Chapter 22 #3
“Thomas hid Ezra right under their noses for years,” Nour said.
“But our son has become more noticeable as of late—I fear he’s attracted undue attention.
Magicians are hunting him. Magicians who, for all their power, don’t understand the true nature of Hekamaat’s magic.
I cannot warn my son of such dangers without bringing them to pass.
If they see me with Ezra, they will attack.
I am not what I once was… with prayers run dry.
The recent surge in Egyptomania has provided some power, but not enough to stop the Order outright. ”
Especially the Apex. Celia’s gut seized.
Papa… He’d thought he’d done right by his child too…
but in the end all was rot. And Celia was here.
Standing next to a woman who’d claimed to sail through death itself.
Ezra’s mum. If her story was true, then the scholar was clueless.
And in unspeakable danger… all because she’d gone tilting at windmills.
She’d dragged Ezra into this revenge fantasy without a thought for what it might cost.
What she might ruin outside of the Order…
“You, though, Celia. You’ve grown close with Ezra… You can reach him in ways I cannot.”
Could she? Still? The scholar’s face flashed across her memory: so devastating in that last exchange.
Ruin. Ruin. What you might ruin? Did you even stop to think?
Did you ever think about anyone but yourself?
Celia was trying, now, but it was difficult to imagine their next encounter.
“So you want me to waltz back to the Winter Palace and tell Ezra that he’s cursed to keep the gates to hell locked tight by becoming a living mummy?
Should I go ahead and stab his heart out while I’m at it? ”
Not one of the Ageless Ones blinked.
Nour’s masque did flicker, but the rest of her expression remained still.
“He won’t believe me,” Celia went on bitterly. “I tried telling him about the death cloud I saw in the basin, but—”
“The Mer-Remet?” Blood drained from Nour’s face.
“The silver bowl with the snakes?” Celia nodded.
The Sanct was starting to look chalky. “You saw the outpouring of the dead in the Pool of Tears…”
“Yes, but Ezra wouldn’t believe me. I’d dropped the bowl, so I tried filling it back up with water and showing him, but the images wouldn’t return.”
“The future only shows itself in teardrops,” Nour explained shakily. “Tell me, what else did you see?”
“Camels. Sphinxes. Blood. A lot of blood…” Celia shivered. “And then I saw the dead coming out with the cloud.”
One of the Ageless Ones blinked. The barest hint of wrinkles appeared with his frown. “He’s going to open the gate.”
Nour looked ashen. Even her feathers were trembling. The other three Ageless Ones were already getting to their feet, brushing off their robes and sprouting wings of their own.
“Does—does everything you see in the basin come true?” Celia’s thoughts whirred like a colony of bats come sundown, trying to make sense of everything.
“I have not yet seen something in the Pool of Tears that did not come to pass,” Nour admitted.
Hell was real.
If Ezra’s life was the key to opening those floodgates, then that meant that somehow, he was going to die. All that blood in the vision… That had to be his…
Impossible. She’d watched a knife spring back out of the scholar’s chest. And the crocodile’s jaws. And the cigarette. Not to mention all the bullets Vincent’s father had manufactured for the Great War’s battlefields. Every single one of them had missed Ezra Bright.
The man was invincible.
Except…
Except Celia had seen Ezra bleed.
Her right palm clenched with the memory of the sphinx’s jaws crushing down. The darkness of the British Museum had closed in, as well, before Ezra had joined her side, offering his own hand instead. The statue’s fangs had drawn enough blood to open the Order’s vault.
The sphinxes in her vision had looked similar enough—enough to make her question the inscription Ezra had translated on their ragged base. We are the eternal guardians of the sacred vault. Only through the blood of the magicians may the gate be opened.
“The Order knows about the door…” she said slowly. “They repurposed two of the sphinx statues to guard their vault in London.”
Nour nodded. “They have been trying to open the gate to the Duat for many years, with the belief that it will unlock the power of resurrection. They are too proud to heed any warnings. Too consumed by the possibility of seeing lost loved ones again. Their leader—he is obsessed with such things.”
The rest of the world be damned. Celia swallowed back the hope of seeing her own father. She hadn’t realized how strong it had grown. “Ezra wants to resurrect his brother, George. And you… He thought you wrote the clue in the golden pyramid so that he could finally find some answers.”
“Clue?” Nour frowned.
“The parchment hidden in the golden pyramid relic. It’s what started this whole mess…
” The blank look on the older woman’s face made Celia’s blood itch.
“You wrote about a journey through the stars to a hidden pyramid…” Still blank.
The itch in Celia’s veins became a roar. “You didn’t write that, did you?”
Turquoise light rippled through the cavern as the Sanct shook her head.
The Ageless Ones were almost to the chamber’s end. The last of them turned back and spoke to Nour in that undrinkable language. Celia didn’t need any enchanted tea leaves to know what they were saying.
They had to get to the gate before Ezra did.
“I can help you. Please.” Celia patted the empty pockets of her utility belt. “I don’t want to see Ezra dead any more than you do—but I won’t be able to do shit unless you return my relics.”
“Your relics?” Nour’s mouth twisted at this. “Did you hammer the star into that blade? Did you inlay the light of the sun into that locket?”
A flush crept up Celia’s cheeks and chest. She thought of the Russian refugees who’d “gifted” Papa the Tunguska knife.
They’d probably collected the star’s dust from the splintered, silent firs.
They’d probably sweat inside their forge, joining such things to a blade.
Who in their right mind would let go of that kind of power?
She knew now, the answers to the question she’d never dared ask.
Papa was no better than those who’d damned him.
And Celia?
Well, the ugly truth of the matter was, she couldn’t do much without this stolen magic.
Nour made a wry expression as she pulled the missing relics from one of her gown’s pockets. “I made this hippopotamus, you know. And most of these ankhs. Back when I was young, magic was used for creating things—”
“You weren’t all self-made,” Celia pointed out. “You and your brother found that ivory wand by the river.”
“True,” Nour admitted. “But I’ve always held on to it lightly.
That’s the key to handling true power—lest it grab you back.
” She held out all the relics Celia had kept on her person.
Including the hippopotamus and the knife that could shatter every bone.
“My ankhs will protect you from the dead, if it comes to that.”
Celia added the items to the utility belt’s many pockets and placed the necklaces back over her head. The key and the locket pressed into her chest with a heavy, familiar weight.
Taking is taking.
“I will not ruin this,” she murmured as she watched Nour walk briskly toward the door.
The Ageless Ones had already disappeared. Celia followed, bat-like thoughts still darting this way and that. Whose clues had they been following? Would she reach the gate in time to save Ezra? What would be waiting there for them?
And, more importantly, who?