The Serpent's Shadow

Aboard the Egyptian Queen, Bloodstained Blade attacks Carter. Carter casts a protective shield around Zia and then runs. On deck, Carter finds the ship headed for a waterfall with no one steering. He sees Setne trying to escape with the Book of Thoth and casts a spell to bind the magician. Soon after, Bloodstained Blade corners Carter, who somehow summons Ra’s crook and flail from the Duat as a weapon.

Carter is badly wounded fighting the demon. Just in time, Zia arrives and burns the demon away. The boat crashes hard into the shore, sending the two flying. They land hard on the rocks. Zia applies a magic salve to Carter’s wounds, healing him instantly and warning him, “[T]his is my only jar. So don’t get injured anymore” (282). Down the shore, Setne squirms in his bindings, trying to escape. Since he’s going nowhere fast, Carter and Zia clean themselves and have a picnic to regain their strength. 

Carter asks Zia about her ability to harness Ra’s powers. Zia realizes Ra chose her to help awaken him, but every time she tries, it feels like he’ll just drag her into wherever he’s imprisoned. Carter is sure she can do it and will help however he can. Zia is grateful and kisses him, which makes Carter’s brain short-circuit.

Carter and Zia retrieve the Book of Thoth from Setne without releasing the magician. The book says Apophis’s shadow is in the Land of Demons and has a map. The teens work out that they are in the Land of Demons but otherwise can’t make sense of the map’s dense hieroglyphics. Setne can lead them to the shadow unseen if they unbind him. Though it feels like a terrible idea, Carter and Zia agree. Setne casts a glamor to make the kids resemble demons: Carter, a blue chimpanzee with a bottle-opener for a head, and Zia, a bright-green creature with a piranha head. As they traverse the Land of Demons, Carter feels a numbing cold and a pulling on his very self.

Finally, the group reaches the edge of the Sea of Chaos—the source of the pulling. Everything that gets too close to the sea is pulled into its churning depths, except for a single stretch of land with a glowing obelisk atop it. The obelisk is the symbol of order among chaos. Carter and Zia must cast the spell to summon Apophis’s shadow from the obelisk, which involves traversing the narrow strip of land over the sea.

After a harrowing walk, Carter, Zia, and Setne reach the glowing obelisk. Zia reads the spell to summon the shadow. The Sea of Chaos darkens with Apophis’s snarling, snapping shadow, which is almost as large as the sea itself. The shadow’s tail is attached to the obelisk’s base, which keeps the serpent trapped in one place. For just a moment, Carter gets a glimpse of Apophis’s thoughts and realizes, “Apophis despised creation the way I might despise a rusty nail driven through my foot” (301). 

When Carter asks Setne what’s next, Setne casts a spell to turn his glamors around Carter and Sadie into bindings, and then takes the Book of Thoth. He plans to bind Apophis and then blackmail the serpent into destroying only what Setne wants destroyed. He sarcastically thanks Carter and Sadie for their help, adding that no miracle is going to drop out of the sky to save them. On cue, Sadie’s portal opens above Setne. She lands on the magician, takes in the situation, and binds Setne.

Sadie frees Carter and Zia before kneeling at the base of the obelisk with the Apophis statue. Carter is terrified the spell will backfire and kill his sister, but it traps the shadow just as it’s supposed to. Dragging Setne along, Carter, Sadie, and Zia cross back to the mainland, where they find an army of demons advancing on them. The teens prepare to fight their way through. 

Before they can, a force attacks from the rear of the army. The gods from the nursing home, with a restored Bes leading them, plow through the demons. Bes picks the teens up in a brand-new, but still filled with junk, limo. As they drive through the demon army, Sadie shouts suggestions for demons to run over from the passenger seat. 

Bes drives them back to the wreckage of the Egyptian Queen, where they find Ra’s sun boat coming down the river. The group boards the boat “for what might be the last sunrise in history” (315).

Aboard the boat, Sadie tries very hard not to think about Walt and Anubis. Zia unites with Ra, who crumbles at her touch. Light surrounds Zia, who begins to speak in Ra’s voice. Sadie looks into the Duat to find the sun god has been reborn within Zia. Zia-as-Ra moves to the front of the boat. Carter and Sadie move toward the rear, where they swap stories and discuss how the people they like have merged with gods. Neither knows how to feel about it, but they agree to discuss it later, assuming they survive.

The sun boat emerges into the human world above Giza in Egypt. Bast holds back Apophis all by herself, and a hidden tunnel to the Cairo stronghold has been forced open. Zia/Ra and Bes join Bast as Carter and Sadie go to help Amos and the magicians against the rebels. Carter tries to offer the crook and flail to Ra, but the god turns them down because it is Horus who must become pharaoh. Carter looks terrified, but Sadie feels calm because after everything, “Thinking of Carter as the pharaoh was actually comforting” (327-28).

Carter and Sadie call on Horus and Isis to merge their powers with the gods. Inside the tunnel, the Brooklyn magicians are locked in intense combat with the rebels. Carter and Sadie join the fight, ripping through their enemies. 

At the doors to the Egyptian stronghold, Sadie draws up short at the sight of Walt. Using Anubis’s powers, he imprisons or destroys the last of the rebel squad. Seeing Sadie, he falters, staring at her. Sadie understands how he feels, but knowing this isn’t the time, she orders him, “[S]top staring at me and open the doors, you annoying boy!” (334). She finds that yelling at Walt/Anubis feels very natural.

Inside the Cairo stronghold, Amos battles the rest of the rebels with an avatar of the god Set. As the teens watch, the rebels manage to subdue the avatar and capture Amos. The leader demands the magicians surrender to her as their new leader because Amos is obviously too corrupted by the gods. When Sadie refuses, the rebel leader blasts her across the room before attacking the others. Walt stops another attack meant for Sadie and turns his death magic on the rebels, announcing, “[N]o one harms Sadie Kane” (342).

The leader of the rebels is pulled into the underworld. Her lieutenant’s robes turn red, and he channels Apophis’s power, knocking most of the other magicians unconscious as he battles Carter, Sadie, Walt, and Amos. Walt drops the lieutenant, who uses the last of his lifeforce to cast a spell to destroy the stronghold. 

Calling on her own sense of calm and choosing to resolve all her confusion about who she is, Sadie speaks the spell for order, Ma’at, which feels, “as if I’d struck a tuning fork against the foundation of the earth” (348). The stronghold rebuilds itself, and Sadie passes out. When she wakes up moments later, the magicians are ready to join the gods in the fight against Apophis.