Zia tried to smile, but the effort made her wince. “I was...never here, Carter. Just a message—a placeholder.”
“Come on. No. That’s no way to talk.”
“Find her, will you?” Zia said. A tear traced its way down her nose. “She’d...like that...a date at the mall.” Her eyes drifted away from him and stared blankly into the sky.
“Zia!” Carter clutched her hand. “Stop that. You can’t...You can’t just...”
I knelt next to him and touched Zia’s face. It was cold as stone. And even though I understood what had happened, I couldn’t think of anything to say, or any way to console my brother. He shut his eyes tight and lowered his head.
Then it happened. Along the path of Zia’s tear, from the corner of her eye to the base of her nose, Zia’s face cracked. Smaller fractures appeared, webbing her skin. Her flesh dried out, hardening...turning to clay.
“Carter,” I said.
“What?” he said miserably.
He looked up just as a small blue light drifted out of Zia’s mouth and flew into the sky. Carter backed away in shock. “What—what did you do?”
“Nothing,” I said. “She’s a shabti. She said she wasn’t really here. She was just a placeholder.”
Carter looked bewildered. But then a small light started to burn in his eyes—a tiny bit of hope. “Then...the real Zia is alive?”
“Iskandar was protecting her,” I said. “When the spirit of Nephthys joined with the real Zia in London, Iskandar knew she was in danger. Iskand
ar hid her away and replaced her with a shabti. Remember what Thoth said: ‘Shabti make excellent stunt doubles?’ That’s what she was. And Nephthys told me she was sheltered somewhere, inside a sleeping host.”
“But where—”
“I don’t know,” I said. And in Carter’s present state, I was too afraid to raise the real question: If Zia had been a shabti all this time, had we ever known her at all? The real Zia had never gotten close to us. She’d never discovered what an incredibly amazing person I was. God forbid, she might not even like Carter.
Carter touched her face and it crumbled to dust. He picked up her wand, which remained solid ivory, but he held it gingerly as if he were afraid it too would dissolve. “That blue light,” he began to ramble, “I saw Zia release one in the First Nome, too. Just like the shabti in Memphis—they sent their thoughts back to Thoth. So Zia must’ve been in contact with her shabti. That’s what the light was. They must’ve been, like, sharing memories, right? She must know what the shabti’s been through. If the real Zia is alive somewhere, she might be locked up or in some kind of magic sleep or— We have to find her!”
I wasn’t sure it would be so simple, but I didn’t want to argue. I could see the desperation on his face.
Then a familiar voice sent a cold shiver down my back: “What have you done?”
Desjardins was literally fuming. His tattered robes still smoked from battle. (Carter says I shouldn’t mention that his pink boxer shorts were showing, but they were!) His staff was aglow, and the whiskers in his beard smoldered. Behind him stood three equally battered magicians, who all looked as if they’d just regained consciousness.
“Oh, good,” I muttered. “You’re alive.”
“You bargained with Set?” Desjardins demanded. “You let him go?”
“We don’t answer to you,” Carter growled. He stepped forward, hand on his sword, but I put out my arm to hold him back.
“Desjardins,” I said as calmly as I could, “Apophis is rising, in case you missed that part. We need the gods. The House of Life has to relearn the old ways.”
“The old ways destroyed us!” he yelled.
A week ago, the look in his eyes would’ve made me tremble. He fairly glowed with rage, and hieroglyphs blazed in the air around him. He was the Chief Lector, and I’d just undone everything the House had worked for since the fall of Egypt. Desjardins was a heartbeat away from turning me into an insect, and the thought should’ve terrified me.
Instead, I looked him in the eye. Right now, I was more powerful than he was. Much more powerful. And I let him know it.
“Pride destroyed you,” I said. “Greed and selfishness and all of that. It’s hard to follow the path of the gods. But it is part of magic. You can’t just shut it down.”
“You are drunk with power,” he snarled. “The gods have possessed you, as they always do. Soon you will forget you are even human. We will fight you and destroy you.” Then he glared at Carter. “And you—I know what Horus would demand. You will never reclaim the throne. With my last breath—”
“Save it,” I said. Then I faced my brother. “You know what we have to do?”
Understanding passed between us. I was surprised how easily I could read him. I thought it might be the influence of the gods, but then I realized it was because we were both Kanes, brother and sister. And Carter, god help me, was also my friend.