“A leader, my dear,” he said. “Ma’at demands a leader.”
“It’s too much,” I said. “Too many thrones. You can’t expect Carter-”
“Not alone,” Iskandar agreed. “But this is your family’s burden. You started the process. The Kanes alone will heal us or destroy us.”
“I don’t know what you mean!”
Iskandar opened his hand, and in a flash of light, the scene changed one more time.
I was back at the Thames. It must’ve been the dead of the night, three o’clock in the morning, because the Embankment was empty. Mist obscured the lights of the city, and the air was wintry.
Two people, a man and a woman, stood bundled against the cold, holding hands in front of Cleopatra’s Needle. At first I thought they were a random couple on a date. Then, with a shock, I realized I was looking at my parents.
My dad lifted his face and scowled at the obelisk. In the dim glow of the streetlamps, his features looked like chiseled marble-like the pharaoh statues he loved to study. He did have the face of a king, I thought-proud and handsome.
“You’re sure?” he asked my mother. “Absolutely sure?”
Mum brushed her blond hair out of her face. She was even more beautiful than her pictures, but she looked worried-eyebrows furrowed, lips pressed together. Like me when I was upset, when I looked in the mirror and tried to convince myself things weren’t so bad. I wanted to call to her, to let her know I was there, but my voice wouldn’t work.
“She told me this is where it begins,” my mother said. She pulled her black coat around her, and I caught a glimpse of her necklace-the amulet of Isis, my amulet. I stared at it, stunned, but then she pulled her collar closed, and the amulet disappeared. “If we want to defeat the enemy, we must start with the obelisk. We must find out the truth.”
My father frowned uneasily. He’d drawn a protective circle around them-blue chalk lines on the pavement. When he touched the base of the obelisk, the circle began to glow.
“I don’t like it,” he said. “Won’t you call on her help?”
“No,” my mother insisted. “I know my limits, Julius. If I tried it again…”
My heart skipped a beat. Iskandar’s words came back to me: She saw things that made her seek advice from unconventional places. I recognized the look in my mother’ eyes, and I knew: my mother had communed with Isis.
Why didn’t you tell me? I wanted to scream.
My father summoned his staff and wand. “Ruby, if we fail-”
“We can’t fail,” she insisted. “The world depends on it.”
They kissed one last time, as if they sensed they were saying good-bye. Then they raised their staffs and wands and began to chant. Cleopatra’s Needle glowed with power.
I yanked my hand away from the sarcophagus. My eyes stung with tears.
You knew my mother, I shouted at Isis. You encouraged her to open that obelisk. You got her killed!
I waited for her to answer. Instead, a ghostly image appeared in front of me-a projection of my father, shimmering in the light of the golden coffin.
“Sadie.” He smiled. His voice sounded tinny and hollow, the way it used to on the phone when he’d call me from far away-from Egypt or Australia or god knows where. “Don’t blame Isis for your mother’s fate. None of us understood exactly what would happen. Even your mother could only see bits and pieces of the future. But when the time came, your mother accepted her role. It was her decision.”
“To die?” I demanded. “Isis should’ve helped her. You should’ve helped her. I hate you!”
As soon as I said it, something broke inside me. I started to cry. I realized I’d wanted to say that to my dad for years. I blamed him for Mum’s death, blamed him for leaving me. But now that I’d said it, all the anger drained out me, leaving me nothing but guilt.
“I’m sorry,” I sputtered. “I didn’t-”
“Don’t apologize, my brave girl. You have every right to feel that way. You had to get it out. What you’re about to do-you have to believe it’s for the right reasons, not because you resent me.”
“I don’t know what you mean.”
He reached out to brush a tear from my cheek, but his hand was just a shimmer of light. “Your mother was the first in many centuries to commune with Isis. It was dangerous, against the teachings of the House, but your mother was a diviner. She had a premonition that chaos was rising. The House was failing. We needed the gods. Isis could not cross the Duat. She could barely manage a whisper, but she told us what she could about their imprisonment. She counseled Ruby on what must be done. The gods could rise again, she said, but it would take many hard sacrifices. We thought the obelisk would release all the gods, but that was only the beginning.”
“Isis could’ve given Mum more power. Or at least Bast! Bast offered-”
“No, Sadie. Your mother knew her limits. If she had tried to host a god, fully use divine power, she would have been consumed or worse. She freed Bast, and used her own power to seal the breach. With her life, she bought you some time.”
“Me? But…”
“You and your brother have the strongest blood of any Kane in three thousand years. Your mother studied the lineage of the pharaohs-she knew this to be true. You have the best chance at relearning the old ways, and healing the breach between magicians and gods. Your mother began the stirring. I unleashed the gods from the Rosetta Stone. But it will be your job to restore Ma’at.”
“You can help,” I insisted. “Once we free you.”
“Sadie,” he said forlornly, “when you become a parent, you may understand this. One of my hardest jobs as a father, one of my greatest duties, was to realize that my own dreams, my own goals and wishes, are secondary to my children’s. Your mother and I have set the stage. But it is your stage. This pyramid is designed to feed chaos. It consumes the power of other gods and makes Set stronger.”
“I know. If I break the throne, maybe open the coffin…”
“You might save me,” Dad conceded. “But the power of Osiris, the power inside me, would be consumed by the pyramid. It would only hasten the destruction and make Set stronger. The pyramid must be destroyed, all of it. And you know how that must be done.”
I was about to protest that I didn’t know, but the feather of truth kept me honest. The way was inside me-I’d seen it in Isis’s thoughts. I’d known what was coming ever since Anubis asked me that impossible question: “To save the world, would you sacrifice your father?”
“I don’t want to,” I said. “Please.”
“Osiris must take his throne,” my father said. “Through death, life. It is the only way. May Ma’at guide you, Sadie. I love you.”
And with that, his image dissipated.
Someone was calling my name.
I looked back and saw Zia trying to sit up, clutching weakly at her wand. “Sadie, what are you doing?”
All around us, the room was shaking. Cracks split the walls, as if a giant were using the pyramid as a punching bag.
How long had I been in a trance? I wasn’t sure, but I was out of time.
I closed my eyes and concentrated. The voice of Isis spoke almost immediately: Do you see now? Do you understand why I could not say more?
Anger built inside me, but I forced it down. We’ll talk about that later. Right now, we have a god to defeat.
I pictured myself stepping forward, merging with the soul of the goddess.
I’d shared power with Isis before, but this was different. My resolve, my anger, even my grief gave me confidence. I looked Isis straight in the eye (spiritually speaking), and we understood one another.
I saw her entire history-her early days grasping for power, using tricks and schemes to find the name of Ra. I saw her wedding with Osiris, her hopes and dreams for a new empire. Then I saw those dreams shattered by Set. I felt her anger and bitterness, her fierce pride and protectiveness for her young son, Horus. And I saw the pattern of her life repeating itself over and over again through the ages, through a thousand different hosts.
Gods have great power, Iskandar had said. But only humans have creativity, the power to change history.
