39. Zia Tells Me a Secret
CHEERS, CARTER, FOR MAKING ME LOOK dramatic and all that.
The truth was a bit less glamorous.
Back up, shall we? When my brother, the crazy chicken warrior, turned into a falcon and went up the pyramid’s chimney with his new friend, the fruit bat, he left me playing nurse to two very wounded people—which I didn’t appreciate, and which I wasn’t particularly good at.
Poor Amos’s wounds seemed more magical than physical. He didn’t have a mark on him, but his eyes were rolled up in his head, and he was barely breathing. Steam curled from his skin when I touched his forehead, so I decided I’d best leave him for the moment.
Zia was another story. Her face was deathly pale, and she was bleeding from several nasty cuts on her leg. One of her arms was twisted at a bad angle. Her breath rattled with a sound like wet sand.
“Hold still.” I ripped some cloth from the hem of my pants and tried to bind her leg. “Maybe there’s some healing magic or—”
“Sadie.” She gripped my wrist feebly. “No time. Listen.”
“If we can stop the bleeding—”
“His name. You need his name.”
“But you’re not Nephthys! Set said so.”
She shook her head. “A message...I speak with her voice. The name—Evil Day. Set was born, and it was an Evil Day.”
True enough, I thought, but could that really be Set’s secret name? What Zia was talking about, not being Nephthys but speaking with her voice—it made no sense. Then I remembered the voice at the river. Nephthys had said she would send a message. And Anubis had made me promise I would listen to Nephthys.
I shifted uncomfortably. “Look, Zia—”
Then the truth hit me in face. Some things Iskandar had said, some things Thoth had said—they all clicked together. Iskandar had wanted to protect Zia. He’d told me if he’d realized Carter and I were godlings sooner, he could’ve protected us as well as...someone. As well as Zia. Now I understood how he’d tried to protect her.
“Oh, god.” I stared at her. “That’s it, isn’t it?”
She seemed to understand, and she nodded. Her face contorted with pain, but her eyes remained as fierce and insistent as ever. “Use the name. Bend Set to your will. Make him help.”
“Help? He just tried to kill you, Zia. He’s not the helping type.”
“Go.” She tried to push me away. Flames sputtered weakly from her fingers. “Carter needs you.”
That was the one thing she might’ve said to spur me on. Carter was in trouble.
“I’ll be back, then,” I promised. “Don’t...um, go anywhere.”
I stood and stared at the hole in the ceiling, dreading the idea of turning into a kite again. Then my eyes fixed on Dad’s coffin, buried in the red throne. The sarcophagus was glowing like something radioactive, heading for meltdown. If I could only break the throne...
Set must be dealt with first, Isis warned.
But if I can free Dad...I stepped towards the throne.
No, Isis warned. What you might see is too dangerous.
What are you talking about? I thought irritably. I put my hand on the golden coffin. Instantly I was ripped from the throne room and into a vision.
I was back in the Land of the Dead, in the Hall of Judgment. The crumbling monuments of a New Orleans graveyard shimmered around me. Spirits of the dead stirred restlessly in the mist. At the base of the broken scales, a tiny monster slept—Ammit the Devourer. He opened one glowing yellow eye to study me, then went back to sleep.
Anubis stepped out of the shadows. He was dressed in a black silk suit with his tie unknotted, like he’d just come back from a funeral or possibly a convention for really gorgeous undertakers. “Sadie, you shouldn’t be here.”
“Tell me about it,” I said, but I was so glad to see him, I wanted to sob with relief.
He took my hand and led me towards the empty black throne. “We have lost all balance. The throne cannot be empty. The restoration of Ma’at must begin here, in this hall.”