Dad had defied the entire House of Life. He’d sacrificed his own life to unleash the gods because he was sure it was the only way to save the world. Now it was time for me to make the difficult choice.
Fast-forward past breakfast and my argument with Sadie. After she jumped through the portal, I stayed on the roof with no company but my new friend the psychotic griffin.
He screamed “FREEEEK!” so much that I decided to call him Freak; plus, it fit his personality. I’d expected him to disappear overnight—to either fly away or return to the Duat—but he seemed happy in his new roost. I’d feathered it with a stack of morning newspapers, all of them featuring headlines about the bizarre sewer gas eruption that had swept through Brooklyn the night before. According to the reports, the gas had ignited ghostly fires across the borough, caused extensive damage at the museum, and overwhelmed some people with nausea, dizziness, and even hallucinations of rhinoceros-size hummingbirds. Stupid sewer gas.
I was tossing Freak more roasted turkeys (jeez, he had an appetite) when Bast appeared next to me.
“Normally, I enjoy birds,” she said. “But that thing is disturbing.”
“FREEEEK!” said Freak. He and Bast regarded each other as if each was wondering what the other would taste like for lunch.
Bast sniffed. “You’re not going to keep it, are you?”
“Well, he’s not tied up or anything,” I said. “He could leave if he wanted to. I think he likes it here.”
“Wonderful,” Bast muttered. “One more thing that might kill you while I’m gone.”
Personally, I thought Freak and I were getting along pretty well, but I figured nothing I said would reassure Bast.
She was dressed for travel. Over her usual leopard-skin bodysuit she wore a long black coat embroidered with protective hieroglyphs. When she moved, the fabric shimmered, making her fade in and out of sight.
“Be careful,” I told her.
She smiled. “I’m a cat, Carter. I can look after myself. I’m more worried about you and Sadie while I’m gone. If your vision is accurate and Apophis’s prison is close to breaking…? Well, I’ll be back as soon as I can.”
There wasn’t much I could say to that. If my vision was accurate, we were all in deep trouble.
“I may be out of touch for a couple of days,” she continued. “My friend should get here before you and Sadie leave on your quest tomorrow. He’ll make sure you two stay alive.”
“Can’t you at least tell me his name?”
Bast gave me a look that was either amused or nervous—possibly both. “He’s a little hard to explain. I’d better let him introduce himself.”
With that, Bast kissed me on the forehead. “Take care, my kit.”
I was too stunned to respond. I thought of Bast as Sadie’s protector. I was just kind of an add-on. But her voice held such affection, I probably blushed. She ran to the edge of the roof and jumped.
I wasn’t worried about her, though. I was pretty sure she’d land on her feet.
I wanted to keep things as normal as possible for the trainees, so I led my usual morning class. I called it Magic Problem-Solving 101. The trainees called it Whatever Works.
I gave the trainees a problem. They could solve it any way they wanted. As soon as they succeeded, they could go.
I guess this wasn’t much like real school, where you have to stay until the end of the day even if you’re just doing busywork; but I’d never been to a real school. All those years homeschooling with my dad, I’d learned at my own pace. When I finished my assignments to my dad’s satisfaction, the school day was over. The system worked for me, and the trainees seemed to like it, too.
I also thought Zia Rashid would approve. The first time Sadie and I trained with Zia, she’d told us that magic couldn’t be learned from classrooms and textbooks. You had to learn by doing. So for Magic Problem-Solving 101, we headed to the training room and blew stuff up.
Today I had four students. The rest of the trainees would be off researching their own paths of magic, practicing enchantments, or doing regular schoolwork under the supervision of our college-age initiates. As our main adult chaperone while Amos was gone, Bast had insisted we keep everyone up-to-speed on the regular subjects like math and reading, although she did sometimes add her own elective courses, such as Advanced Cat Grooming, or Napping. There was a waiting list to get into Napping.
Anyway, the training room took up most of the second floor. It was about the size of a basketball court, which is what we used it for in the evenings. It had a hardwood floor, god statues lining the walls, and a vaulted ceiling with pictures of Ancient Egyptians rocking that sideways walk they always do. On the baseline walls, we’d stuck falcon-headed statues of Ra perpendicular to the floor, ten feet up, and hollowed out their sun-disk crowns so we could use them as basketball hoops. Probably blasphemous—but hey, if Ra didn’t have a sense of humor, that was his problem.
Walt was waiting for me, along with Julian, Felix, and Alyssa. Jaz almost always showed up for these sessions, but of course Jaz was still in a coma…and that was a problem none of us knew how to solve.
I attempted to put on my confident teacher-face. “Okay, guys. Today we’ll try some combat simulations. We’ll start simple.”
I pulled four shabti figurines from my bag and placed them in different corners of the room. I stationed one trainee in front of each. Then I spoke a command word. The four statuettes grew into full-size Egyptian warriors armed with swords and shields. They weren’t super-realistic. Their skin looked like glazed ceramic, and they moved slower than real humans; but they’d be good enough for starters.
“Felix?” I called. “No penguins.”