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“Wish I was in Paris,” I said. “Lot better than this place. ”
We walked into a dusty courtyard surrounded by crumbling pillars and statues with various missing body parts. Still, I could tell the place had once been quite impressive.
“Where are the people?” I asked. “Middle of the day, winter holidays. Shouldn’t there be loads of tourists?”
Zia made a distasteful expression. “Usually, yes. I have encouraged them to stay away for a few hours. ”
“How?”
“Common minds are easy to manipulate. ” She looked pointedly at me, and I remembered how she’d forced me to talk in the New York museum. Oh, yes, she was just begging for more scorched eyebrows.
“Now, to the duel. ” She summoned her staff and drew two circles in the sand about ten meters apart. She directed me to stand in one of them and Carter in the other.
“I’ve got to duel him?” I asked.
I found the idea preposterous. The only thing Carter had shown aptitude for was summoning butter knives and pooping birds. Well, all right, and that bit on the chasm bridge deflecting the daggers, but still—what if I hurt him? As annoying as Carter might be, I didn’t want to accidentally summon that glyph I’d made in Amos’s house and explode him to bits.
Perhaps Carter was thinking the same thing, because he’d started to sweat. “What if we do something wrong?” he asked.
“I will oversee the duel,” Zia promised. “We will start slowly. The first magician to knock the other out of his or her circle wins. ”
“But we haven’t been trained!” I protested.
“One learns by doing,” Zia said. “This is not school, Sadie. You cannot learn magic by sitting at a desk and taking notes. You can only learn magic by doing magic. ”
“But—”
“Summon whatever power you can,” Zia said. “Use whatever you have available. Begin!”
I looked at Carter doubtfully. Use whatever I have? I opened the leather satchel and looked inside. A lump of wax? Probably not. I drew the wand and rod. Immediately, the rod expanded until I was holding a two-meter-long white staff.
Carter drew his sword, though I couldn’t imagine what he’d do with it. Rather hard to hit me from ten meters away.
I wanted this over, so I raised my staff like I’d seen Zia do. I thought the word Fire.
A small flame sputtered to life on the end of the staff. I willed it to get bigger. The fire momentarily brightened, but then my eyesight went fuzzy. The flame died. I fell to my knees, feeling as if I’d run a marathon.
“You okay?” Carter called.
“No,” I complained.
“If she knocks herself out, do I win?” he asked.
“Shut up!” I said.
“Sadie, you must be careful,” Zia called. “You drew from your own reserves, not from the staff. You can quickly deplete your magic. ”
I got shakily to my feet. “Explain?”
“A magician begins a duel full of magic, the way you might be full after a good meal—”
“Which I never got,” I reminded her.
“Each time you do magic,” Zia continued, “you expend energy. You can draw energy from yourself, but you must know your limits. Otherwise you could exhaust yourself, or worse. ”
I swallowed and looked at my smoldering staff. “How much worse?”
“You could literally burn up. ”
I hesitated, thinking how to ask my next question without saying too much. “But I’ve done magic before. Sometimes it doesn’t exhaust me. Why?”
From around her neck, Zia unclasped an amulet. She threw it into the air, and with a flash it turned into a giant vulture. The massive black bird soared over the ruins. As soon as it was out of sight, Zia extended her hand and the amulet appeared in her palm.
“Magic can be drawn from many sources,” she said. “It can be stored in scrolls, wands, or staffs. Amulets are especially powerful. Magic can also be drawn straight from Ma’at, using the Divine Words, but this is difficult. Or”—she locked eyes with me—“it can be summoned from the gods. ”
“Why are you looking at me?” I demanded. “I didn’t summon any gods. They just seem to find me!”
She put on her necklace but said nothing.
“Hold on,” Carter said. “You claimed this place was sacred to our family. ”
“It was,” Zia agreed.
“But wasn’t this. . . ” Carter frowned. “Didn’t the pharaohs have a yearly festival here or something?”
“Indeed,” she said. “The pharaoh would walk down the processional path all the way from Karnak to Luxor. He would enter the temple and become one with the gods. Sometimes, this was purely ceremonial. Sometimes, with the great pharaohs like Ramesses, here—” Zia pointed to one of the huge crumbling statues.
“They actually hosted the gods,” I interrupted, remembering what Iskandar had said.
Zia narrowed her eyes. “And yet you claim to know nothing of your family’s past. ”
“Wait a second,” Carter protested. “You’re saying we’re related to—”
“The gods choose their hosts carefully,” Zia said. “They always prefer the blood of the pharaohs. When a magician has the blood of two royal families. . . ”
I exchanged looks with Carter. Something Bast said came back to me: “Your family was born to magic. ” And Amos had told us that both sides of our family had a complicated history with the gods, and that Carter and I were the most powerful children to be born in centuries. A bad feeling settled over me, like an itchy blanket prickling against my skin.
“Our parents were from different royal lines,” I said. “Dad. . . he must’ve been descended from Narmer, the first pharaoh. I told you he looked like that picture!”
“That’s not possible,” Carter said. “That was five thousand years ago. ” But I could see his mind was racing. “Then the Fausts. . . ” He turned to Zia. “Ramesses the Great built this courtyard. You’re telling me our mom’s family is descended from him?”
Zia sighed. “Don’t tell me your parents kept this from you. Why do you think you are so dangerous to us?”
“You think we’re hosting gods,” I said, absolutely stunned. “That’s what you’re worried about—just because of something our great-times-a-thousand grandparents did? That’s completely daft. ”
“Then prove it!” Zia said. “Duel, and show me how weak your magic is!”
She turned her back on us, as if we were completely unimportant.
Something inside me snapped. I’d had the worst two days ever. I’d lost my father, my home, and my cat, been attacked by monsters and had ice water dumped on my head. Now this witch was turning her back on me. She didn’t want to train us. She wanted to see how dangerous we were.
Well, fine.
“Um, Sadie?” Carter called. He must’ve seen from my expression that I was beyond reason.
I focused on my staff. Maybe not fire. Cats have always liked me. Maybe. . .
I threw my staff straight at Zia. It hit the ground at her heels and immediately transformed into a snarling she-lion. Zia whirled in surprise, but then everything went wrong.
The lion turned and charged at Carter, as if she knew I was supposed to be dueling him.
I had a split second to think: What have I done?
Then the cat lunged. . . and Carter’s form flickered. He rose off the ground, surrounded by a golden holographic shell like the one Bast had used, except that his giant image was a warrior with the head of a falcon. Carter swung his sword, and the falcon warrior did likewise, slicing the lion with a shimmering blade of energy. The cat dissolved in midair, and my staff clattered to the ground, cut neatly in half.
Carter’s avatar shimmered, then disappeared. He dropped to the ground and grinned. “Fun. ”
He didn’t even look tired. Once I got over my relief that I hadn’t killed him, I realized I didn’t feel tired either. If anything, I had more energy.
I turned defiantly to Zia. “Well? Better, right?”
Her face was ashen. “The falcon. He—he summoned—”
Before she could finish, footsteps pounded on the stones. A young initiate raced into the courtyard, looking panicked. Tears streaked his dusty face. He said something to Zia in hurried Arabic. When Zia got his message, she sat down hard in the sand. She covered her face and began to tremble.
Carter and I left our dueling circles and ran to her.
“Zia?” Carter said. “What’s wrong?”
She took a deep breath, trying to gather her composure. When she looked up, her eyes were red. She said something to the adept, who nodded and ran back the way he’d come.
“News from the First Nome,” she said shakily. “Iskandar. . . ” Her voice broke.
I felt as if a giant fist had punched me in the stomach. I thought about Iskandar’s strange words last night: It seems I, too, can rest at last. “He’s dead, isn’t he? That’s what he meant. ”
Zia stared at me. “What do you mean: ‘That’s what he meant’?”
“I. . . ” I was about to say that I’d spoken with Iskandar the night before. Then I realized this might not be a good thing to mention. “Nothing. How did it happen?”
“In his sleep,” Zia said. “He—he had been ailing for years, of course. But still. . . ”
“It’s okay,” Carter said. “I know he was important to you. ”
She wiped at her tears, then rose unsteadily. “You don’t understand. Desjardins is next in line. As soon as he is named Chief Lector, he will order you executed. ”
“But we haven’t done anything!” I said.
Zia’s eyes flashed with anger. “You still don’t realize how dangerous you are? You are hosting gods. ”
“Ridiculous,” I insisted, but an uneasy feeling was building inside me. If it were true. . . no, it couldn’t be! Besides, how could anyone, even a poxy old nutter like Desjardins, seriously execute children for something they weren’t even aware of?
“He will order me to bring you in,” Zia warned, “and I will have to obey. ”
“You can’t!” Carter cried. “You saw what happened in the museum. We’re not the problem. Set is. And if Desjardins isn’t taking that seriously. . . well, maybe he’s part of the problem too. ”
Zia gripped her staff. I was sure she was going to fry us with a fireball, but she hesitated.
“Zia. ” I decided to take a risk. “Iskandar talked with me last night. He caught me sneaking around the Hall of Ages. ”
She looked at me in shock. I reckoned I had only seconds before that shock turned to anger.
“He said you were his best pupil,” I recalled. “He said you were wise. He also said Carter and I have a difficult path ahead of us, and you would know how to help us when the time came. ”
Her staff smoldered. Her eyes reminded me of glass about to shatter.
“Desjardins will kill us,” I persisted. “Do you think that’s what Iskandar had in mind?”