But the ram god’s body dissolved into mist. The Book of Ra sucked in the wisps of smoke, and it rolled shut. Khnum and his island were gone. The boat drifted on into a narrower tunnel.
“Sadie,” Carter said, “that was amazing.”
Normally, I would’ve been happy to astonish him with my brilliance. But my heart was racing. My hands were sweating, and I thought I might throw up. On top of that, I could feel the glowing orb crew coming out of their shock, beginning to fight me again.
No slice, they complained. No slice!
Mind your own business, I thought back at them. And keep the boat going.
“Um, Sadie?” Carter asked. “Why is your face turning red?”
I thought he was accusing me of blushing. Then I realized he too was red. The whole boat was awash in ruby light. I turned to look ahead of us, and I made a sound in my throat not too different from Khnum’s bleating.
“Oh, no,” I said. “Not this place again.”
Roughly a hundred meters ahead of us, the tunnel opened into a huge cavern. I recognized the massive boiling Lake of Fire; but the last time I hadn’t seen it from this angle.
We were picking up speed, heading down a series of rapids like a water slide. At the end of the rapids, the water turned into a fiery waterfall and dropped straight down into the lake about half a mile below. We were hurtling toward the precipice with absolutely no way to stop.
Keep the boat going, the crew whispered with glee. Keep the boat going!
We probably had less than a minute, but it seemed longer. I suppose if time flies when you’re having fun, it really creeps when you’re hurtling toward your death.
“We’ve got to turn around!” Carter said. “Even if that wasn’t fire, we’ll never survive the drop!”
He began yelling at the orbs of light, “Turn around! Paddle! Mayday!”
They happily ignored him.
I stared at the flaming drop to oblivion and the Lake of Fire below. Despite the waves of heat rolling over us like dragon breath, I felt cold. I realized what needed to happen.
“‘Reborn in fire,’” I said.
“What?” Carter asked.
“It’s a line from the Book of Ra. We can’t turn around. We have to go over—straight into the lake.”
“Are you crazy? We’ll burn up!”
I ripped open my magic bag and rummaged through my supplies. “We have to take the ship through the fire. That was part of the sun’s nightly rebirth, right? Ra would have done it.”
“Ra wasn’t flammable!”
The waterfall was only twenty meters away now. My hands trembled as I poured ink into my writing palette. If you’ve never tried to use a calligraphy set while standing up on a boat, it isn’t easy.
“What are you doing?” Carter asked. “Writing your will?”
I took a deep breath and dipped my stylus in black ink. I visualized the hieroglyphs I needed. I wished Zia were with us. Not just because we had hit it off rather well in Cairo—[Oh, stop pouting, Carter. It’s not my fault she realized I’m the brilliant one in the family]—but because Zia was an expert with fire glyphs, and that’s just what we needed.
“Push up your hair,” I told Carter. “I need to paint your forehead.”
“I’m not plunging to my death with loser painted on my head!”
“I’m trying to save you. Hurry!”
He pushed his hair out of the way. I painted the glyphs for fire and shield on his forehead, and immediately my brother burst into flame.
I know—it was like a dream come true and