“I don’t get it,” I said.
Amos spread his hands. “I’m sorry, Carter. It takes years of study to understand magic, and I’m trying to explain it to you in a single morning. The important thing is, for the past six years your father has been looking for a way to summon Osiris, and last night he thought he had found the right artifact to do it.”
“Wait, why did he want Osiris?”
Sadie gave me a troubled look. “Carter, Osiris was the lord of the dead. Dad was talking about making things right. He was talking about Mum.”
Suddenly the morning seemed colder. The fire pit sputtered in the wind coming off the river.
“He wanted to bring Mom back from the dead?” I said. “But that’s crazy!”
Amos hesitated. “It would’ve been dangerous. Inadvisable. Foolish. But not crazy. Your father is a powerful magician. If, in fact, that is what he was after, he might have accomplished it, using the power of Osiris.”
I stared at Sadie. “You’re actually buying this?”
“You saw the magic at the museum. The fiery bloke. Dad summoned something from the stone.”
“Yeah,” I said, thinking of my dream. “But that wasn’t Osiris, was it?”
“No,” Amos said. “Your father got more than he bargained for. He did release the spirit of Osiris. In fact, I think he successfully joined with the god—”
“Joined with?”
Amos held up his hand. “Another long conversation. For now, let’s just say he drew the power of Osiris into himself. But he never got the chance to use it because, according to what Sadie has told me, it appears that Julius released five gods from the Rosetta Stone. Five gods who were all trapped together.”
I glanced at Sadie. “You told him everything?”
“He’s going to help us, Carter.”
I wasn’t quite ready to trust this guy, even if he was our uncle, but I decided I didn’t have much choice.
“Okay, yeah,” I said. “The fiery guy said something like ‘You released all five.’ What did he mean?”
Amos sipped his coffee. The faraway look on his face reminded me of my dad. “I don’t want to scare you.”
“Too late.”
“The gods of Egypt are very dangerous. For the last two thousand years or so, we magicians have spent much of our time binding and banishing them whenever they appear. In fact, our most important law, issued by Chief Lector Iskandar in Roman times, forbids unleashing the gods or using their power. Your father broke that law once before.”
Sadie’s face paled. “Does this have something to do with Mum’s death? Cleopatra’s Needle in London?”
“It has everything to do with that, Sadie. Your parents...well, they thought they were doing something good. They took a terrible risk, and it cost your mother her life. Your father took the blame. He was exiled, I suppose you would say. Banished. He was forced to move around constantly because the House monitored his activities. They feared he would continue his...research. As indeed he did.”
I thought about the times Dad would look over his shoulder as he copied some ancient inscriptions, or wake me up at three or four in the morning and insist it was time to change hotels, or warn me not to look in his workbag or copy certain pictures from old temple walls—as if our lives depended on it.
“Is that why you never came round?” Sadie asked Amos. “Because Dad was banished?”
“The House forbade me to see him. I loved Julius. It hurt me to stay away from my brother, and from you children. But I could not see you—until last night, when I simply had no choice but to try to help. Julius has been obsessed with finding Osiris for years. He was consumed with grief because of what happened to your mother. When I learned that Julius was about to break the law again, to try to set things right, I had to stop him. A second offense would’ve meant a death sentence. Unfortunately, I failed. I should’ve known he was too stubborn.”
I looked down at my plate. My food had gotten cold. Muffin leaped onto the table and rubbed against my hand. When I didn’t object, she started eating my bacon.
“Last night at the museum,” I said, “the girl with the knife, the man with the forked beard—they were magicians too? From the House of Life?”
“Yes,” Amos said. “Keeping an eye on your father. You are fortunate they let you go.”
“The girl wanted to kill us,” I remembered. “But the guy with the beard said, not yet.”
“They don’t kill unless it is absolutely necessary,” Amos said. “They will wait to see if you are a threat.”