symbol flickered to life in my palm.
I held it up and blew it towards the house. The entire outline of Graceland began to glow. The pieces of the door flew back into place and mended themselves. The tattered bits of Elvis clothing disappeared.
“Wow,” Carter said. “Do you think the inside is fixed too?”
“I-” My vision blurred, and my knees buckled. I would’ve knocked my head on the pavement if Carter hadn’t caught me.
“It’s okay,” he said. “You did a lot of magic, Sadie. That was amazing.”
“But we haven’t even found the item Thoth sent us for.”
“Yeah,” Carter said. “Maybe we have.”
He pointed to Elvis’s grave, and I saw it clearly: a memento left behind by some adoring fan-a necklace with a silver loop-topped cross, just like the one on Mum’s T-shirt in my old photograph.
“An ankh,” I said. “The Egyptian symbol for eternal life.”
Carter picked it up. There was a small papyrus scroll attached to the chain.
“What’s this?” he murmured, and unrolled the sheet. He stared at it so hard I thought he’d burn a hole in it.
“What?” I looked over his shoulder.
The painting looked quite ancient. It showed a golden, spotted cat holding a knife in one paw and chopping the
