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I didn’t see why The gates of the Eighth House were already closed Menshikov had sailed on and left us behind

Maybe that had been his plan all along He’d let us wake Ra only partially so the sun god remained old and feeble Then Menshikov would leave us trapped in the Duat while he used whatever evil ic he’d planned to free Apophis When the dawn came, there would be no sunrise, no return of Ra Instead Apophis would rise and destroy civilization Our friends would have fought all night at Brooklyn House for nothing Twenty-four hours froed to leave the Duat, we’d find the world a dark, frozen wasteland, ruled by Chaos Everything we cared about would be gone Then Apophis could s Ra and co forhen the battle was lost?

A general never shows despair, Horus said He instills confidence in his troops He leads them forward, even into the ht Who invited you back intoas Horus was, he had a point Sadie had talked about hope--about believing that we could make Ma’at out of Chaos, even if it see, keep on believing we could salvage so from the disaster

A trainees…all of the on us If our friends were still alive, I couldn’t give up I owed them better than that

Tawaret escorted us to the sun boat while a couple of her shabti carried Ra aboard

"Bes, I’m so sorry," she said "I wish there was more I could do"

"It’s not your fault" Bes held out his hand like he wanted to shake, but when their fingers touched, he clasped hers "Tawaret, it was never your fault"

She sniffled "Oh, Bes…"

"Wheee!" Ra interrupted as the shabti set him in the boat "See zebras! Wheee!"

Bes cleared his throat

Tawaret let go of his hands "You--you should go Perhaps Aaru will provide an answer"

"Aaru?" I asked "Who’s that?"

Tawaret didn’t exactly smile, but her eyes softened with kindness "Not who, my dear Where It’s the Seventh House Tell your father hello"

My spirits lifted just a little "Dad will be there?"

"Good luck, Carter and Sadie" Tawaret kissed us both on the cheek, which felt sort of like getting sideswiped by a friendly, bristly, slightly oddess looked at Bes, and I was sure she was going to cry Then she turned and hurried up the steps, her shabti behind her

"Weasels are sick," Ra said thoughtfully

On that bit of godly wisdohts manned the oars, and the sun boat pulled away fro a piece of rope

"No, you can’t eat that, you old git," Sadie chided

"Uh, kid?" Bes said "Maybe you shouldn’t call the king of the gods an old git"

"Well, he is," Sadie said "Co"

"No tent," he rab his arue Finally she took the pharaoh’s crook fro bone "Want the crook, Ra? Nice tasty crook?"

Ra grabbed for it weakly Sadie backed up and eventually ed to coax Ra into the pavilion As soon as he reached the eht exploded around hi me

"Carter, look!" Sadie cried

"I wish I could" I blinked the yellow spots out of old, a fiery throne carved with glohite hieroglyphs It looked just like Sadie had described from her vision, but in real life it was thepiece of furniture I’d ever seen The crew lights buzzed around it in excitehter than ever

Ra didn’t seeown had changed into regal robes with a collar of gold, but he still looked like the same withered old man

"Have a seat," Sadie told him

"Don’t wanna chair," he muttered

"That was aln?"

"Zebras!" Ra grabbed the crook fro, "Wheee! Wheee!"