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Eight
Carter sat silently as the judge read out the verdict in his and Sadie’s custody case. He knew what was coming, even though his dad did his best to hide it. He’s known it’s coming since their grandparents had a smug, winning look on their faces. He’s known it’s coming since two days ago when Sadie was supposed to start spending the nights with their grandparents but stayed in the hotel with him and his dad instead.
Sadie sat next to him, swinging her legs back and forth since they didn’t quite touch the ground. Her curly light brown hair was pulled back in a ponytail, the tight curls visible and shining and defined through a painstaking effort on their dad’s part. She wore her favorite shoes, ones that were pink and glittery and lit up when she stomped around or jumped up and down. They didn’t match her black dress with the heart shaped pockets or her neat white turtleneck and tights, but Carter knew why she wore them. They were a birthday present from their mom.
The judge finished reading the verdict, and Sadie started to cry.
“No!,” she screamed as Grandma and Grandpa tried to lead her away. “No! I want to stay with Carter and Daddy!”
She ran away from them, but instead of running towards their dad, she ran up to Carter and threw her arms around him.
“Let me stay,” she said through tears. “Please.”
Carter wanted to cry too, but he held back his tears for Sadie’s sake. She was his little sister. He needed to stay strong for her.
“It’ll be okay,” he said with a small smile. “We get to see you at Christmas and your birthday.”
Sadie sniffed. “But I want to see you everyday.”
“Me too, Sadie. Me too.”
Sadie clung onto him again, and this time, Carter held on just as tight. They were siblings. Why were they separating them? They had to stay together. Without Sadie, who would he draw pictures or watch cartoons with? Who would paint his nails with messy, neon colors and when the other kids asked about it, he could proudly proclaim he was helping his sister practice?
And without their dad, who would do Sadie’s hair in her favorite ponytail, with the two braids leading into it and it styled just so and sit the exact way Sadie liked it? Who would read her bedtime stories about Egypt? Grandma and Grandpa Faust hated the stories about ancient and mythological Egypt that their parents told them.
“Carter,” his dad said softly. “It’s time to go.”
Carter wanted to scream and cry just like Sadie had, but he remembered what his parents always said. Sadie was younger than him, and he had to set a good example. And right now, the good example was being calm about this whole separation thing.
So he let go of Sadie and took a step back towards their dad. “Goodbye, Sadie.”
Sadie looked like she wanted to start crying again, but she held her chin up and wiped the remaining tears away before wishing him goodbye and turning towards their father.
“I need to give you something before you leave,” their dad said. “Both of you.”
He opened his work bag and pulled out two amulets. One was shaped like an eye with little pieces sticking out of it. He handed that one to Carter.
His expression was serious as he explained. “This is the Eye of Horus. It will protect you when the time comes.”
The second amulet looked like someone tried to make a knot that looked a bit like a woman. He placed that one around Sadie’s neck. “This is a tyet , the symbol of the Egyptian goddess Isis. This will also offer you protection when you most need it.”
Instead of saying anything, Sadie hugged him. It lasted slightly shorter than it should have, as if Sadie was trying to get their dad to feel the betrayal of him abandoning her to their grandparents in London.
“Bye bye, Daddy,” she whispered. “I love you.”
Their dad smiled. “I love you too, Sadie.”
And with that, Sadie walked back towards their grandparents, and they left without one look back.
In the cab on the way home, Carter watched as his dad stared out the window. He looked absent, like his mind was anywhere else. It was an expression Carter was used to seeing on him now. It arrived once his mom died, as if his dad was contemplating how to bring her back to life.
But now, Carter had a feeling it wasn’t about that. This was about Sadie, and how to get her back. He didn’t say anything, simply sitting in his seat in the cab and toying with the Eye of Horus pendant on his necklace. He wanted Sadie. And more than that, he wanted his mother. Of course, now he couldn’t have either.
Ten
Carter couldn’t believe it took him this long to realize the two sides to his father.
He supposed it came from spending two years flying around the globe with him. They never stayed anywhere more than four days, and before long, Carter had no possessions other than what he could put in a carry-on and a backpack.
The first side was his father. The man who watched basketball with him and showed him jazz records and offered to buy him ice cream after long, hot days at a dig site. The person who took Carter sightseeing around different countries instead of just stopping there for work. The dad who showed up when Carter was upset about Sadie or who reassured him when he felt especially lonely. This side was one that showed up less and less as Carter got older.
The second side was Dr. Julius Kane. This was a no nonsense man who presented at esteemed universities and conferences and wrote book after book on the ancient Egyptians. This was the man who told Carter about the realities of being a man of color. Always dress impeccably, always say the right things, and even if you’re the smartest in the room, chances are, almost no one will actually believe that. And if he and Carter have to work twice as hard to get recognized, women of color have to work ten times as hard. He didn’t explain any of this as a father having to tell his son that for some unexplainable reason, he’s inferior in the eyes of society because of the color of his skin. He explained it in the clinical way of an infographic, but there was a barely concealed anger there. By the time he was ten, Carter understood it.
Dr. Julius Kane expected nothing but perfection from his son, so perfection Carter gave. He dressed in those button down shirts and khaki pants and perfectly shined shoes. He painstakingly styled his hair, and didn’t throw a fit when his dad told him to cut it shorter so he would look more professional. He knew his dad’s favorite basketball teams and his favorite jazz musicians and even if he didn’t understand the concepts yet, he read all of those Egyptology books that had Dr. Julius Kane as an author.
This version of his father is the one Carter started to see the most often. It’s the version who only has time for him when he’s perfect, so Carter stayed that way: silent and perfect. He followed every rule and learned every fact and dressed just so, because if he did, then maybe his dad would come back and he’d stop seeing Dr. Julius Kane.
Dr. Julius Kane never showed up for Sadie. Sadie always saw their father, and she never seemed to have the mind to feel grateful for that. At her ninth birthday, when their dad got her that beautiful array of hair chalk colors, she smiled and thanked him and hugged him, but she quickly ran off to play with it instead of savoring the fact she got Dad.
On that birthday, they went to all of Sadie’s favorite places. They met her best friends, two girls named Liz and Emma who were in Sadie’s class at school. They’ve been attached at the hip since she moved here, apparently. Carter couldn't help the disgusting pangs of jealousy in his chest. He doesn’t have any friends. Or a house. Or a consistent place he could go to like school or a playground or a market to see those non-existent friends.
They all went to the playground, and Dad talked to Liz and Emma’s parents. They laughed about something. It’s the first time Carter has seen him laugh in awhile.
“C’mon Carter!,” Sadie called from the swings. “Come play with us!”
Carter grinned and jogged over. Despite the fact they’d only seen each other four times in the last two years, he and Sadie were still close. The fact she asked him to play with her and her friends was evidence of that.
When Dad called for Carter and Sadie to come back so they could take Sadie home, Carter noticed the exact moment Dr. Julius Kane showed up. Carter took in his own appearance, with his untucked shirt and the stains on the knees of his pants and the scuffs on his shoes.
They dropped Sadie back off at home, and she gave them both a hug before going back inside.
Carter listened to his dad’s lecture about appearances on their way to the hotel, but he doesn’t have the heart to care. He’s heard this enough times. He doesn’t need to hear it again.
Twelve
Carter would forever remember this Christmas as the one where he and Sadie obviously grew apart.
When she answered the door, one earbud in, hair straightened, and bright pink streaks in her hair, Carter knew his dad could see it too.
“Let’s get to it,” Sadie said. “Where are we going this evening?”
Carter hears her accent for the first time. Maybe it’s just more obvious given the other changes, but it’s still jarring. She sounds like she lived in London her whole life. He wants to throw something.
He already knew where they were going, so he tuned his dad out. It’s the usual. Nice dinner, ice cream, and then spending an excruciating evening at the Fausts before they left just before overstaying their welcome.
Sadie was obviously displeased with this. “But Dad,” she complained. “We always do this!”
Carter waited for a speech, for a reminder to be grateful, for Sadie to get reprimanded for not keeping her composure while strangers were present.
It never came. Dad just smiled and shook his head. “We’re going to do something new this time, Sadie.”
Carter looked up at that. “Really?”
Dad kept smiling. “Really. We’re going to visit an old friend.”
Carter deflated again at that. They’re always visiting old friends of his dad’s, and they’re all dusty old Egyptologists who don’t really know anything. But still, he didn’t say anything.
Sadie groaned. “Really? We’re going to hang out with a bunch of boring old scientists for Christmas?” She popped her other earbud in and muttered. “I should’ve blown this off to hang out with my mates.”
He wanted to scream at her and get in her face and shout about what in the world her problem is. She should be happy they were here at all, and even happier that Dad hadn’t gotten mad at her yet. But Dad never got mad at Sadie. Ever.
He still said nothing. But Sadie said everything. She talked and talked and talked without a care in the world. Carter still wanted to scream. When’s the last time he got his dad’s undivided attention like this?
They sat with Dad’s friends and talked. Sadie rolled her eyes and scoffed at having to learn more Egypt stuff, and this time, Carter did elbow her and shoot her a look.
“What was that for?,” she snapped, annoyed. “This Egypt stuff is pointless and boring. No need to elbow me over it.”
Carter froze for a moment. Great. Now he was going to get in trouble for the way she was acting. Again. He just scoffed and went back to sitting politely. Even if Sadie didn’t care, he’s interested in this new Egypt research about the connections between pharaohs and the god Horus. He felt drawn to it somehow, like it’s relevant to his life. Which was silly, because the pharaohs were long gone and the gods weren’t real.
When they take Sadie back home, their goodbye was stilted and awkward. They don’t hug this year. She headed back inside with a quick nod and goodbye to him.
In the hotel room, Carter got a lecture about how he needed to be nicer to his sister. It doesn’t even make him angry or guilty anymore. He just flicked off his light and rolled over and held the spare pillow tight and squeezed his eyes shut as if that would squeeze the hollow pit in his heart out of his body.
When he cried, he did so silently. No point in worrying his father over something so trivial as his own loneliness. It wasn’t like he was in danger or anything. He was just upset about his life, which was silly, because he lived a great life. He’d been to more countries than most people go to in their lifetimes. His dad was respected and did something cool. Everything was good.
But there was also the dead mom and the separated sister and the expectations and the lack of consistency and the loneliness. So maybe his life wasn’t as good as he originally thought.
It was still pointless to complain. It could be worse.
Fourteen
When Carter turned fourteen, he was laying on the floor in an airport terminal on a six hour layover. Of course they were flying somewhere on his birthday. His birthdays were rarely ever fun after mom died.
When he turned nine, they were sprinting through Heathrow because they almost missed their flight.
When he turned ten, his father was presenting at a big conference at Harvard. He’d gotten a distracted “Happy Birthday” from his dad after the conference before they made their way to the airport to head to Egypt.
When he turned eleven, they had an actual celebration. They were in Australia, and his dad took them to the beach and they sat by the water and ate ice cream and Carter got a real present for the first time since they started traveling. It was a notebook exactly like the one his dad carried. On the first page was a handwritten note that said “For you to write your own stories.” He filled that notebook with all of his hopes and dreams and secrets. And everytime he filled one, he bought a new one. They were the only unnecessary keepsakes his dad bothered to let Carter carry around.
When he turned twelve, it was when those guys ambushed them in a hotel lobby so they had to get moving right away. They had donuts for breakfast that day though.
Thirteen was the worst. He’d gotten food poisoning from something in the food in Spain, so he spent his thirteenth birthday locked in a hotel bathroom and feeling more alone than he had in years. He hadn’t felt sick in the morning, but right after his dad left, Carter was throwing up in a random hotel in a random country with no one to take care of him. It was a year that no one wished him a happy birthday, but that was probably because his dad was more concerned with helping him feel better than wishing him happy birthday.
So it was safe to say that Carter didn’t have many hopes for his fourteenth birthday. But his dad shook him on the shoulder.
“C’mon Carter. I have something to give you,” he said.
Carter sat up and frowned. At this point in his life, getting a birthday present was more unexpected than not getting one at all.
Dad handed him a neatly wrapped box. It had blue paper with gold stars on it.
Carter carefully took the wrapping off the box, and his jaw dropped when he saw what was inside. It was another one of his precious notebooks, but it wasn’t just that. There was a set of nice pens and a book of writing prompts and a novel by Carter’s favorite author. It was the best birthday gift he’d ever received.
“Dad-”
“Stop, Carter. Let me speak.” He took a breath. “I know I haven’t always been there, and one gift doesn’t make up for it-”
“You don’t have to apologize,” Carter interrupted. He both did and didn’t mean it. He wanted an apology, but not like this. Not on the floor of the airport on his birthday. He wants it to be real. This doesn’t feel real. It feels like his dad is trying to make amends because something bad is going to happen.
Dad just smiled. “Happy Birthday, Carter.”
Carter smiled back. “Thanks, Dad.”
At Christmas, he didn’t know what to feel when his dad got vaporized. He clutched one of those pens, the one he always kept in his pocket, and bit the inside of his lip to stop himself from crying. Sadie needed him right now. He could fall apart later.
Dad becoming Osiris was almost the last straw, but just almost. Carter decided to give it time before he totally lost his mind about it.
The apology never comes.
Sixteen
Carter was pretty sure the only time he felt worse than he did at this exact moment was when he was thirteen and puking all over a hotel bathroom instead of celebrating his birthday.
It was spring break for the BAG, and his original plan was to stage the Great British Museum Heist with Sadie, Zia, and Walt (long story), visit his parents in the Duat for a lovely, three day family vacation in the realm of the dead (even longer story), and then tour colleges (which for some reason, was the longest story). Instead, he just spent the last week in Egypt doing some sort of House of Life non-violent conflict resolution. It involved several hours of talking, many duels, yelling, and what Carter started calling The Great Spatula Incident Part 2 (which thankfully did not involve his grandparents). Not to mention the paperwork. He hated paperwork, and for some reason, being pharaoh involved a lot of it.
Even though they defeated Apophis and Sarah Jacobi almost a year and a half ago, internal conflice in the House of Life was still at an all time high. They’d even put up a tally board at the Brooklyn House titled “Carter vs Assassins”, much to the dislike of the actual adults who were “in charge.” So far it was Carter 23-Assassins 0, and he intended to keep it that way. He liked being alive, thank you very much.
Today’s fight was between a bunch of the European Houses wanting to claim stuff from the Russians, and then a couple of the Asian houses claiming they also had a stake in this because Russia is part of Asia, and then of course, the Russians wanted to keep their relics and their literal Nome , which for some reason was also up for contention according to several other groups.
So when he finally made it back to Brooklyn four days after spring break ended, he wanted nothing more than to lay in his bed and sleep for five years.
He left Egypt at ten o’clock at night and portaled to Brooklyn, which meant he went from 10:00 PM to 3:00 PM in a matter of seconds. Usually, he was good with jetlag given the childhood of international travel with his dad. But portal lag? That was a whole other story.
Freak was out on a mission with Sadie and Walt to scope out reports of mythological activity down in Boston (which ended up being such a long story that he didn’t even know where to begin), so he avoided getting tackled by a griffin the second he stepped out of the portal on the roof.
That was when he heard chatter from the balcony below and groaned. The initiates all finished school just before three, so they all just got home and were milling around the balcony and living room before starting on their homework and magical training. He really, really did not want anyone asking questions right now. He liked everyone at the Brooklyn House, he really did, but if he had to listen to Felix rambling while he had this splitting headache, he would vaporize some penguins and not even feel bad about it.
“Well, someone looks like they’re trying to burn a hole in the floor by staring at it. But that’s my thing, so let’s maybe not.”
Carter smiled and looked up. “Zia.”
Zia waved. Her long black hair was up in one of those purposely messy buns that Carter had no idea how people with long hair made look so good. She was dressed in her usual casual outfit of black sweatpants, a white tank top, and a colored zip up, this time a dark blue with the BAG logo on left chest. Thanks to Sadie, she picked up the habit of wearing headphones around her neck. She wore her usual gold hoop earrings and her scarab necklace from Ra.
Carter could feel himself physically relaxing. Sure, his head still hurt and he still wanted to collapse into his bed and sleep for a week, but just seeing Zia made everything so much more manageable.
That was only amplified when she walked up to him and they hugged. Gods, he missed her while he was in Egypt. They usually went together, given that Zia knew a lot about the history of the House of Life and was occasionally the Eye of Ra and the supreme leader of all beings. However, Zia had a personal mission in regards to figuring out some information about her past this spring break, so she didn’t come.
After a few moments, Carter pulled away slightly. “How’d you know I was up here?”
Zia shrugged. “I guessed.” She pressed a quick kiss to his lips. “Now, c’mon. If you want to dodge everyone and get some rest before the check-in with Walt and Sadie later, you have to go downstairs now.”
Carter took her hand and laced their fingers together. “Have I ever mentioned how amazing you are and how much I love you?”
Zia laughed. “Only like three times a day.” She squeezed his hand. “I love you too, and I really did miss you while you were gone.”
“I missed you too.”
They shared a smile before Zia shoved him forward. “Now go! You’re annoying when you’re tired.”
“Hey! You’re worse!”
They still laughed as Carter headed through the door. Zia was right. He managed to make it to his room without encountering anyone else who lived here.
And she was right about another thing. That evening’s check in with Sadie and Walt definitely wasn’t something he wanted to do with a raging headache, because all it did was give him a new one.
“Wait, recap that,” he said, massaging his temples to try and get rid of his headache.
“We met a bunch of dead Norse warriors,” Walt answered. “They live in Valhalla until their version of doomsday – what was the name again? Tag-something? No wait-”
“Ragnarok,” Carter interrupted. You didn’t spend seven years traveling the world with a dad who studied Egypt without picking up on a few other mythologies. “I take it Valhalla operates a lot like the House of Life or Camp Half-Blood or New Rome?”
“You’d be correct,” Sadie said. “It’s a hotel style system. Magnus, the guy we met, is actually Annabeth’s cousin. You remember Annabeth right?”
Carter raised an eyebrow. “How could I forget Annabeth? I hang out with her or Percy once a month.”
“Anyways,” Zia said. “So the Norse gods exist in yet another mythical world parallel to ours. That makes Egypt, Greece, Rome, and the Norse. What’s next? The Hindu gods?”
“Holy Horus, Z,” Carter said, holding a hand up. “Let’s not speak that into existence. I don’t know if I could handle that.”
Zia shrugged. “It’s a possibility. You never know. I mean, what if you know them already? Drew and Lacy go to the BAG and they’re Greek demigods who you met before meeting Percy and Annabeth.”
Sadie grinned. “I wonder what they’re up to if they exist.”
“I don’t,” Walt and Carter said at the same time.
“We don’t need to run around discovering more ancient civilizations,” Walt continued. “We’re all functioning relatively fine on our own and have all prevented our own doomsday once or twice. We have connections with the Greeks, Romans, and Norse. I think we’ve covered most of our bases.”
“And all of these groups are connected-,” Carter said.
“-via Annabeth Chase,” Sadie finished.
“We all know each other for a reason,” Zia said. “I do not want to know what happens when we all have to band together.”
Carter nodded. “Me neither. Sadie-”
“I know the drill, brother dearest. Walt and I will be back by tomorrow evening.”
And with that, Sadie disconnected the message, leaving Carter staring at a blank phone screen.
Carter held his head in his hands. Well that was quite the way to finish off his two weeks of hell on Earth.
When Sadie came back the next day, they ignored this new piece of information about Magnus Chase and Hotel Valhalla. Instead, they just went about their lives as usual. Carter didn’t know why, but approaching Sadie seemed dangerous. It was almost like that tight, unbreakable bond they’d made while fighting Set and Apophis was finally being tested. Being around her was strange and awkward, almost like those weird holidays while Sadie was still living with their grandparents. Except now it was worse, because they knew each other and how to bother each other and what to do to make each other angry.
Maybe that was where the problems started.
Eighteen
Carter and Sadie had fought before, but never like this. He never even expected them to fight like this.
He supposed he should’ve seen it coming. They’d been dancing around each other for weeks now, snapping at each other and avoiding rooms the other was in and carrying a tense air around whenever they had to lead things together.
He couldn’t tell you when it all started. Maybe it was back in May when Carter made and offhanded comment about how Sadie should be focusing on school instead of jumping from boyfriend to girlfriend to boyfriend again after breaking up with Walt/Anubis a year and a half prior, or in March when Sadie tried to make a joke about him leaving for Egypt in August.
Maybe it was two years ago, when they stopped talking as often. They no longer sat in the living room long after everyone else had gone to sleep, trading stories and watching movies. They didn’t come to each other with problems. Their weekly coffee meeting at the little cafe down the street from the BAG every Thursday before Sadie went to school slowly faded away.
Or maybe it started way earlier than that. Maybe it started when they were twelve and fourteen and they were reunited that fateful Christmas. Maybe it was when they were ten and twelve and Carter first noticed that they were growing in opposite directions. Maybe it started when she was six and he was eight and they were separated.
But however it started, it ended with them here: dinner on Carter’s eighteenth birthday.
It was all going well enough. They all ate together as a House as they usually did. Their friends and initiates chatted excitedly about the rapid end of summer vacation, and he, Zia, and Cleo talked excitedly about starting college (or in his case moving to Egypt) in a month and a half.
“Wait, Carter,” Julian interrupted as Cleo talked about the many excitements of her studying at Brown. “How are you going to balance being pharaoh and running the Brooklyn House?”
There it was. The dreaded question. A question that Carter had been ignoring ever since the defeat of Apophis almost three years ago.
He and Zia exchanged a quick glance. They’d talked about it together frequently, even as Carter continued to ignore the House of Life clamoring for his answer. And even after all these years of discussing it, neither of them really knew. The obvious answer was that Carter would pass on his share of administration of the Brooklyn House to someone else who would work with Sadie, but he didn’t want to. This place was too important to him. It was too important to them as a family.
So Carter just shrugged. “I’ll figure it out.” I always do . He didn’t know why he didn’t include that outloud.
A few seats down, Sadie slammed her silverware down on the table.
Walt placed a hand on her shoulder. “Sadie, are you-”
“I’m fine,” she snapped, swatting Walt’s hand away.
Well. She was definitely glaring daggers at Carter now if she wasn’t earlier.
“What?,” he asked. He doesn’t mean for it to come out so forcefully, but it does. The words force themselves out of his mouth with as much bitterness as those glares make him feel.
Sadie laughed. A hard, bitter thing that wasn’t at all like she normally laughed like. “‘What?’ That’s all you have to say?”
Carter’s chest seared with anger coming to the surface. “Yeah, that’s all I have to say, because I don’t know what the hell your problem with me is.”
Sadie scowled. “Seriously? You seriously don’t know?”
Why does she think we know? , Horus asked.
Great. Now the war god was in his head. Definitely a good thing to have giving commentary while in an explosive argument with his sister.
“No! Why would I know?”
Sadie slammed her hands on the table and stood up. “Do you know what your problem is, Carter?”
Now Carter slammed his hands on the table and stood up. “Can you stop asking me? I just said I don’t know what your problem with me is!”
“The problem is that you keep leaving!,” Sadie spat. “All you ever fucking do is leave!”
The initiates’ gazes darted between them as they yelled. Zia and Walt were both tense, ready to jump up and hold the Kane siblings back from a fight. Jazz, Julian, Cleo, and Alyssa, all the initiates that are close enough in age and have been around long enough to be considered close friends of the siblings and senior members of the Nome, were tensed in a similar manner.
Carter flinched back, heart sinking. “What?”
“You heard me!,” Sadie shouted. “You. Just. Leave.” She gestured around the table. “You’re in Egypt like once a month, or you’re running around the country trying to sort out the mess of the North American Nomes. When are you going to learn that those things aren’t your problem?”
Carter’s left eye burned where it was glowing gold with an Eye of Horus as his emotions spiked. “Those things are my problem, Sadie! I’m the pharaoh!”
“Well maybe you shouldn’t be!”
All the cups on the table exploded into hundreds of glittering shards when she yelled. Zia swore and threw up hasty shield spells over all the initiates. “Carter-”
But he wasn’t listening. Any of that guilt or sadness hardened into anger. Horus kept yelling in his head. His eye burned. His head hurt. “Oh, because you think you’d do so much better? You don’t even want to hold any leadership in this Nome, much less the entire House of Life!”
Gold wings flickered right behind Sadie as her powers responded to the fight. “Maybe I don’t want to lead, but at least I don’t abandon people who need me!”
“Well at least I actually give a shit about the people around me! At least I try to help!”
Sadie gestured around the table. “Everyone, look at our king and savior and hero, Carter Kane! A guy who can’t even figure himself out enough to choose what he wants his future to be and instead spends all his time running around the world and scribbling stories in a notebook.”
Carter clenched his fists. Two could play at that game. “Oh really? Everyone look at our leader and savior and hero, Sadie Kane. A girl who can’t even figure herself out enough to pull her life together and stop chasing her whims and actually lead like we’re supposed to!”
Sadie’s eyes narrowed. “Take that back.”
“You first.”
Around the table, everyone held their breath. Zia, Walt, Julian, Jazz, Alyssa, and Cleo were all on their feet, hands clenched around various magical objects, posed ready to fight.
Three seconds of that tense silence passed. Sadie reached into the Duat for her staff, and Carter made a grab for his sword.
Chaos erupted around the table. Several of the newer initiates screamed and dove under the table to avoid getting caught in the crossfire. Jazz cast hasty shields around everyone who didn’t make it under the table or out of the way.
Carter’s sword connected with Sadie’s staff, sending sparks of magic around the table.
“Focus on getting everyone off this terrace!,” Zia ordered. “Then we’ll deal with the idiots.”
Carter didn’t have time to counter that, because the next thing he knew, Sadie swept her staff at him again. He dodged and countered with his sword, aiming for a disarm.
Sadie beat him to it. She snapped her fingers, and his sword flew out of his hand and embedded itself in the wall, missing Julian’s shoulder by mere inches.
“Hey! Watch where you’re launching your fucking weapons!,” Julian shouted.
Carter swore. He tried to reach into the Duat for the crook and flail, but Sadie was too fast. She was always better than him at magic, even if combat was where he usually excelled. She obviously had Isis on her side for this one too, because she was waving her staff and snapping her fingers to fire off spells without even speaking.
Stick with defense , Horus advised rather unhelpfully. You can’t win this one .
Thanks , Carter grumbled back. I didn’t notice .
He dodged shots of water and ice and sand as Sadie fired them off. Small amounts Horus’s power coursed through him, just enough to improve his reflexes as the fight dragged on.
He rolled under the table, side stepped blasts of fire, and managed hasty shields to avoid getting struck by lighting (that was a new one). But even with the power of Horus on his side, all of the dodging wore Carter out, which was likely exactly what Sadie was planning on.
“I hate you!,” she spat, spinning her staff in a circle. The golden wings behind her glowed so bright it was almost blinding, an indicator of exactly how much of Isis’s power she was channeling. The broken remains of what used to be the dinner table gathered around her in a deathly ring of sharp wood, glass, and ceramic shards, and all of those pieces were aimed at one person: him.
He looked around. He was cornered, the House to one side, the edge of the balcony to his back, and the pool that was now filled with debris to his other side.
Well. Nice knowing you, Carter. Who’s next in line for pharaoh?
Will you shut up?
“Enough!,” Walt shouted, voice amplified about ten times louder than it usually was, probably thanks to some trick of magic from Anubis.
Zia and Alyssa jumped between him and Sadie, throwing up shields around both themselves and the two siblings. Jazz and Walt stood behind Sadie, ready to hold her back and disarm her if she managed to get through their magic. In his periphery, Carter could see Julian, ready to do the same thing to him.
The debris around Sadie slammed to the ground, and so did Carter’s resolve. What was he even so mad about? There wasn’t any reason for him to be this angry or annoyed at her. They destroyed the terrace. Their friends had to jump in and stop them, the supposed leaders, from killing each other. But worst of all, Sadie’s words rang in his head.
I hate you I hate you I hate you I hate you.
Never in their lives had Sadie ever said she hated him. Ever. Not even jokingly.
This was his fault. It had to be. He’d done too much or too little. He hadn’t been there. He didn’t show up enough as her brother. He didn’t strike the balance.
“Sadie, I-”
“Just stop,” Sadie interrupted. “Leave me the hell alone, will you?” And with that, she stomped off back into the House, glaring at anyone who dared look at her.
Carter looked out at the group gathered on the terrace. They all looked some mix of furious, shocked, and maybe even disappointed. The worst was Zia, who looked halfway ready to rip his head off for being so stupid.
“Carter, don’t look like that,” Walt said, voice still layered in that way it was when he was channeling Anubis. “It’s not your fault, man.”
“It is though,” Carter said.
Zia’s expression softened. “Carter, it’s not. Sadie-”
He held a hand up. “Just stop. I need a minute.”
He didn’t look at anyone as he made his way to his room. How could he? He’d embarrassed himself, but more than that, he’d let everyone down. He wasn’t supposed to lose his temper. He wasn’t supposed to shout. He wasn’t supposed to get violent like that.
He still slammed the door to his room behind him, the pictures on the wall shaking with the force of it. And of course, it was just his luck that his laptop screensaver currently displayed a collage of photos of him and Sadie. Stupid selfies taken while watching movies, posed shots before school dances, silly photos of them covered in monster slime and dust taken by friends when they came back from missions.
He walked over to his desk and shut his laptop. How could he have screwed it all up so badly?
He sat in his desk chair, looking at the walls of his room. After so long at the Brooklyn House, the space was finally starting to feel like his own. Posters from his favorite bands, sports teams, and novels plastered the walls. A fair amount of photos covered the walls as well, from ones of him and Zia to ones of his family to ones of him and his close friends. The wall by the door was lined with giant shelves, housing books, figurines, and most of all, piles upon piles of those notebooks.
Sadie wasn’t wrong with that one. He did write in those notebooks all the time. Notes on Egypt, Greece, and Rome. His school notes when he was getting his GED. Training plans for the whole Nome, but Julian specifically because he was also following the path of Horus. His deep, dark secrets. Chronicles of all their adventures. And more recently, fictional, creative pieces. Had he really gotten so trapped in all of that where he couldn’t see past it all?
He spun around in his chair, staring at the bulletin board above his desk. His gaze fell on the little NYU flag (courtesy of Zia, since it was where she would be attending college) in one corner, displayed right above a photo of him and Zia from her graduation. He had an arm around her waist, both of them caught mid-laugh as she tried to balance her deep navy grad cap on his head. A photo of him and Walt before cheering on Julian at one of his basketball games. Sticky notes of reminders about birthdays, trips to Egypt, and various lists covered the rest of the surface. And finally, a photo strip of him and Sadie from their last trip to England.
It was a stupid three photos that cost them five cents at the local mall, but it was so them. Sadie was pretending to punch him in the first one. In the second, they were both flashing their magical symbols, him with the gold outlining the Eye of Horus on his left eye and Sadie with her golden wings, while pulling silly faces at the camera. And in the final one, they were both grinning with their arms around each other.
That trip was a year ago. How did it get so bad since then?
Someone knocked on his door.
“Come in,” he called.
The door creaked open and shut, and whoever just walked in stood there in silence for at least thirty seconds.
“So,” Sadie said. “I nearly murdered you.”
Carter tensed, but kept his gaze firmly fixed at the bulletin board above his desk. “You did.”
Sadie cleared her throat and walked closer. “I’m sorry.”
Carter still didn’t look at her. “Yeah?”
“Yeah.”
He spun his chair around. To her credit, Sadie did actually look sorry. She shifted from one foot to the other, hands clasped behind her back. She could barely even look at him, which was a change from her usual easy confidence. Apologizing didn’t come easily to her, so she must’ve really thought she messed up.
Carter sighed. “I’m sorry too. I shouldn’t have said that stuff.”
Sadie looked up and shook her head. “You shouldn’t have to apologize. What I did to you…”
Carter shrugged. “It’s forgiven. We can move on.”
“But we shouldn’t,” Sadie argued. She sighed and pushed a blue streaked braid out of her face. He’d done those braids for her two weeks ago, carefully braiding the light blue into the blonde while they pulled an all nighter and watched as much of Gilmore Girls as they could in one sitting.
“I didn’t mean all of that,” Sadie said, expression pleading. “I just…leaving is hard. After everything.”
“I know.” Oh boy, did Carter know. Their whole shared past involved a whole lot of people dying and leaving and abandoning them.
“And I don’t hate you,” she said so fast Carter almost didn’t hear it. “Gods, I really, really don’t hate you. You’re my brother.”
Carter smiled slightly. “I know. It still hurt though.”
Sadie tugged at the end of one of her braids. “I know. I can’t imagine if you’d said that to me. I probably would’ve actually killed you.”
“Instead of almost?”
“Exactly.”
They remained like that for a few more moments, with Carter sitting in the chair and Sadie standing across from him. It wasn’t all fixed, but the apology made it mostly better. After all, when you’re siblings, are you ever truly at peace?
Carter stood up. “Come on. We have an entire terrace to clean up.”
Sadie groaned. “I know it’s my fault because I blew it up. But-”
“This is part of your apology. Clean the whole thing. Only use magic to fix things.”
Sadie shoved him. “Fine. I guess it’s only fair.”
“You also used way too much magic trying to kill me,” Carter said, peering into the Duat and seeing the way Sadie’s form fizzled out around the edges. “Anymore and you’ll probably explode.”
“Probably,” Sadie agreed. “Movie night still on?”
Carter laughed. “Obviously. And I get to pick.”
“That’s not-”
“Remember that time thirty minutes ago when you tried to murder me?”
Sadie huffed. “Fine. You’re so gonna use this against me forever, aren’t you?”
“Definitely.”
Saide rolled her eyes, but she still smiled. “I suppose that’s fair. Now come on. I think Zia might break down this door herself to make sure you’re still alive if you don’t go out there right now.”
Carter shook his head. “She would. Now you go clean while I make sure she’s not out to murder you.”
Sadie raised an eyebrow. “She wouldn’t…actually she would. Nevermind.”
With that, they both laughed and opened the door and headed off to their respective tasks. In the end, Carter ended up letting Sadie pick the movie anyway.
Twenty
“You graduated!”
“Oh my gods, Carter, get the hell off me!”
Carter did let go of Sadie, but he grabbed her diploma out of her hands as he did. It was in a fancy little navy blue faux leather folder, the words “Brooklyn Academy for the Gifted” embossed on it in golden letters. He opened it, revealing the actual diploma.
He cleared his throat. “The Brooklyn Academy for the Gifted would like to present Sadie Kane with this diploma for-”
Sadie snatched the diploma back out of his hands. “Give me that!”
Carter grinned and put his hands in the pockets of his dress pants. “I wasn’t doing anything.”
Sadie huffed and adjusted her cap, which was somehow out of place despite it being secured to a headband so it would rest properly on her curls. “You were being annoying.”
“Sadie, get over here!,” Jazz called. “We’re doing a Brooklyn House photo!”
A large share of initiates from that first group graduated this year, including Sadie, Jazz, Alyssa, and Julian. All four of them stood with their arms around each other, their navy blue gowns open over white dresses (in Sadie, Jazz, and Alyssa’s cases) or a white button down and black slacks (in Julian’s case).
“Magic Bags on three!,” Julian shouted. “Count it down, Carter!”
Carter pulled out his phone to take the picture. “Okay. One, two, three-”
“Magic Bags!”
That got everyone laughing as they took a few more photos. One of them throwing their caps in the air, one where they all held up their caps in front of them to display how they were decorated with subtle path of the gods references, and a few pair and single photos that Carter promised to send out later.
Sadie, Jazz, Alyssa, and Julian all eventually ran off to talk to some of their other classmates, leaving Carter with the other family members who’d flown out for the ceremony. All their parents knew that their children were blood of the pharaohs, so that part wasn’t awkward. The awkward part was that Carter was the only sibling present who was over the age of thirteen, which left him talking to the parents.
It wasn’t like he was bad at small talk. He was a literal king who had to speak to people he didn’t want to all the time. It was just weird having been the guy to mentor Alyssa, Jazz, and Julian and see them become the people they were today, and then be standing next to their parents, the people who normally would’ve taken on that role.
Thankfully, Alyssa and Jazz’s parents ended up talking to each other, leaving Carter to talk to Julian’s dad. He’d always been close with Julian, given the whole both of them following the path of Horus thing. This should be easy.
“So,” Julian’s dad said, an easy, joking smile on his face. “You’re the pharaoh? Am I supposed to call you ‘Your Majesty’ or something?”
Carter shuddered. “Please don’t. It’s too weird for someone so closely associated with the Brooklyn House and who's not House of Life.”
That made Julian’s dad laugh. “I won’t then. Your name is Carter, right?”
“The one and only.”
Julian’s dad smiled. “Well, thank you for teaching my son all these years.”
Carter shrugged. “Just doing my job.”
At the moment, Julian himself was goofing off with the other members of his basketball team. After seeing them both, Carter realized how much Julian looked like his dad. They had the same green eyes and curly light brown hair and light brown skin. The only difference was that Julian was just over six feet tall, towering over Carter (look, being five foot eight was not an issue, but being shorter than a guy he considered a little brother was), while Julian’s dad was rather short.
“It’s more than that,” Julian’s dad said. “He really looks up to you. He didn’t really have a lot of that in Boston.”
Carter knew a lot about Julian’s past already. Popular, stereotypical jock guy who kept landing in trouble after his mom died when he was eleven. One time he punched the wrong guy and ended up in a series of fights way over his head and got sent to a school for troubled kids right outside the city where he found the tape recordings. Then the rest was history.
He smiled. “He’s like my little brother. It really isn’t a big deal.”
Julian’s dad placed a hand on Carter’s shoulder. “Well, it’s a big deal to me. So thank you.”
“You’re welcome,” Carter said. “And thank you for letting Julian come stay with us.”
“Yo Carter!,” Julian yelled, waving his arms around. “Let’s take a picture!”
“Then get over here!,” Carter yelled back.
Carter handed his phone to Julian’s dad. “Can you?”
“Of course.”
They took a few photos before Sadie yelled at them that it was time to go back to the Brooklyn House, which they opened to families of initiates just for today for a huge graduation lunch. They walked back, the initiates talking excitedly to their parents. Jazz, Alyssa, and Julian would all be going home for the summer before going to different colleges around the country. It would be their first time leaving the Brooklyn House in almost six years.
He and Sadie trailed in the back, watching as Alyssa excitedly told her little sister, Jessie, about all of the coolest parts of the House of Life. Both of her parents looked on from right behind them, smiling at each other and their children.
“I wish Mum and Dad were here,” Sadie said.
“Me too,” Carter said, watching as Alyssa and Jessie raced each other in a game of hopscotch over the cracks in the sidewalk. Were he and Sadie ever like that? Did their parents ever laugh at their shenanigans in that way?
“I asked Anubis,” Sadie said as she took her cap off. “He said Dad couldn’t leave the Hall of Judgement, no matter how important it was.”
“Was it actually Anubis or was it Walt?”
“Not the point, idiot.”
Carter held his hands up. “Hey, I was just curious. It matters.”
Sadie stared at the tyet she’d used to decorate her cap. “It was Anubis.” She squeezed her eyes shut and blinked rapidly after, trying to stop tears. “It’s not enough for Dad to miss most of my childhood. He has to miss when I step into being an adult too.”
Carter reached over and placed a hand on Sadie’s shoulder. “I know. It’s not fair.”
“Did he at least ask for photos?”
Carter faked a smile. “Yeah. He asked for loads.”
Sadie wiped a stray tear off her face, careful to avoid messing up her eyeliner. “Don’t lie.”
Carter’s smile dropped. “He didn’t even know it was today,” he admitted. “Mom asked for photos though.”
Sadie shook her head. “Of fucking course. What else did I expect?”
Carter thought about his entire childhood of flying around the globe with his dad. “For him to show up like he should have from the beginning.” He sighed. “He never showed up for me unless I was perfect, Sadie. He didn’t even come to my literal coronation. Uncle Amos and Zia both lied and told me he’d been standing in the back.”
“But Zia’s such a shit liar,” Sadie said. “Especially to you.”
“Yeah.”
Sadie stepped out from under his hand. “Why weren’t we ever enough for him?”
Carter looked up at the sky, past the tall buildings of the city and up at the clear blue. “We were at some point, I think. But then he became consumed with saving Mom, and then he became the lord of the dead, and we started doing our own thing and all of it kind of just…wasn't enough anymore.” He hated admitting it to her. He managed to keep it a secret for so long, letting Sadie live with the illusion their father was a near perfect man. But he hadn’t even taken a day off from being Lord of the Dead to come to his coronation or her graduation, and she’d seen through the last of the illusion on her own.
“And you lived with that?”
“I had no other choice. I accepted it when I was really young.”
Sadie knocked her shoulder against his. Carter put an arm around her shoulders, and she put an arm around his waist. They walked the remaining half block to the Brooklyn House like that, a pair of siblings arm in arm, who despite their accomplishments, were never quite good enough.
“At least we have each other,” Sadie said.
“Yeah. Love you, Sadie.”
“Love you, too, Carter. But don’t tell anyone I said that.”
“Oh gods. Don’t tell anyone I said it either.”
They both laughed, the sound somehow echoing over the noise of the city and the river. Maybe they didn’t have their parents, and maybe they didn’t even have each other for a while, but now they were together. And that was enough.