7

WHERE I PLAY TRIVIAL PURSUIT WITH THE GODS

No sooner had the lock clicked behind Henry than the shabtis were out of the closet and cleaning. I was pretty sure Henry wasn’t carrying the bubonic plague, but the shabtis didn’t let that stop them from disinfecting everything. Lieutenant Roy led the cleanup effort, running frantically from one side of the town house to the other, making sure no spot was left untouched.

“What are the scrolls doing out?” Gil asked. “That could have been a disaster.”

I fumbled for words. How was I supposed to explain it to Gil? I couldn’t tell him about the spells. Or the knife. What I really needed was for Gil to leave me alone for once so I could sneak out to the Library of Congress.

“Nothing happened. I got the scrolls away before he touched them.” I looked down at Lieutenants Virgil and Leon, who bowed, ran off, and then returned in under a minute with a soda and a glass of ice. Gil scowled at them.

“But why were the scrolls out in the first place?” Gil sank down into his favorite chair, which only seconds before had been occupied by Henry’s backpack. The chair was older than the Constitution and had more patches than a quilt, but Gil refused to get rid of it.

It was a totally legitimate question. We never took down the Book of the Dead from the top of the bookcase. I decided to use my bad luck from earlier as an excuse. “Horus was helping me figure out a way to smite Horemheb. He thought there might be something in the Book of the Dead.”

“And what did his godliness come up with?” Gil said.

I crossed my arms and pretended to act annoyed, which was easy. I couldn’t believe Gil had known there was an immortal-killing knife in existence and had never bothered to tell me. Around my feet, the shabtis lined up in assault formation, as if they’d attack Gil at my command. I did love how they always sided with me no matter what.

“Horus came up empty, didn’t he?” Gil said.

“Yep.” The lie slipped off my tongue like soda. “Why? Are you sure you don’t know of any ways to kill Horemheb?”

I waited, wondering what Gil would say. Maybe he would fess up. We could go after the knife and Horemheb together.

“Nope,” Gil finally said.

So much for that dream.

Gil grabbed a video game controller and tossed me a second one.

I wasn’t about to spend the rest of the night playing video games with him. I chucked the controller onto the coffee table. “I’m not up for playing.”

“You’re always up for playing,” Gil said.

Maybe before I realized Gil was lying to me. How many other times had Gil lied to me and I had no idea?

“Not tonight,” I said. “Too much homework.”

It was a lame excuse.

“The shabtis do your homework,” Gil said.

“I want to do it tonight.”

“Fine. Whatever. Do your homework then.” Gil threw his controller onto the futon and stormed off to his room.

No sooner had Gil’s red X’ed door slammed shut than Colonel Cody ran over to me. He scaled the bookshelf until he was at ear level.

“Great Master,” he said. “Quickly. Before the heathen emerges. The Library of Congress.”

“Where in the Library of Congress?” I said. The place was bigger than my old palace.

“The cat—” Colonel Cody began.

“Horus,” I corrected.

“Yes, the cat, Horus—”

“He’s a god,” I said.

“Yes, the god cat Horus told us of a secret room,” Colonel Cody said. “Among the relics from the Library of Alexandria—”

“That library burned thousands of years ago,” I said. “Everything was destroyed.”

“No, Great Master,” Colonel Cody said. “Many items were saved. And among these items are scrolls created during the reign of the gods. They’re kept in a secret room, below the basements.”

That didn’t surprise me. Everything in D.C. was built on top of something else. There were basements and subbasements and secret passages below those. It was like a giant underskeleton of the city.

“We need to go now.” I looked in the direction of Gil’s room. Light flickered from under his black door. He was on his computer.

“We must bring the proper scroll.” Colonel Cody jumped down from my shoulder and onto the coffee table without making a sound. He rifled through the Book of the Dead and grabbed the scroll with spell number sixty-eight, passing it my way. I folded it and tucked it under my shirt.

“Ready?” I asked Colonel Cody.

Colonel Cody snapped his fingers and four shabti majors joined him. “Ready,” he said.

“Then we better hurry before Gil notices I’m gone.”

*   *   *

I dressed in black so I could blend into the night, and snuck out trailed by five of my shabtis. I hadn’t seen Colonel Cody this excited since he’d found me in Egypt back in 1922. Every other block or so, he ordered his majors to halt and drilled them on their weapons’ use. I guess a hundred years of cleaning up scarab beetle shells for an ungrateful cat wasn’t hard to top. It was past ten, so the streets were empty. Since we were way into October, the air was chilly, but all the energy running through my scarab heart was making me sweat, so I took off my sweatshirt and gave it to some homeless guy on the corner. He was begging next to a row of restaurants. They all had giant signs taped to the door that read:

Closed due to Failed Health Inspection

I’d eaten at most of those places. It was a good thing I never got food poisoning.

We passed by the obelisk near the Convention Center. Since the one at Dupont Circle had exploded, there were only four left. I almost reached my fingers out and touched it, just for a little bit of the scarab heart energy that ran through it, but I stopped myself. Had the Cult of Set really built them? I didn’t want it to be true because they were so perfect, but as much as I hated to admit it, Horus was rarely wrong.

“We must go, Great Master,” Colonel Cody said.

He was right. I wasn’t here to recharge my scarab heart. It was pumped full of energy anyway. What I needed was to find out where the knife was. I turned my back on the obelisk and continued on until the Library of Congress came into view.

Spotlights shined on the library, illuminating the massive stone building in all its literary magnificence. Marble steps led to the front doors, but iron gates had been drawn closed for the night. I knew it was way past visiting hours, because I’d spent thousands of hours at the library. Not researching projects for school—I researched the world. I read history books to see what was fact and what was fiction. Because that was the thing about history—nothing you read could be believed. Like, for example, everything from my reign. History had me on the throne until I was nineteen. Nineteen! I’d been cheated out of five good years. The books didn’t say anything about Horemheb casting me from the throne or colluding with the Cult of Set, either. All they focused on was the gold. And the “boy king” thing. I hated that.

The shabtis could easily have picked the locks on the iron gates, but every alarm in the place would have gone off. I’d never get to the secret room that way.

Colonel Cody snapped his fingers, and shadows cloaked the five shabtis. They couldn’t turn invisible or ever change the colors they were painted, but they could bend light around themselves so normal people wouldn’t notice them. And I thought being able to grow carnivorous plants was cool.

“Shall we enter first and eliminate the security?” Colonel Cody asked. He raised his hand to snap his fingers again.

“No! We aren’t going to kill the guards.” The shabtis did pretty much everything I wanted them to do and sometimes things I didn’t. “No one gets killed. Or seriously injured. Okay?”

Colonel Cody lowered his arm. His majors relaxed their stance, but stood ready to move at his next order.

“Okay?” I said again.

Colonel Cody nodded. “Fine. No one gets killed. I swear it on the mummified body of Osiris himself.”

“Or seriously injured,” I added.

“Or seriously injured,” he repeated.

Good. Now that we had that settled, I could break into the library.

“Where’s the entrance to this secret room?” I asked.

“The cat referred to a statue,” Colonel Cody said.

Nice lead, except D.C. had more statues than an old dog had warts.

“Which statue?”

“The cat said it would be where the king sits.”

“What king? Osiris?” If Horus hadn’t been in such a hurry to head off on his date, he could have told me himself. As far as I knew, there were no statues of Osiris anywhere near the Library of Congress. Or in D.C., for that matter.

Colonel Cody’s face turned ashen. “The cat said you would know.”

King. Statue. King. Statue …

I scanned the area, looking for anything that fit. There were a couple of naked women on horses. I diverted my eyes. There were some turtles and snakes and fish. Hardly kingly creatures. And then there was the giant statue of Neptune right in the middle of a fountain.

That was it. Neptune! He was king of the sea. Maybe not a king that Horus would consider an equal, but given the surroundings, he was the closest thing.

I waded in the water and gazed up at the giant statue of Neptune. It stood over twice as tall as me and was carved from a single piece of marble. He commanded the world from the top of a rock and was flanked by two of his minions. I climbed the rock and grabbed the statue’s arms and fingers, looking for a lever or something that might reveal an entrance.

Nothing happened.

I prodded at the statue. Still nothing. And then, from under the surface of the dark water, glittering gold caught my eye. I held my breath and put my head under.

Engraved in the base of the statue and etched with gold was the Eye of Horus.

It was the most sacred representation of Horus, symbolizing what he gave up in his eternal fight with Set, or some nonsense like that. I got sick of seeing it everywhere. Horus had it plastered on all sorts of stuff back at the town house, like he was marking his territory. He must be marking his territory here, too.

I pressed my thumb into the eyeball. That was the standard way to open secret passages in tombs. Neptune and his minions slid backward, creating a chasm in the ground.

Water poured into the opening, cascading downward. It gushed by my feet, pulling at the material of my jeans. I held onto the rock base of the statue as the fountain emptied. When it finally all drained, I could see a stairway descending into the darkness.

“So that’s how you get in,” someone said.

I whipped around and came face-to-face with Tia.

“You!” I said. “What are you doing here?”

Tia was decked out in a bright-orange workout shirt, cargo pants and, of course, her combat boots. I wondered if she slept with them on. Her orange hair streak matched her shirt, and the number of necklaces she wore had doubled. I was surprised she wasn’t hunched over from their weight.

“Why are you following me?” she said, crossing her arms. The sweet aroma of lotus blossoms filled the air, reminding me of perfume girls used to wear back in ancient Egypt.

“Following you! You’re following me.” I tried to ignore her scent. It brought back too many memories I kept hidden in the deepest part of my mind. Happy times, back before the priests and Horemheb revolted against me.

“Please. Don’t flatter yourself.” Tia started down the staircase.

“What do you think you’re doing?” I asked.

“Seeing what’s below,” Tia said.

“But…”

“Are you coming or not?” she said.

I followed her inside, and pretty soon the darkness swallowed us. I would’ve used my scarab heart to light up the passageway if I wasn’t trying to keep my immortality a secret. But Tia was more prepared than a Girl Scout. She pulled a flashlight from one of the pockets of her cargo pants and flipped it on.

“You told Henry where I live,” I said. “How do you even know where I live?”

I felt a tug on the leg of my jeans. I didn’t dare look. Colonel Cody knew to stay hidden, since the shabtis were under direct orders to hide from mortals. That didn’t mean he didn’t look for creative ways around those orders.

“I know all sorts of things about you, Tut,” Tia said, making finger quotes when she said my name, causing her multitude of bracelets to jingle.

“Like what?” My scarab heart started to pump blood at the rate of a jackhammer. I needed to get control of myself.

“Well, for starters, you’re Tut,” she said. There went the finger quotes again, and with them, a fresh wave of her awesome perfume.

“And you’re Tia. So what? You know my name.” I pushed away her lotus blossom scent and kept going. The stairs went on forever. I’d counted over a hundred so far.

“Everyone knows your name,” she said.

Okay, this is the part where my sensors went up. I mean, sure, everyone in the world did know my name—Tutankhamun. But nobody in the world besides Horus and Gil knew that the King Tut from ancient Egypt was actually me.

“You mean like everyone at school?” I said.

Tia laughed out loud. “Yeah, everyone at school—when they read about you in a textbook.”

I sucked in a breath and held it. After three thousand years, I was a master of hidden identities. My spells had never failed.

“I don’t know what you’re talking about.” I summoned the scent of herbs and started inaudibly intoning the spell I used to hide my identity.

Tia ignored me. “You know, I thought you’d be taller.”

Holy Osiris, I got sick of people calling me short. “I’m only fourteen,” I said, and I kept pushing the spell her way.

“All those statues in the museum make you look taller,” Tia said. “I have to admit, I like your hair this way. It looks way better than those portraits you see in books.” She stopped walking and pulled a piece of my hair from behind my ear.

I figured I’d died and gone to the Fields of the Blessed right then and there. Amun above, I had to focus. I couldn’t go around having people know who I was.

“Who do you think I am, anyway?” I asked. I doubled my spell attempts.

Tia crossed her arms, making the flashlight bounce against the side wall, revealing all sorts of paintings of cats and falcons. “Duh.”

Which didn’t answer the question I already knew the answer to.

“What’s it like to be immortal, anyway?” she asked.

I balled my hands into fists. “It’s not working.”

“What?”

“The spell. You’re supposed to forget who I am.” I knew this sounded absurd, but I didn’t care. Had Horus giving me power from the Book of the Dead done something to my normal Osiris-given spells?

Tia narrowed her eyes. “You’re trying to put a spell on me?”

Not the best way to strengthen a relationship, but that had never stopped me in the past.

“Maybe?” I said.

Fire lit up her blue eyes. “Keep your spells to yourself.”

I met her eyes with fire in my own. “Then tell me how you know.”

“You never told me what it’s like to be immortal, King Tut,” Tia said.

That was it. I gave up on the spell entirely. And an enormous weight lifted off me. For the first time in forever, I could admit my identity. My life was so much about pretending to be someone else. Someone normal and mortal. But every once in a while, I just wanted to be the real Tut.

I put my hand on the wall and, just to make sure my normal powers still worked, I made moss grow on it, covering the image of a cat that looked a lot like Horus. Really, I could make anything grow out of anywhere. Roses out of bricks. Weeds in people’s gardens. My powers worked perfectly, which meant there was nothing wrong with my identity-hiding spells. So why weren’t they working on Tia?

“Truthfully?” I said.

“No, I want you to lie,” Tia said. “Of course, truthfully.”

“Okay, truth is that sometimes it gets a little boring, but overall, it’s awesome.”

“What do you do with all your time?” she said as we continued downward. Lights flickered far below, like maybe there was an end to our descent. “You’ve been around for thousands of years, right?”

I still couldn’t believe I was really talking about this. It was almost as if I’d been wanting to tell her about my life.

“I do everything,” I said. “All great moments of history—I’ve witnessed them. The Crusades. The assassination of Julius Caesar. The building of the Great Wall of China.”

“That doesn’t sound even kind of boring.” She tilted her head, and I couldn’t help but notice the smooth skin of her neck. Great Isis, I was acting like I’d never talked to a girl before. What was wrong with me?

“Sure, when I mention the highlights. But trust me, thirty-three hundred years is a long time. I’ve had to get pretty creative to keep from going insane.”

“Oh, really?” she said.

I reached back to the wall, but instead of making moss grow, I sprouted a lotus blossom from a crack in the stones. Once the flower reached full bloom, I plucked it and handed it to her. Her eyes widened as she took it, but then she only gave a little shrug. And here I thought it was a pretty cool trick.

“Stop showing off,” she said. But I noticed she tucked the flower behind the orange streak in her hair.

Yes, I was showing off, just a little.

We descended the last few steps until we reached the bottom, ending up in a circular room about the size of my kitchen. Paintings and engravings of Horus covered the walls, showing him in both his falcon and cat forms gloriously ruling over the world. Ahead of us was a closed door with some sort of complex locking mechanism shaped in the eye of Horus. This whole place was like a monument to him. I knew Horus was vain, but this was ridiculous. He was never going to hear the end of it when I got back home.

I had no clue how to get the door open. Ten metal bars interlocked with one another, sealing it shut. My identity had already been blown. I figured there was no harm in announcing my shabtis.

I looked down. “Colonel Cody?”

“It is my deepest honor, Great Pharaoh,” Colonel Cody said, emerging from the shadows.

“Great Pharaoh?” Tia said. “You’re kidding me, right?”

I shrugged and tried to act normal, even though my face had to be bright red.

The other four shabtis shifted enough that the light caught their reflection. Then, forming some sort of cheerleading pyramid, with two on the bottom and two in the middle, they made a tower with Colonel Cody at the top.

“Look at them,” Tia said. “They’re so cute!”

Cute? They were fierce and awesome.

“Thank you, beautiful mortal girl.” Colonel Cody beamed under her praise.

I’ll give him credit for being perceptive.

The shabti majors poked and prodded different parts of the lock until, like some choreographed dance, the long metal bars pulled away, one by one. When the last piece of metal grinded to a halt the door slid open, revealing a tunnel lit with torches on the wall. Tia clicked her flashlight off and stuffed it back in the pocket of her cargo pants.

We started down the long tunnel ahead.

“Now tell me why you’re really here,” I said. No way was it some crazy fluke that Tia just happened to be hanging out at the Library of Congress after hours. She was following me.

“Why are you here?” Tia asked. The rubber soles of her combat boots slapped on each step, echoing in the silence while I tried to figure out what to say.

“Research for our project,” I finally said.

“What a coincidence,” Tia said. “Me, too.”

“Yeah, right.”

“You don’t believe me? I’m offended, Tut.”

“Be offended all you want,” I said. “And you never told me how you knew who I was.”

Tia kept pace next to me, and I noticed she was about the same height as I was. Maybe I was short. Or maybe she was tall.

“It doesn’t matter,” she said.

“Of course it matters.”

“Why?”

There were about a million reasons. I listed them off on my fingers. “Because nobody knows who I am. Because I’ve never met you before this week. Because everything was just fine until you showed up.”

“What’s not fine?” Tia asked.

I stopped myself before mentioning Horemheb. The truth was that I knew nothing about Tia. I had no intention of trusting her. “Nothing. Everything’s fine. Except that I don’t believe a word you’re saying.”

“Good,” Tia said. “That means you’re smarter than I gave you credit for.” But then she ruined it by adding, “Great Pharaoh.”

I let it slide.

“What do you think about the gods?” Tia said, and she started fiddling with her necklaces, which were in a giant tangle.

“What do you mean, what do I think about them? They’re gods.”

“What do you think about all the fighting they do?” she asked.

“How do you know anything about the gods of Egypt and whether they fight or not?” I asked. Mythology, according to most of the world, was a bunch of made-up nonsense. Maybe I should just assume that Tia was not like most of the world. It might be a good starting point in figuring out who she really was.

Tia kept untangling her necklaces. They’d gotten into a giant jumble. I wasn’t sure her attempts to straighten them were helping. “From all the stories. All they ever do is fight.”

“Like you,” I said. “Did you really get kicked out of private school for fighting?”

“Maybe I did,” Tia said. “And maybe I didn’t.”

It was one more non-answer from her to add to the growing list.

“The gods have created an art out of bickering,” I said. “It’s just what they do.”

“But do you ever wonder what would have happened if they didn’t fight constantly?” Tia asked. “Do you ever think about how different history would have been?”

No, I never wondered. Fighting was just something the gods did. Sort of like how breathing was something people did.

“For starters, I wouldn’t be here,” I said. After all, the whole reason I was immortal was because of the battle between Set and Osiris. Same with Horemheb. Which brought my need for revenge back to the forefront. “Anyway, there’s nothing you can do to change the gods.”

“Yeah, I know,” Tia said. But she almost looked sad about the whole thing.

We continued on in total silence, because I couldn’t think of a response. And then I didn’t have to, because we came to an arched opening.

“Tut!”

Lights blasted through the archway. We stepped inside.

“You’ve got to be kidding me,” I said.

“Not kidding at all,” someone said. And the next thing I knew, I was wrapped in a hug that would have crushed me, if I hadn’t been immortal, by a guy with the head of a falcon.

Right. Head of a falcon. It was Qeb, which was short for some really long name nobody could ever pronounce. He was one of Horus’s sons. Horus had four sons, and apparently we’d just found two of them.

“Let go, Qeb,” I managed to say, even though my lungs had been squashed to the size of walnuts.

“Hey, who’s your girlfriend?” Imsety said, swaggering over to join us. He was the only one of Horus’s sons to have a normal head, although it was completely swollen with how much he thought of himself. Aside from Qeb and his falcon head, Horus’s other two sons had jackal and baboon heads.

“She’s not my girlfriend,” I said once Qeb let me go.

“Seriously not his girlfriend,” Tia said.

Wait … was there some reason she wouldn’t want to be my girlfriend? It’s not like I was a hideous monster.

“Tia, meet Qeb and Imsety,” I said. “But no matter what you do, don’t trust a word they say. It will only get you in trouble.”

“The last time was your fault,” Imsety said. “We’ve been over that. You’re the one who didn’t stick to the plan.”

I couldn’t argue. There was this whole thing about a dare and a cemetery at night and Horus’s favorite catnip toy. Horus had blamed me for everything. It had taken fifty years to get him back on my good side.

“But the five times before that, you guys got me in trouble,” I said. It seemed like every time I ran into these two, we caused some near catastrophe.

“Is Gil still the same stick-in-the-mud he’s always been?” Imsety asked.

Oh, yeah—Gil and Imsety hated each other. It was time for a change of subject. “What are you guys doing here, anyway?”

“Our job,” Qeb said. “What does it look like?”

From the looks of the giant screen on the wall and the remote controls in their hands, I figured their job must be playing Mario Kart. The place looked like a bachelor pad decorated with pizza boxes and soda cans. There were a couple of sofas, a pub table, and five different gaming consoles.

“What exactly is your job?” Tia asked.

Imsety flashed a giant smile that was so completely cheesy, I couldn’t believe it. I almost expected him to say, “I’m sorry. I can’t hear you over the sound of how awesome I am.” Instead he said, “Well, you see, our dad is Horus. You may have heard of him. He’s a pretty important god. Anyway, he needed some very important guardians. And seeing as how we’re so dependable and trustworthy…”

I let that part slide. At least I knew I was in the right place.

“Enough,” I said. “We get it. If you’ll just point us in the direction of the secret room you’re guarding, we’ll get on our way.”

“No can do, little Tut,” Qeb said.

“Must you always called me ‘little Tut’?” I asked. I thought, after not seeing these guys for a century, they’d have gotten past that.

“It’s a cute nickname,” Tia said. There she went with that cute thing again. “Little Tut.”

“Whatever,” I said. “Where’s the room?”

“You have to gain entry first,” Qeb said.

“Who says?” I asked.

“Duh. The gods,” Imsety said.

“Right. And you guys always listen to the rule of the gods.” Never mind that they were gods themselves. Horus’s sons, aside from Hapi, weren’t top on the list of rule followers. I couldn’t believe Horus had assigned them down here. It must have been pretty slim pickings.

“We’re official rule followers now,” Qeb said.

He looked like he actually believed himself.

“Fine. What do I have to do?” I figured maybe I’d have to go on some mighty quest or something. But if that’s what it took to get the knife, then so be it.

Qeb clapped his hands, and lights I hadn’t known existed sprang on, illuminating three ankh symbols that were taller than I was. The one on the left was a blue so deep, it looked like it was made of lapis lazuli. I wasn’t going to comment on it, but it was the exact same blue as Tia’s eyes. Imsety would never let me hear the end of it if I made some comment like that. The one on the right was purple crystal, like an amethyst. And the one in the middle, which was twice as tall as the other two, was made of pure gold.

Tia reached forward to touch one, but Imsety yanked her arm back.

“Careful!” he said. “It’ll kill you if you touch it.”

“Kill me?” She glared at me like somehow it was my fault she’d almost died.

“I told you not to trust them,” I said, shooting Imsety a scowl. “What happens if I touch them? They won’t kill me.”

Qeb shoved his brother out of the way. “No, they won’t kill you. You’re supposed to play a game with them. And if you win the game, you unlock the Hall of Artifacts.”

“Oooh, Hall of Artifacts. That sounds so serious,” I said.

“Of course it does,” Qeb said. “We’re all about serious these days. Remember, we developed responsibility.”

I still wasn’t buying it, but arguing about it wasn’t the point of this adventure. “Okay, how do I play?”

Imsety raised three fingers. “Answer three out of five questions correctly. Each correct answer unlocks one of the ankhs.”

“That sounds easy enough,” I said. “I’m ready.”

Imsety tossed his head back and laughed, like my arrogance was out of line. I was starting to remember why he and Gil never got along. “Don’t you want to know about incorrect answers?” he asked.

I shook my head. “I won’t get any wrong.”

He continued talking like I hadn’t said a word. “First wrong answer is a freebie. Because everyone always gets at least one wrong. Second wrong answer and we shave your head.”

My hand went to my hair before I could stop it. I loved my hair. After a decade, it was finally the exact length I wanted, just barely below my ears. “That’s never going to happen.”

“Do you have a better suggestion?” Qeb asked.

I reminded myself that these were gods we were talking about. They ripped out eyes and tore off body parts. Maybe shaving my head wasn’t such a sacrifice. There were other decades. It would grow back. Things could definitely be worse. And I needed the knife.

“Go on,” I said.

“Okay, then, on your third wrong answer, you get banished to another plane of existence,” Imsety said.

I had no intention of getting banished anywhere. Or of getting my head shaved. I intended to win. “Can we get on with this? It’s getting late.”

“Thought you’d never ask.” Imsety flexed his fingers outward until they cracked. “Let’s start with question number one.”

A Canopic jar as round as a fishbowl magically appeared on the pub table next to him. He pulled a slip of papyrus from inside the jar and unfolded it. “Animal, vegetable, or mineral?”

Kids always played this game. “Mineral,” I said, just because it was the least chosen answer.

“Correct,” Imsety said, and the blue ankh shimmered and faded away. He crumpled the papyrus into a ball and tossed it at Qeb, hitting him in his falcon head.

“Wait, that was the real question?”

“Don’t get cocky, Boy King,” Imsety said. “They aren’t all that easy. Question two.” He pulled a second piece of papyrus from the oversized Canopic jar.

“Let’s have it,” I said.

Imsety unfolded the piece of papyrus. “How many planets are in the solar system?” he read.

I laughed out loud as images of Henry’s Pluto T-shirts came to mind. I didn’t care what Henry said. Pluto was not a planet.

“Eight,” I said, slouching back with my arms crossed. This was going to be a piece of cake. I could smell victory.

Imsety scratched his head. “This says nine.”

I yanked the piece of papyrus from his hand and crumpled it myself. “That’s because it probably hasn’t been updated. There are only eight planets.”

Imsety narrowed his eyes at me. “I don’t know. The quiz is never wrong.” He looked to Tia and Qeb for some sort of confirmation.

Tia pouted. “I really want to see Tut with his head shaved.”

Qeb put his hands up. “Dude, I know Pluto is a planet.”

“Oh, come on, Tia,” I said. “Back me up, here.”

She put her hands on her hips. “Fine. There are only eight planets now. Pluto got demoted back in 2006. It’s officially a dwarf planet.”

The purple ankh shimmered and also vanished like the blue one had.

“No way,” Qeb said. “That’s not fair. I always loved Pluto. How could they demote it?”

“You guys need to get out more often,” I said. I could almost imagine Qeb and Henry getting together to mourn Pluto over a spiced latte.

“Horus told us we can’t leave,” Qeb said.

“Then maybe watch the news?”

“We’ve thought about it,” Imsety said. “But then Qeb will challenge me to a game, and no way can I back down from a challenge.”

I could understand the logic.

“Okay, that’s two right,” I said. “Last one.”

Imsety grabbed a third slip of papyrus and unfolded it. “What’s your favorite color?”

“Blue,” I said with no hesitation.

“Wrong,” Imsety said, crumpling the papyrus and tossing it over his shoulder.

“What do you mean, wrong? It’s my favorite color. I’m pretty sure I know what my favorite color is.”

Imsety shrugged. “Sorry, little Tut. The quiz doesn’t agree.”

I grabbed the piece of papyrus from the ground and smoothed it out.

“Gold,” I read aloud. “But that’s not really a color. I mean not a traditional color. I figured you were talking about the colors of the rainbow.”

Imsety buffed his fingernails on his sleeve, like this whole trivia game was some sort of minor distraction. “At no point did I specify any restrictions on the color. You got it wrong. That’s your freebie.”

I rolled my eyes. “Whatever. Just read the next question.”

“With pleasure,” Imsety said. “And remember, this time we shave your head.”

“I’m not going to get it wrong.”

I hoped.

He pulled a fourth piece of papyrus from the Canopic jar. After this one, there was only one piece left. He unfolded it and smoothed it out.

“Pieces of what dead king are buried in five sacred spots around Washington, D.C.?” he read.

Pieces of a dead king? I had no idea. Sure, there were tons of dead people buried around the District, but as far as I knew, none of them were kings who had been dismembered and scattered around. I ran my fingers through my hair. Sweat sprang onto my forehead. Imsety and Qeb would really shave my head. Of that I had no doubt. But if I got this wrong, I’d only have one chance left to get into the Hall of Artifacts. The trivia quiz may have been stupid, but I still had to win.

“Can you…” I started, thinking I could stall by asking for a clue.

“Seti the First,” Tia said. “That’s simple. The new obelisks are built on top of the burial sites.”

Imsety crumpled the papyrus. “That’s cheating. Your girlfriend can’t answer for you.”

“Not his girlfriend,” Tia said, pointing to herself. “Remember?”

He tossed the balled-up papyrus at me. I ducked out of the way.

“It doesn’t count,” Imsety said. “Which means you have only one chance left.”

I wasn’t about to complain. I hadn’t known the answer, and this way, I still had a head of hair.

“Bring it on,” I said. “I’m ready.”

“No cheating this time,” Qeb said.

Tia made a pretend motion of zipping her mouth and tossing away a key.

Imsety pulled the final piece of papyrus from the Canopic jar. “Last question. What’s the…” he started. “Oh, come on. This is way too easy.”

I deserved something easy. My quest for vengeance was noble and just. Horemheb had to be eliminated.

“Read it.”

“Fine,” Imsety said. “What’s the volume of a pyramid? Seriously? That’s like basic pharaoh training one-oh-one.”

“Darn right it is,” I said. I’d learned about the great pyramids of Giza when I was six years old. My tutors had drilled me, making sure I could do all the calculations in my head. I silently sent them a prayer of thanks. “Area of the base times the height divided by three.”

Imsety ripped the slip of papyrus in half and threw it to the ground. “I cannot believe we didn’t even get to shave your head.”

After the questions, I couldn’t, either.

“Maybe next time,” I said. “Not.”

The final ankh—the golden one in the center—shimmered and twisted upward, pulling the entire wall with it. A dark room lay ahead. I’d won.

“Guess I won,” I said.

“Well played,” Qeb said. “I thought we had you there with that dead king thing.”

I thought so, too, but I didn’t dare voice it. The gods could play by any rules they wanted. I didn’t want them to retract my victory.

“Yeah, not everyone knows about Seti the First being cut into pieces and buried under the obelisks,” Imsety said. “Our dad told you, didn’t he?”

Horus had never mentioned anything of the sort. I had no clue the obelisks had been built on top of Pharaoh Seti the First’s body parts. Who knew?

“Yep,” I lied. “You know Horus.”

Full of more secrets than Imsety was full of hot air.

“You should stop by more often, little Tut,” Qeb said, mussing my hair, which I was very happy to still have.

“You should drop by the town house sometime,” I said. “Horus would love to see you.”

“That’s debatable,” Qeb said. It was so hard to read what he was really thinking with that falcon head of his.

“Sure he would. Just not on the new moon.” If Qeb dropped by then, Horus might kill him. Let’s put it this way: new moons and Horus? Not the best of friends. During the new moon, Horus went totally blind. Not just missing-one-eye blind, but couldn’t see out of the other one either. And when Horus was blind, Horus was dangerous. And pretty much crazy. He’d tried to scratch both my eyes out one time. Gil had almost pulled Horus’s claws out, he’d been so mad. That had been a thousand years ago, and ever since, Horus disappeared for a few days around the new moon.

Qeb clacked his falcon beak, which made me guess he was laughing. “Right. I almost forgot about that.”

I never forgot about it. The image of my eyeballs clawed out made it impossible to forget.

Ahead of us, the dark room beckoned. I couldn’t risk losing entry.

“Come on.” I grabbed Tia’s hand and pulled her through the open doorway. And then the door lowered behind us. We were swallowed in darkness.