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‘That was rude.’ He glanced up at the two falcons now diving towards him. ‘No time for this nonsense.’
Just as the birds were about to rip his face off, Setne vanished in a swirl of rain.
The falcons landed and morphed into two human teens. On the right stood my buddy Carter Kane, looking casual in his beige linen combat jammies, with a curved ivory wand in one hand and a crescent-bladed sword in the other. On the left stood a slightly younger blonde girl, who I assumed was his sister, Sadie. She had black linen jammies, orange highlights in her hair, a white wooden staff and mud-spattered combat boots.
Physically, the two siblings looked nothing alike. Carter’s complexion was coppery, his hair black and curly. His thoughtful scowl radiated seriousness. By contrast, Sadie was fair-skinned with blue eyes and a lopsided smile so full of mischief I would’ve figured her for a Hermes kid back at Camp Half-Blood.
Then again, I have Cyclopes and two-tailed mermen as siblings. I wasn’t about to comment on the Kane kids’ lack of resemblance.
Annabeth exhaled with relief. ‘I am so glad to see you.’
She gave Sadie a big hug.
Carter and I looked at each other.
‘Hey, man,’ I said. ‘I’m not going to hug you.’
‘That’s okay,’ Carter said. ‘Sorry we’re late. This storm was messing up our locator magic.’
I nodded like I knew what locator magic was. ‘So this friend of yours, Setne … he’s kind of a dirt wipe.’
Sadie snorted. ‘You don’t know the half of it. Did he happen to give you a helpful villain monologue? Reveal his evil plans, say where he was going next, that sort of thing?’
‘Well, he used that scroll, the Book of Thoth,’ I said. ‘He summoned a cobra goddess, devoured her essence and stole her red hat.’
‘Oh dear.’ Sadie glanced at Carter. ‘The crown of Upper Egypt will be next.’
Carter nodded. ‘And if he manages to put the two crowns together –’
‘He’ll become immortal,’ Annabeth guessed. ‘A newly made god. Then he’ll start vacuuming up all the Greek and Egyptian magic in the world.’
‘Also he stole my sword,’ I said. ‘I want it back.’
The three of them stared at me.
‘What?’ I said. ‘I like my sword.’
Carter hooked his curvy-bladed khopesh and his wand to his belt. ‘Tell us everything that happened. Details.’
While we talked, Sadie muttered some sort of spell, and the rain bent around us like we were under a giant invisible umbrella. Neat trick.
Annabeth had the better memory, so she did most of the explaining about our fight with Setne … though calling it a fight was generous.
When she was done, Carter knelt and traced some hieroglyphs in the mud.
‘If Setne gets the hedjet, we’re finished,’ he said. ‘He’ll form the crown of Ptolemy and –’
‘Hold up,’ I said. ‘Low tolerance for confusing names. Can you explain what’s going on in, like, regular words?’
Carter frowned. ‘The pschent is the double crown of Egypt, okay? The bottom half is the red crown, the deshret. It represents the Lower Kingdom. The top half is the hedjet, the white crown of the Upper Kingdom.’
‘You wear them together,’ Annabeth added, ‘and that means you’re the pharaoh of all Egypt.’
‘Except in this case,’ Sadie said, ‘our ugly friend Setne is creating a very special pschent – the crown of Ptolemy.’
‘Okay …’ I still didn’t get it, but felt like I should at least pretend to follow along. ‘But wasn’t Ptolemy a Greek dude?’
‘Yes,’ Carter said. ‘Alexander the Great conquered Egypt. Then he died. His general Ptolemy took over and tried to mix Greek and Egyptian religion. He proclaimed himself a god-king, like the old pharaohs, but Ptolemy went a step further. He used a combination of Greek and Egypt magic to try making himself immortal. It didn’t work out, but –’
