“Awesome. Thanks.”
A light flashed above us, and a portal opened at the tip of the pyramid. Unlike most portals, this wasn’t swirling sand. It glowed with purple light—a doorway straight into the Duat.
Sadie turned toward me. “This one’s for us. Coming?”
“Be careful,” Zia said.
“Yeah,” I said. “I’m not so good at that, but—yeah.”
As I trudged to the top, Sadie pulled Walt close and whispered something in his ear.
He nodded grimly. “I will.”
Before I could ask what that was about, Sadie looked at Bes. “Ready?”
“I’ll follow you,” Bes promised. “As soon as I get Walt and Zia through their portal. I’ll meet you on the River of Night, in the Fourth House.”
“The fourth what?” I asked.
“You’ll see,” he promised. “Now, go!”
I took one more look at Zia, wondering if this would be the last time I saw her. Then Sadie and I jumped into the churning purple doorway.
The Duat is a strange place.
[Sadie just called me Captain Obvious—but, hey, it’s worth saying.]
The currents of the spirit world interact with your thoughts, pulling you here and there, shaping what you see to fit with what you know. So even though we had stepped into another level of reality, it looked like the quayside of the River Thames below Gran and Gramps’s flat.
“This is rude,” Sadie said.
I understood what she meant. It was hard for her to be back in London after her disastrous birthday trip. Also, last Christmas, we’d started our first journey to Brooklyn here. We’d walked down these steps to the docks with Amos and boarded his magic boat. At the time, I was grieving the loss of my dad, in shock that Gran and Gramps would give us up to an uncle I didn’t even remember, and terrified of sailing into the unknown. Now, all those feelings welled up inside me, as sharp and painful as ever.
The river was shrouded with mist. There were no city lights, just an eerie glow in the sky. The skyline of London seemed fluid—buildings shifting around, rising and melting as if they couldn’t find a comfortable place to settle.
Below us, the mist drifted away from the docks.
“Sadie,” I said, “Look.”
At the bottom of the steps, a boat was moored, but it wasn’t Amos’s. It was the barque of the sun god, just like I’d seen in my vision—a once regal ship with a deckhouse and places for twenty oarsmen—but it was now barely able to stay afloat. The sail was tattered, the oars broken, the rigging covered with cobwebs.
Halfway down the steps, blocking our path, stood Gran and Gramps.
“Them again,” Sadie growled. “Come on.”
She marched straight down the steps until we stood faceto-face with the glowing images of our grandparents.
“Shove off,” Sadie told them.
“My dear.” Gran’s eyes glittered. “Is that any way to address your grandmother?”
“Oh, pardon me,” said Sadie. “This must be the part where I say ‘My, what big teeth you have.’ You’re not my grandmother, Nekhbet! Now, get out of our way!”
The image of Gran shimmered. Her flowery housecoat turned into a cloak of greasy black feathers. Her face shriveled into a saggy wrinkled mask, and most of her hair fell out, which put her at a 9.5 on the Ugly meter, right up there with Bes.
“Show more respect, love,” the goddess cooed. “We’re only here to give you a friendly warning. You’re about to pass the Point of No Return. If you step on that boat, there will be no turning back—no stopping until you’ve passed through all Twelve Houses of the Night, or until you die.”
Gramps barked, “Aghh!”