“A long white ribbon shot out of the crack in the wall. The ribbon just kept coming, weaving itself into some kind of shape next to Anubis, and my first thought was, My god, he’s got a magic roll of toilet paper.”

“Disturber shuffled his scroll. 'You have used magi for evil purposes, including twenty-three murders--''Self-defense!' Setne tried to spread his hands, but the ribbons restrained him.'--including one incident where you were paid to kill with magic,' Disturber said.Setne shrugged. 'That was self-defense for my employer.”

“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.”

“Oh...my...god,"Drew whimpered."Who..."Anubis ignored her (bless him for that) and held out his elbow for me - a sweet old-fashioned gesture." May I have this dance?""I suppose," I said,as non committally as I could. I looped my arm through his, and we left the Plastic Bags behind us, all of them muttering,"Oh my god! Oh my god!"No ,actually, I wanted to say. He's my amazingly hot boy god. Find your own.”

“Before I could do anything rash, a familiar voice behind me said, "Hello, Sadie."The other girls let out a collective gasp. My pulse quickened from "slow walk" to "fifty-meter-dash." I turned and found that-yes, indeed-the god Anubis had crashed our dance.”

“Then there were the shabti, magical figurines that were supposed to come to life when summoned. A few months ago, I’d fallen for a girl named Zia Rashid, who’d turned out to be a shabti. Falling in love for the first time had been hard enough. But when the girl you like turns out to be ceramic and cracks to pieces before your eyes—well, it gives “breaking your heart” a new meaning.”

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