CHAPTER 13

Don’t Lose Your Nerve

Usually, I love to hear the phrase snack time. But it’s not as appealing when a crocodile says it.

As we passed through the palace door, Miu sounded rattled, too. “Yikes! It’s bad enough that we lost Dedi. Now we have to worry about that horrible crocodile making a meal of him. We’d better get to the zoo and figure out how to free Sobek Junior.”

“I just hope Dedi hasn’t been eaten by a crocodile already,” Khepri fretted. “I don’t think the Admiral was telling us the whole truth. He was awfully shifty. And that stuff about making the sun come up? Clearly nonsense. I mean, it’s the scarab beetles who do that—”

“And Ra, the sun god, of course.” I stopped in the great hall to get my bearings. “But crocodiles are odd creatures, Khepri. They have their own rites and rituals. And if they think they make the sun rise, it doesn’t mean they’re lying. Right, Miu?”

“I don’t know.” Miu flicked her ears uncertainly. “But I really hope no one’s eaten Dedi.”

I couldn’t bear to think about that possibility. “Well, I think the Admiral was telling the truth. Anyway, it’s not like we don’t have an obvious suspect already.”

Miu tilted her head. “Who?”

“Lady Satiah, of course. Remember what she was like when we arrived last night? How she glared at Kiya and Dedi? I thought she was going to unleash that baby crocodile on them.”

Khepri clicked in my ear. “Speaking of baby crocodiles, we need to head for the zoo.”

“I would, if I knew where the zoo was,” I said.

Khepri swiveled around on the top of my head. “If I’m not mistaken, it’s up on the right. There’s a tasty scent of dung—”

“Enough said,” I told him.

As Miu and I made tracks toward a passageway on our right, Khepri said, “I agree that Lady Satiah isn’t a nice host, Ra. But we’ve had this discussion. If she kidnapped Dedi, Pharaoh wouldn’t let her benefit. He’d send her and Ahmose into exile, and she’s smart enough to know that.”

“Only if he found out,” I argued. “Maybe the missing boat is a decoy. Maybe Lady Satiah paid a servant to cut it loose, so that it would look like Dedi ran away. That way Pharaoh will end up blaming Dedi, not her.”

“I don’t know about that,” Miu said. “I think there would be plenty of blame to go around. Anyway, I don’t see how Lady Satiah could have made those footprints.”

“Have you looked at her feet?” I said. “They’re pretty small.”

“It still sounds farfetched to me,” Khepri said.

“Shhh!” I pulled into the shadows behind a painted pillar and flattened myself against the floor. “She’s coming this way!”

Sure enough, Lady Satiah was headed toward us. Her bracelets and beaded collar chimed like delicate bells, but her gaze was flint-hard as she looked up at her companion.

“It’s her brother,” Khepri breathed into my ear. “General Wegaf.”

It certainly was, but it took me a moment to recognize him. His military bearing had collapsed, and he seemed to have shrunk by several inches.

“I don’t see how we can pull this off now,” the General quavered. “Not when—”

“Don’t lose your nerve,” Lady Satiah whispered, her ruby lips mere inches from his ear. “Not when our plans are about to bear fruit.”

“But Pharaoh—”

“I will deal with Pharaoh in my own way,” Lady Satiah said.

“And the boy—”

“I will deal with that, too,” Lady Satiah told him. “I have everything in hand. All I ask is that you support me. You want to stand at the head of an army again, don’t you? Pull yourself together!”

She jabbed him in the back of the spine. He shot up like a puppet, and she marched him off.

There was a long silence after they left.

“Okay,” Khepri said in a small voice. “So maybe I was wrong about Lady Satiah.”

“I told you she was guilty,” I said.

“You didn’t mention that she was working with her brother,” Khepri said.

“That was sort of implied,” I told him.

Miu shivered. “What do you think those plans of hers are?”

“I don’t know,” Khepri admitted. “But it could be pretty serious.”

“Of course it’s serious,” I said. “It’s a kidnapping.”

“Oh, that’s serious, all right,” Khepri agreed. “Especially for Dedi. But that might not be the end of it.” His voice grew quiet as a whisper. “What if Lady Satiah is planning to topple Pharaoh from his throne?”

“She wouldn’t!” Shocked, I sank to the floor. “She couldn’t!”

“Oh, I think she could,” Khepri said. “Think about it. Remember, something kept Pharaoh in Thebes. Something important. What if he heard a rumor of a plot against him? Maybe that’s why he wanted the children to be sent home. Only it turns out Lady Satiah is at the center of the plot, so he sent them to the worst possible place.”

“But Lady Satiah is Pharaoh’s wife,” I protested. “She wouldn’t go so far—”

“It’s been done before,” Khepri said grimly. “I heard about it from a horse in Pharaoh’s stables. Once there was a pharaoh’s wife—a lesser wife, just like Lady Satiah—who wanted her own son to sit on the throne. The pharaoh ended up dead.”

“Well, that’s not going to happen to my pharaoh,” I said. “Or to Dedi. I won’t allow it.”

“I’m with you, Ra.” Miu brushed her tail against mine. “And I think there’s still time to stop her. Did you hear how she said she would ‘deal with’ Dedi? Sounds to me like Dedi is alive. Probably somewhere close, where she can get to him easily.”

“Well, he’s not in the main part of the palace,” I said. “We checked everywhere.”

“What about the zoo?” Miu suggested. “Judging from the smell, that’s where Lady Satiah and the General were coming from.”

I scrambled to my feet. “Let’s go!”

As we raced down the gloomy passageway, the air got stinkier.

“Wow-ee!” Khepri bounced on my fur. “It’s like ten stables put together.”

“Make that twenty,” I panted. By now, the air was so thick and musty I could barely breathe. I started hearing strange noises, too—squawks and growls and screeching.

Miu leaped forward. “We’re getting close. There’s the entrance!”

I was so light-headed from the dung that I missed the turn. Instead of swerving to the left with Miu, I shot forward toward a black hole in the floor.

When I caught a whiff of what was ahead, I tried to claw to a stop, but I was going too fast.

“Dung ho!” Khepri crowed.

“Noooooooooooo!” I cried.

The world’s biggest dung pit was straight in front of me—and I was about to topple in.