Rick Riordan

“Amos sipped his coffee. The faraway look on his face reminded me of my dad. “I don’t want to scare you.”“Too late.”

“Why didn’t you sleep with the headrest?”I shrugged. “It was uncomfortable.” I looked at Sadie for support. “You didn’t use it, did you?”Sadie rolled her eyes. “Well, of course I did. It was obviously there for a reason.”

“We were alone in a strange mansion with a baboon, a crocodile, and a weird cat. And apparently, the entire world was in danger.I looked at Sadie. “What do we do now?”

“The first thing we pulled out was a lump of white gunk.“Wax,” Carter pronounced.“Fascinating.”

“There’s nothing here,” Carter said.“What do you want?” I asked. “We’ve got wax, some toilet papyrus, an ugly statue.”

“Carter started down the stairs, but I grabbed his arm.“Hang on. What about traps?”He frowned. “Traps?”“Didn’t Egyptian tombs have traps?”“Well…sometimes. But this isn’t a tomb. Besides, more often they had curses, like the burning curse, the donkey curse—”“Oh, lovely. That sounds so much better.”

“Carter pulled out several lengths of brown twine, a small ebony cat statue, and a thick roll of paper. No, not paper. Papyrus. I remember Dad explaining how the Egyptians made it from a river plant because they never invented paper. The stuff was so thick and rough, it made me wonder if the poor Egyptians had had to use toilet papyrus. If so, no wonder they walked sideways.”

“How do you have five children in a row, each on a different say?”“They’re gods,” Carter said. “They can do stuff like that.”

“That’s Narmer with the spoon,” I guessed. “Angry because the other bloke stole his breakfast cereal?”

“I prayed the monsters would give up. Or that perhaps Philip of Macedonia would climb back to the terrace (do crocodiles climb?) and renew the fight.”

“Rowww!” Bast wailed. The wrecking ball rolled straight over her, but she didn’t appear hurt. She leaped off and pounced aain. Her knives sliced through the metal like wet clay. Within seconds, the wrecking ball was reduced to a mound of scraps.Bast sheathed her blades. “Safe now.”“You saved us from a metal ball,” Sadie said.“You never know,” Bast said. “It could’ve been hostile.”

“I frowned. “You mean Set’s got, like, other evil gods on speed dial?”

“My name is Zia Rashid.” She tilted her head as if listening.Right on cue, the entire building rumbled. Dust sprinkled from the ceiling, and the slithering sounds of scorpion doubled in volume behind us.“And right now,” Zia continued, sounding a bit disappointed, “I must save your miserable lives.”

“Egypt is the First Nome. New York is the twenty-first. What’s the last one, the Three-hundred-and-sixtieth?”“That would be Antarctica,” Zia said. “A punishment assignment. Nothing there but a couple of cold magicians and some magic penguins.”“Magic penguins?”“Don’t ask.”

“I grabbed a pair of glowing red legs.”

“I woke to a bucket of ice water in my face.“Sadie! Get up,” Zia said.“God!” I yelled. “Was that necessary?”“No,” admitted Zia.”

“Zia turned toward us, her expression grim. “I will show you to your quarters. In the morning, your testing begins. We will see what magic you know, and how you know it.”I wasn’t sure what she meant by that, but I exchanged an uneasy look with Sadie.“Sounds fun,” Sadie ventured. “And it we fail this test?”Zia regarded her coldly. “This is not the sort of test you fail, Sadie Kane. You pass or you die.”

“How does it taste?” Carter wondered.Zia smiled. “Stick out your tongue.”To answer Carter’s question, the tattoo tasted like burning car tires.“Ugh.” I spit a blue gob of “order and harmony” into the fountain.”

“The Ancient Egyptians were not fools, Carter. They built the pyramids. They created the first great nation state. Their civilization lasted thousands of years.”“Yeah,” I said. “And now they’re gone.”

“Brother dear,” I said, “did your soul leave your body while Amos was talking, or did you actually hear him? Egyptian gods real. Red Lord bad. Red Lord’s birthday: very soon, very bad. House of Life: fussy magicians who hate our family because dad was a bit of a rebel, whom you could take a lesson from. Which leaves us—just us—with Dad missing, an evil god about to destroy the world, and an uncle who just jumped off the building—and I can’t actually blame him.” I took a breath. [Yes, Carter, I do have to breathe occasionally.]”

“Mark my words, nothing smells worse than burned scorpion.”

“What about King Tut’s tomb?” I protested.“That boy king?” Zia rolled her eyes. “Boring. You should see some of the good tombs.”

“I thought about all the things I was suddenly able to do—like fight with a sword and summon a magical shell of armor. Those were not things I covered in home school.”

“My sister, with her ratty red-highlighted hair and her linen pajamas and her combat boots—how could she possibly worry about being possessed by a goddess? What goddess would want her, except the goddess of chewing gum?”

“Once I saw Desjardins’ house, I hated him even more. It was a huge mansion on the other side of the Tuileries, on the rue des Pyramids.“Pyramids Road?” Sadie said. “Obvious, much?”“Maybe he couldn’t find a place on Stupid Evil Magician Street,” I suggested.”

“You both should feel honored.”“Right, very honored,” I said. “Always wanted to be possessed!”

“Tell us, cat!”

“There will be guards,” Bast said. “And traps. And alarms. You can bet the house is heavily charmed to keep out gods.”“Magicians can do that?” I asked. I imagined a big can of pesticide labeled God-Away.”

“Carter Kane, 14, died tragically in Paris when he was eaten by his sister’s cat Muffin.”

“Honestly, I thought I was going to be a kite forever, suffocating inside a little feathery prison. And he had the nerve to make fun!”

“The wand ricocheted through the swarm, thumping six, seven, eight of the little monsters before returning to Carter’s hand.“Not bad,” I said. “Keep it up!”

“The house of Life doesn’t trust our family, especially after what Dad and Mom did. Amos said we were raised apart for a reason, so we wouldn’t trigger each other’s magic.”“Bloody awful reason to keep us apart,” I muttered.”

“After my bad experience as a kite, I simply refused to go about as a glowing Sadie-headed chicken. That’s fine for Carter, but I have standards.”

“I racked my brain trying to remember the names of all of Nut’s five children. Bit difficult without my brother, the human Wikipedia, around to keep track of such trivia for me.”

“With her braided hair and white dress, she seemed to glow in the moonlight. ”

“You can’t burn me.”

“Rachel bit her lip. "I hope you're right. I'm a little worried. What if someone asks what's on the next math test and I start spouting a prophecy in the middle of geometry class? The Pythagorean theorem shall be problem two...Gods, that would be embarrassing.”

“Maybe it’s the other way around,” Jason suggested. “Maybe people with special gifts show up when bad things are happening because that’s whenthey’re needed most.”

“Five syllables," Apollo said, counting them on his fingers. "That would be real bad.”

“Laufen? Auch kein Erfolg. Die Waldnymphen, die mich unterrichten sollten, sausten mir sofort davon. Sie meinten, ich solle mir darüber nicht den Kopf zerbrechen. Sie hätten Jahrhunderte Übung darin, vor liebeskranken Göttern wegzurennen. Aber trotzdem fand ich es ein wenig demütigend, langsamer zu sein als ein Baum.”

“Fish Ponies! I put them on the ceiling!" -Tyson”

“A hero can go anywhere, challenge anyone, as long as he has the nerve.”

“That really was NOT fun, though. Well, the hitting-her-with-a-stick part, that was fun. But crashing into a concrete bear? NOT fun.”

“I have strong feelings for you, I just haven't decided if their positive or negitive yet.A”

“But not like this: not withthe house just an afterimage, and my mom a spirit, and my dad...recycled.""Carter Kane, Chapter 41”

“The House is in the house"Chapter 38”

“Oh, no way," Leo said. "We've been sitting in a cave and you get the luxury tent? Somebody give me hypothermia. I want hot chocolate and a parka!”

“Watching him lumber back toward the apartment building, I got so mad I did something I can't explain. As Gabe reached the doorway, I made the hand gesture I'd seen Grover make on the bus, a sort of warding-off-evil gesture, a clawed hand over my heart, then a shoving movement toward Gabe. The screen door slammed shut so hard it whacked him in the butt and sent him flying up the stair case as if he'd been shot from a cannon.Maybe it was just the wind, or some freak accident with the hinges, but I didn't stay long enough to find out.I got in the Camaro and told my mom to step on it.”

“Percy: "Hey, why do pegasi gallop as they fly, anyway?"Blackjack: "Why do humans swing their arms as they walk? I dunno, boss. It just feels right.”

“Grover wore his fake feet and his pants to pass as human. He wore a green rasta-style cap, because when it rained his curly hair flattened and you could just see the tips of his horns. His bright orange backpack was full of scrap metal and apples to snack on. In his pocket was a set of reed pipes his daddy goat had carved for him, even though he only knew two songs: Mozart's Piano Concerto no. 12 and Hilary Duff's "So Yesterday," both of which sounded pretty bad on reed pipes.”