“I did,” Isis said.
“And you were called for an interview two days later.”
“You knew where the Flamels were hiding?” Sophie asked.
“We’ve always known where they are. We’ve been very careful to keep a close watch on the Codex.”
“And you knew that when they saw me, they’d recognize me as a Gold,” Josh whispered. “And Sophie as a Silver.”
Isis’s smile was bitter. “Those arrogant fools, the Flamels, have been seeking Golds and Silvers across the centuries. We simply gave them what they were looking for.”
Osiris nodded. “The Alchemyst and his wife came to believe that they were far more important in the grand scheme of things than they really were. They were pawns. Just like Dee, and all the other humani.”
“And us?” Sophie asked. “Are we pawns too?” She looked over at her brother and saw him nod.
“You are Gold and Silver,” Osiris said quietly. “And yes, we have manipulated you, but not to use you as pawns. To protect you. Everything we have done was to keep you safe,” he insisted. “You are like the king and queen on the chessboard: right now, in this time and place, you are the most valuable and important people on this world.”
Isis leaned forward, metal bracelets pinging off the silver table. “None of this was by chance: millennia of careful planning went into ensuring that this exact sequence of events would unfold.”
“You planned everything?” Sophie asked. Every new revelation made her feel slightly more sick to her stomach. “Even the bad parts?”
“Were there bad parts?” Isis asked. She looked at her husband and he shook his head. “What are you referring to?”
“I think she means the parts where we were almost killed,” Josh answered for his twin. “I was almost eaten by a Nidhogg in Paris.”
Isis waved a ringed hand as if Paris meant nothing. “You were never really in that much danger, Josh,” she said. “You were in the company of some of the finest warriors of any generation. They protected you.”
“I fought the Disir,” Sophie said. She was unwilling to let this go so easily. “I got the impression that they were trying really hard to kill me.”
“And don’t forget the Awakening process,” Josh added.
Isis let out a light, musical laugh that sounded strangely false and practiced. “You were never in any danger from that. You are Gold and Silver,” she said. “True Gold, pure Silver. Only the impure are damaged by the Awakening.”
“And what about the attack by the undead in Ojai?” Josh pressed.
Isis tried another laugh. It sounded as false as the first. “Dee was not powerful enough to sustain them for very much longer. You destroyed them minutes before they would have collapsed of their own accord.”
“And Coatlicue?” Sophie asked. “She was ready to feast on Josh.”
“And I barely escaped the burning building,” Josh added. “And then there was that thing with horns in London.”
“Enough!” Isis clapped her hands, the rings on her fingers sparking as they snapped together. “This was all planned.”
“Including Dee betraying you?” Sophie asked defiantly. “Because I got the clear impression that that was not in the cards.”
The table fell silent.
Josh stared at his twin closely. “Dee went out on his own, didn’t he?” He hadn’t known for sure until she’d said it out loud.
Sophie nodded. “He grew tired of being a servant. He wanted to be the master.”
Osiris held up his hand. “No plan is entirely foolproof. There will always be some tiny unforeseen factors. Variables. Toward the end, Dee became a variable.” He flashed a smile, and like his wife’s laughter, it was practiced and false. “But we should balance that with the fact that he was a true and loyal servant for centuries.”
“But he was your agent on earth,” Josh protested. “That’s not a tiny factor. That’s a fairly major error.”
“Enough,” Osiris snapped. “He has paid the price. As does everyone who defies us. He was not our first servant. He will not be our last. Indeed, I believe Miss Dare is already moving into a position to replace him. I have made her an offer she’s really not in any position to refuse.”
“And she has accepted this offer?” Josh demanded.
“She has.”
Josh couldn’t believe what the Elder had just said. Virginia Dare? A servant to Isis and Osiris? To anyone? “I think you’ll find that Virginia Dare is not John Dee,” he said quietly.
“I know what she is,” Osiris snarled.
Isis reached over and placed a hand on her husband’s arm, stopping him before he could say anything else. “Josh is right.” She looked at her husband carefully. “Dare is dangerous. And the flute makes her … unmanageable. I think you should withdraw your offer. We can easily find another human agent.”
“Of course,” he agreed immediately.
“But what will you do with her?” Sophie asked.
“That depends,” Isis said.
“Depends on what?” Sophie demanded. Thoughts flickered at the corner of her mind, and she had a sudden image of Virginia falling from a great height into a bubbling volcano.
“On how cooperative she is.”
“And if she isn’t?” Josh demanded.
The smile that curled Osiris’s lips was genuine this time. “We’ll feed her—as we feed all traitors and criminals—to the volcano.”
A door opened, breaking the silence that had fallen across the table. A red-eyed anpu appeared. One of the cat-women padded over to the monstrous creature and stood on her toes to put her head alongside his. They did not speak audibly, but the slight creature suddenly turned and ran back toward the table, tail whipping agitatedly from side to side. Isis and Osiris stood.
Josh leaned across the table toward his sister. “I’ll bet Virginia’s gone.”
Sophie nodded.
Osiris and Isis listened to the servant’s report, and the moment she’d finished, Osiris turned and hurried away.
Isis turned. “It seems Miss Dare decided she did not need her sleep after all,” she said. “But not to worry, we’ll find her. A child could follow her stink through the city. Now, you two, go get dressed. Properly this time. In clothing appropriate to this time and place.”
Josh opened his mouth to protest.
Isis held up her hand. “No arguments, Josh. You will find that there is a suit of gold armor in your room; silver in yours, Sophie. Wear it.”
“Why?” Josh demanded.
“You are being presented to the Ruling Council of Danu Talis this very evening.”
Sophie shot her brother a fast look. “Why the rush?” she asked.
“It seems Danu Talis is in need of a ruler. Aten, the previous ruler—well, technically the present ruler, until he is tossed into the volcano—has been removed from power. Bastet thought she could be clever and acted while we were away. She’ll be presenting her son Anubis to the council, making a case for him as the rightful heir of Amenhotep and the next ruler of the island.” Isis’s mouth twisted in an ugly sneer. “She believes we will support her. Of course, she does not know that we have you, the rightful heirs of Danu Talis.”
Sophie shook her head. “I have no idea what you’re talking about.”
“You—both of you, Gold and Silver—are the rightful rulers of Danu Talis.” Isis leaned forward, enveloping them in her cinnamon odor. “Within the hour, the Ruling Council with recognize you. At dawn tomorrow, you will be crowned rulers of the greatest empire ever to arise on the earth.”
Sophie stepped back from the woman who looked like her mother. She was shaking her head. “No, that’s not right. That can’t be right.” She frowned as the Witch’s memories danced in her head. “That’s not what happened before.”
“A version of it did,” Isis said quickly. “I was there in that time stream and I saw it all. I watched the twins fight and I saw Danu Talis fall.”
“Hang on a sec. Which twins???
? Josh demanded.
“Us,” Sophie said bitterly.
“Us?”
“In a different time stream we fought. There have only ever been one set of true twins: us. We are the original twins of legend.”
Josh felt the world shift and spin around him. His head had started to thump. “Hang on, hang on. We’re the original twins. The first Gold and Silver.”
“Yes,” Isis said.
“And in another time stream, we fought. What happened then?”
He desperately tried to remember the fragments he’d discovered over the past days. “What happened to us, Sophie?”
Isis answered. “In the other time stream, the twins fought on the Pyramid of the Sun. They died there on that pyramid and Danu Talis fell,” she said coldly. “That is not going to happen again. This particular time stream is one of the rare Auspicious Threads, those moments in time when the future is not yet fixed. There is a window—a small window—where we can change everything. We will not repeat the mistakes we made. You are the twins of legend, the original legend, created by your father and me: one to save the world, one to destroy it.”
“Who saves it, who destroys it?” Josh asked. “Don’t you know?”
“It does not refer to you as individuals, it means the world,” Isis explained. “Together, you will save a world: Danu Talis.”
“But only by destroying another world: the earth,” Sophie whispered.
“Everything has a price. Now go, get dressed. We will leave as soon as your father returns.” Isis walked away, then stopped and looked over her shoulder. “A week ago you were nothing more than ordinary teenagers. Now you are on the cusp of becoming gods. Your powers will be limitless.”
“I don’t want to be a god,” Sophie called after her defiantly.
The door slammed, leaving the twins alone in the garden. They stood in silence for a long time, trying to make sense of everything they’d discovered. When Josh finally turned to look at his sister, she was crying, huge silent tears rolling down her cheeks.
“Hey … hey … hey,” he began. “Everything is going to work out. We’re going to be okay.”
“We’re not!” she snapped. “Josh, I’m not crying because I’m sad. I’m crying because I am so mad right now. They …” She pointed at the closed door. “They, whoever they are, think they’ve got it figured out, that we’re just pieces they can move around on their big cosmic chessboard and everything will work out the just way they planned it. They think we’re going to go along with everything, question nothing and just do as we’re told like good little boys and girls. They think we’ll destroy the earth!” She shook her head and the garden filled with the scent of vanilla. “And it’s not going to happen.”
“It’s not?” Josh asked. He loved it when his sister got mad.
“Not if we’re the twins of legend,” she said firmly.
“I don’t want to fight you, Sophie,” Josh said quickly. He shuffled his feet. “The last few days … I don’t know what was going on. Dee … well, Dee just confused me. But I missed you. I really missed you.”
“I know.” Sophie smiled through her tears. “You have no idea what I did to get back to you.”
“Followed me to Alcatraz, for a start. How did you do that?”
“It’s complicated. And remind me to tell you about Aunt Agnes.”
Josh blinked. “I’m guessing she’s not Aunt Agnes.”
“Oh, I think she is. And she is more, much, much more. She taught me that all the magics are equal, none more powerful that the other.”
“Virginia taught me the Magic of Air,” Josh said shyly.
“You like her, don’t you.”
“She’s okay.”
“You do like her!” Sophie’s smile faded. “I wish she were here now—I wish someone were here who could advise us what to do.”
“We don’t need anyone, Sis,” Josh said. “We’ve never needed anyone else. We’re going to do what we think is right. Not what Isis and Osiris want or think they can force us to do. We’re powerful—maybe even more powerful than they know.”
Sophie nodded in agreement. “What was it Osiris called us: ‘in this time and place, the most valuable and important people on this world.’ ”
“Oh, I think we’re more important than that.” Josh grinned. “I think we’re another of the variables they’ve forgotten to account for.”
“Variable and uncontrollable.”
CHAPTER TWENTY-SEVEN
Billy the Kid followed Machiavelli and Black Hawk down the narrow tunnel. Dirty white light from a glowing ball of energy shimmered off the wet walls and dripped off the ceiling. The air stank of dead fish and rotting seaweed.
“This is just disgusting,” Billy muttered.
“I’m inclined to agree with you,” Machiavelli said. “But I have been in worse places. It reminds me a little of …”
“Don’t tell me. I really don’t want to know,” Billy grumbled. He took a step forward and sank up to his ankle in fetid mud. A stinking bubble burst, spattering his jeans with filth. “When this is over, I’m going to have to burn these boots. And these are my favorite boots.”
“I like you, Billy,” Machiavelli said. “You are always so unfailingly optimistic. You’re assuming that we’re going to be alive at the end of this adventure so you can buy new boots.”
“Well, I don’t know about you, but I’m not planning on dying, that’s for sure.” Billy’s teeth flashed in the gloom. “Black Hawk and I have been in some serious scrapes over the years.” He looked over the Italian’s shoulder and raised his voice. “I was just saying—”
“I heard you, Billy,” Black Hawk said quietly. “In fact, I’m sure that everything on the island just heard you.”
Billy shook his head. He jerked his thumb toward the ceiling. “Over that noise? I doubt it.” The roars, screams and cries of the assembled monsters overhead percolated down through the rocks. “But we should look on the bright side. At least they’re still on the island.”
“We should only begin to worry when it gets quiet. Real quiet,” Black Hawk said. “That either means they’re creeping up on us or they’ve left the island.”
“Impressive logic. Is that some Native American tracking lore?” Machiavelli asked.
Black Hawk shook his head. “Common sense.” He stopped and pointed ahead. “There.”
The Italian’s hand moved and the glowing ball of light drifted down the tunnel, where it illuminated a rectangular doorway. Unlike the rest of the walls, which were encrusted with seaweed, barnacles and mud, this section was scraped clean and showed the original irregular bricks used to build the tunnel.
“This is the cave I was telling you about,” Black Hawk said. “When I was finished with Nereus, some of the mermaid creatures were a little upset with me.”
Billy grinned and opened his mouth to comment, but Machiavelli reached over and squeezed his arm, silencing him.
“Not having been left with a whole lot of choices,” Black Hawk continued, “I retreated deeper into the tunnel. The women chased me—even without legs they made good time dragging themselves forward with their hands, flapping their tails. A bit like salmon swimming upriver. They were howling and hissing until we reached the bend just there. And then they stopped as if they had run into a wall.” Black Hawk raised his hand and the foul tunnel air swirled with the sharp, clean, vaguely medicinal odor of sarsaparilla. Pale green flames danced along his fingertips, then drifted up to form an amorphous emerald-colored cloud, and the walls of the tunnel blossomed with shimmering, trembling silver-green light. “I saw this,” he said.
“What is it?” Billy whispered, looking at the walls.
Black Hawk reached out and ran his right hand down the wall. It was covered with a fine, glimmering coating that came away on his fingers in long gossamer threads. “Spiderweb,” he said. “The walls are covered in web.”
“That’s a lot of spiders,” Billy said nervously.
Black Hawk wave
d his hand and the green cloud drifted deeper into the tunnel, illuminating it. “You can see where it’s torn in places, so something big moved through here.” He stepped forward and scooped a length of wood from the mud. “But this is what really interests me,” he said. “I had just discovered this when I heard your voices.” Black Hawk held out an inch-thick length of solid black wood topped with a long flat leaf-shaped blade. Machiavelli and Billy leaned over to look at the weapon.
“It’s a spear,” Billy said. “An old one too. I don’t know that blade pattern. It’s not native to the Americas.”
“Looks African to me—Zulu, perhaps,” Machiavelli said.
“There are some more in the mud behind me,” Black Hawk said. He brought his hand over the metal head of the spear. The green aura trembling on his fingers illuminated a square hieroglyph painted onto the blade.
“Ah,” Machiavelli breathed. “What have we here?” As he reached out, his fingertips popped alight and the odor of serpent filled the tunnel.
“Man, you need a better smell,” Billy said.
“I like it,” Machiavelli murmured absently, dirty gray light dribbling off his fingers. “It has served me well.” His gray eyes took on the green of Black Hawk’s aura and the square glyph reflected in his pupils. The Italian glanced up at Black Hawk. “You know what this is?”
“I’ve seen similar spears before,” he said. “And our legends are full of them. They’re ancient and deadly. Only the most powerful of medicine men can carry them.” He pointed to the glyph on the blade. “I’ve never seen that on a medicine man’s spear, though. The pattern looks South American.”
Billy looked over the Italian’s shoulder at Black Hawk. “I’ve seen something similar in Quetzalcoatl’s Shadowrealm. They’re in the kitchen, over the fridge….”
“Yes, there’s a wall carved with these square facelike shapes. The wall looks older than the rest of the house,” Black Hawk confirmed.
“It makes sense that Quetzalcoatl would know the words.” Machiavelli looked around. “You said there were more?”
Black Hawk lifted another two spears from the sticky mud. The heads had been daubed with more of the square glyphs, though one of them had been partially washed away by the seawater. Billy found two more spears near the tunnel wall. One head bore only a hint of writing, and the second showed signs of a glyph that had been partially scraped away.