“Just go,” he said. “It’s not going to help us to argue.”
I wasn’t sure whether to feel guilty or angry, but I supposed he had a point. We didn’t have a very good history with birthdays. One of my earliest memories was fighting with Carter on my sixth birthday, and my cake exploding from the magical energy we stirred up. Perhaps, considering that, I should’ve left well enough alone. But I couldn’t quite do it.
“I’m sorry,” I blurted out. “I know you blame me for picking up the scroll last night, and for Jaz’s getting hurt, but I feel as if I’m falling apart—”
“You’re not the only one,” he said.
A lump formed in my throat. I’d been so worried about Carter’s being mad at me, I hadn’t paid attention to his tone. He sounded absolutely miserable.
“What is it?” I asked. “What happened?”
He wiped his greasy hands on his trousers. “Yesterday at the museum…one of those spirits—one of them talked to me.”
He told me about his odd encounter with the flaming bau, how time had seemed to slow down and the bau had warned Carter our quest would fail.
“He said…” Carter’s voice broke. “He said Zia was asleep at the Place of Red Sands, whatever that is. He said if I didn’t give up the quest and rescue her, she would die.”
“Carter,” I said carefully, “did this spirit mention Zia by name?”
“Well, no…”
“Could he have meant something else?”
“No, I’m sure. He meant Zia.”
I tried to bite my tongue. Honestly, I did. But the subject of Zia Rashid had become an unhealthy obsession for my brother.
“Carter, not to be unkind,” I said, “but the last few months you’ve been seeing messages about Zia everywhere. Two weeks ago, you thought she was sending you a distress call in your mashed potatoes.”
“It was a Z! Carved right in the potatoes!”
I held up my hands. “Fine. And your dream last night?”
His shoulders tensed. “What do you mean?”
“Oh, come on. At breakfast, you said Apophis would escape from his prison on the equinox. You sounded completely certain, as if you’d seen proof. You’d already talked to Bast and convinced her to check Apophis’s prison. Whatever you saw…it must’ve been bad.”
“I…I don’t know. I’m not sure.”
“I see.” My irritation rose. So Carter didn’t want to tell me. We were back to keeping secrets from each other? Fine.
“We’ll continue this later, then,” I said. “See you tonight.”
“You don’t believe me,” he said. “About Zia.”
“And you don’t trust me. So we’re even.”
We glared at each other. Then Carter turned and stomped off toward the griffin.
I almost called him back. I hadn’t meant to be so cross with him. On the other hand, apologizing is not my strong suit, and he was rather impossible.
I turned to the sphinx and summoned a gateway. I’d got rather good at it, if I do say so myself. Instantly a swirling funnel of sand appeared in front of me, and I jumped through.
A heartbeat later, I tumbled out at Cleopatra’s Needle on the bank of the River Thames.
Six years before, my mother had died here; it wasn’t my favorite Egyptian monument. But the Needle was the closest magic portal to Gran and Gramps’s flat.
Fortunately, the weather was miserable and there was no one about, so I brushed the sand off my clothes and headed for the Underground station.