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"Uh-huh" I rubbed my temples "Do you have any headache medicine behind that nurses’ station?"
"It’s not that confusing," said Carter, just to be annoying "It’s like a revolving door You have to wait for an opening and jureed "There is a little wiggle room with most of the Houses You can leave the Fourth House, for instance, pretty ates are iht You can only enter the First House at sunset You can only exit the Twelfth House at dawn And the gates of the Eighth House, the House of Challenges…can only be entered during the eighth hour"
"House of Challenges?" I said "I hate it already"
"Oh, you have Bes with you" Tawaret stared at hies won’t be a problem"
Bes shot me a panicked look, like, Save ," Tawaret continued, "the gates will close before you can get there You’ll be locked in the Duat until toht"
"And if we don’t stop Apophis," I said, "there won’t be a toht That part I understand"
"So can you help us?" Carter asked Tawaret "Where is Ra?"
The goddess fidgeted with her hair Her hands were a cross between huers and thick nails
"That’s the problem, dear," she said "I don’t know The Fourth House is enormous Ra is probably here soo on forever We have so many patients"
"Don’t you keep track of the?"
Tawaret shook her head sadly "I do hts… And there are thousands of old gods"
My heart sank I could barely keep track of the ten or so ods I’d met, but thousands? In this roo off in different directions, two staircases, and three elevators Perhaps it was ination, but it seemed as if some of the hallways had appeared since we’d entered the rooods?" I asked
Tawaret nodded "Most were icians didn’t consider the Over the centuries, they’ve wasted away, lonely and forgotten Eventually they made their way here They simply wait"
"To die?" I asked
Tawaret got a faraway look in her eyes "I wish I knew Soet lost wandering the halls, or find a new roo The sad truth is it aotten by the world above Once your nalanced at Bes, as if trying to tell hiod looked away quickly "That’s Mekhit, isn’t it?" He pointed to the old lion wo her way around in a wheelchair "She had a teot confused with Sekhmet"
The lioness snarled weakly when Bes said the na, "Meow, meow"
"Sad story," Tawaret said "She caod Onuris They were a celebrity couple in the old days, so romantic He once traveled all the way to Nubia to rescue her They got otten They caan to go quickly after that Now she rolls her chair around the rooh we keep reht about Khnum, e’dhis secret na and scooting along with noto care for a thousand gods like that--senior citizens who never got better and never died
"Tawaret, how can you stand it?" I said in awe "Why do you work here?"
She touched her nurse’s cap self-consciously "A long story, dear And we have very little tioddess I scared away deh not as well as Bes"
"You were plenty scary," Bes said
The hippo goddess sighed with adoration "That’s so sweet I also protected nant?" Carter asked, nodding at her enormous belly
Tawaret looked mystified "No Why would you think that?"
"U why you take care of aging gods"
Tawaret checked the sundial, and I was alar toward six "I’ve always liked to help people, but in the world above, well…it became clear I wasn’t needed anymore"
She was careful not to look at Bes, but the dwarf god blushed evengods," Tawaret continued "I suppose I understand their sadness I understand about waiting forever--"
Bes coughed into his fist "Look at the ti here?"
Tawaret considered "It’s possible I saw a falcon-headed god in a rooht it was Nemty, but it’s possible it could have been Ra He soo about in falcon foret close, the Book of Ra uide us"
Tawaret turned to Bes "Are you asking me for this, Bes? Do you truly believe it’s i it because Bast told you to?"
"No! Yes!" He puffed out his cheeks in exasperation "II need your help"