The dwarf stood abruptly and brushed off his shirt. His face was redder than Set’s. “Plant looks like it’s getting enough water,” he muttered. “I should check the ones over there.”
He started to walk away, but Tawaret called again, “Bes! It’s me, Tawaret! Over here!”
Bes stiffened like she’d shot him in the back. He turned with a tortured smile.
“Well…hey. Tawaret. Wow!”
She scrambled out from the behind the desk, wearing high heels that seemed inadvisable for a pregnant water mammal. She spread her chubby arms for a hug, and Bes thrust out his hand to shake. They ended up doing an awkward sort of dance, half hug, half shake, which made one thing perfectly obvious to me.
“So, you two used to date?” I asked.
Bes shot eye-daggers at me. Tawaret blushed, which made it the first time I’d ever embarrassed a hippo.
“A long time ago…” Tawaret turned to the dwarf god. “Bes, how are you? After that horrible time at the palace, I was afraid—”
“Good!” he shouted. “Yes, thanks. Good. You’re good? Good! We’re here on important business, as Sadie was about to tell you.”
He kicked me in the shin, which I thought quite unnecessary.
“Yes, right,” I said. “We’re looking for Ra, to awaken him.”
If Bes had been hoping to redirect Tawaret’s train of thought, the plan worked. Tawaret opened her mouth in a silent gasp, and as if I’d just suggested something horrible, like a hippo hunt.
“Awaken Ra?” she said. “Oh, dear…oh, that is unfortunate. Bes, you’re helping them with this?”
“Uh-hum,” he stuttered. “Just, you know—”
“Bes is doing us a favor,” I said. “Our friend Bast asked him to look after us.”
I could tell right away I’d made matters worse. The temperature in the air seemed to drop ten degrees.
“I see,” Tawaret said. “A favor for Bast.”
I wasn’t sure what I’d said wrong, but I tried my best to backtrack. “Please. Look, the fate of the world is at stake It’s very important we find Ra.”
Tawaret crossed her arms skeptically. “Dear, he’s been missing for millennia. And trying to awaken him would be terribly dangerous. Why now?”
“Tell her, Sadie.” Bes inched backward as if preparing to dive into the hibiscus. “No secrets here. Tawaret can be trusted completely.”
“Bes!” She perked up immediately and fluttered her eyelashes. “Do you mean that?”
“Sadie, talk!” Bes pleaded.
And so I did. I showed Tawaret the Book of Ra. I explained why we needed to wake the sun god—the threat of Apophis’s ascension, mass chaos and destruction, the world about to end at sunrise, et cetera. It was difficult to judge her hippoish expressions [Yes, Carter, I’m sure that’s a word], but as I spoke, Tawaret twirled her long black hair nervously.
“That’s not good,” she said. “Not good at all.”
She glanced behind her at the sundial. Despite the lack of sun, the needle cast a clear shadow over the hieroglyphic number five:
“You’re running out of time,” she said.
Carter frowned at the sundial. “Isn’t this place the Fourth House of the Night?”
“Yes, dear,” Tawaret agreed. “It goes by different names —Sunny Acres, the House of Rest—but it’s also the Fourth House.”
“So how can the sundial be on five?” he asked. “Shouldn’t we be, like, frozen at the fourth hour?”
“Doesn’t work that way, kid,” Bes put in. “Time in the mortal world doesn’t stop passing just because you’re in the Fourth House. If you want to follow the sun god’s voyage, you have to keep in synch with his timing.”