Isis was quite good at looking hurt and disapproving at the same time, which must have made her an impossible mother. I almost felt sorry for Horus.
Sadie Kane, she said, you are my favorite mortal, my chosen magician. And still you do not trust me.
I didn’t bother to contradict her. Isis knew how I felt.
The goddess spread her arms in resignation. Very well. But the path of the gods is the only answer. For all the Kanes, and for that one. She nodded in Zia’s direction. You will need to advise her, Sadie. She must learn the path quickly.
What do you mean? I asked again. I really wished she would stop talking in riddles. Gods are so annoying that way.
Zia was a much more experienced magician than I was. I didn’t know how I could advise her. Besides, Zia was a fire elementalist. She tolerated us Kanes, but she had never shown the slightest interest in the path of the gods.
Good luck, Isis said. I will await your call.
The image of the goddess rippled and vanished. When I opened my eyes, a square of darkness the size of a doorway hovered in the air.
“Sadie?” Zia asked. “You were silent for so long, I was getting worried.”
“No need.” I tried for a smile. “Isis just likes to talk. Next stop, the Fourth House of the Night.”
I’ll be honest. I never quite understood the difference between the swirling sand portals that magicians can summon with artifacts and the doors of darkness that gods are able to conjure. Perhaps the gods use a more advanced wireless network. Perhaps they simply have better aim.
Whatever the reason, Isis’s portal worked much more reliably than the one I’d created to get to Cairo. It deposited us right in the lobby of Sunny Acres.
As soon as we stepped through, Zia scanned our surroundings and frowned. “Where is everyone?”
Good question. We’d arrived at the correct godly nursing home—the same potted plants, the same massive lobby with windows looking out on the Lake of Fire, the same rows of limestone columns plastered with tacky posters of smiling seniors and mottos like: These Are Your Golden Centuries!
But the nurses’ station was unattended. IV poles were clustered in one corner like they were having a conference. The sofas were empty. The coffee tables were littered with half-played games of checkers and senet. Ugh, I hate senet.
I stared at an empty wheelchair, wondering where its occupant had gone, when suddenly the chair burst into flames, collapsing in a pile of charred leather and half-melted steel.
I stumbled backward. Behind me, Zia held a ball of white-hot fire in her hand. Her eyes were as wild as a cornered animal’s.
“Are you mad?” I yelled. “What are you—?”
She lobbed her second fireball at the nurses’ station. A vase full of daisies exploded in a shower of flaming petals and pottery shards.
“Zia!”
She didn’t seem to hear me. She summoned another fireball and took aim at the sofas.
I should have run for cover. I wasn’t prepared to die saving badly upholstered furniture. Instead, I lunged at her and grabbed her wrist. “Zia, stop it!”
She glared at me with flames in her eyes—and I mean that quite literally. Her irises had become disks of orange fire.
This was terrifying, of course, but I stood my ground. Over the past year I’d got rather used to surprises—what with my cat being a goddess, my brother turning into a falcon, and Felix producing penguins in the fireplace several times a week.
“Zia,” I said firmly. “We can’t burn down the nursing home. What’s got into you?”
A look of confusion passed over her face. She stopped struggling. Her eyes returned to normal.
She stared at the melted wheelchair, then the smoldering remains of the bouquet on the carpet. “Did I—?”
“Decide those daisies needed to die?” I finished. “Yes, you did.”
She extinguished her fireball, which was lucky, as it was starting to bake my face. “I’m sorry,” she muttered. “I—I thought I had it under control.…”
“Under control?” I let go of her hand. “You mean to say you’ve been throwing a lot of random fireballs lately?”