“Ren!” called Alex, and then, softer, “Ren?”
Nothing. No response, just like the last time — and the hundred times before that. It was clear that no one could hear him down here. At least no one who felt like responding. He took one last look out the small, square opening in the door and then took his hands off the grimy bars and retreated back into the darkness of his cramped cell.
He sat on his cot, the only furniture in the room, unless you counted the bucket that served as a bathroom and the small electric lamp that cast a weak yellow glow on the hard sandstone floor. A beam of stronger light from the hall was cut into three even slices by the bars on the door, and Alex watched a bug the size of a D battery skitter diagonally across them, like a winning move in tic-tac-toe.
Not totally alone after all, he thought as the insect disappeared into the darkness.
Alex got up and went to the door again. This time he called out for the person he’d traveled halfway across the world to find, whom he’d lost again in the blink of an eye.
He remembered how she had looked, her face overwhelmed with emotion, when his hunt for her and the Spells had finally come to an end in that desert village. He remembered the despair on her face when they were captured by The Order, the Spells stolen from their grasp. Even though he feared the answer, he wondered again: What would the ancient cult do with such awesome power?
Suddenly, a sound broke through his muddled thoughts: footsteps. It was the guard again. Alex walked over and flicked off his lamp, then returned to the door.
“Stand back from the door, stupid boy,” called the guard in heavily accented English, “or you get no food.”
Alex crouched down beside the door. He was hoping that the guard would open it this time and he could catch him by surprise. He flexed his hands, ready for a fight.
But once again, he was disappointed.
Flink went the slot in the bottom of the door as it opened. Shhish went the empty tray from the day before as it was pulled out into the corridor. SHHUNNKK went the new tray as it slid across the floor. In the little slice of light, he saw a single piece of the Egyptian pita bread known as aish baladi, a cup, and a handful of dull, shriveled dates.
The little slot slapped closed again, leaving the tray in darkness. Leaving Alex alone.
“Wait!” called Alex. “Come back! My bucket needs to be emptied!”
Which was true — every inch of the small cell stank with its contents. But it was also an excuse, one more attempt to get the door to open, to give himself a fighting chance.
The guard seemed to understand that, too. A laugh, joyless and cruel, rose in the hallway only to fade along with the slap of the guard’s sandals.
Silence.
Darkness.
Alex flicked the lamp switch again, but it wouldn’t turn back on. With a sigh, he reached down and felt around for the tray. He grabbed the cup and lifted it to his dry, cracked lips. Two big swigs later, it was empty.
He squatted down in the darkness and reached around for the bread. It moved under his hand and he let out a screech that would have been embarrassing if there was anyone to hear him. The bug had gotten there first. But he needed his strength: He knew he should eat the bread, anyway — the bread and probably the bug.
He split the difference, shaking the bug loose. It landed with a clack on the floor behind him. It skittered off, but the silence didn’t return.
Footsteps.
Alex held his breath and froze in the darkness by the door.
Because these footsteps were different.
They were coming from inside the cell.
“Alex?” said Ren, and then, louder, “Anyone?”
Nothing, but she wasn’t surprised. Renata Duran was the kind of girl who always considered the odds. If no one had answered the first ten times she’d called out, what were the odds someone would this time? She decided not to waste any more breath.
She went back and sat on the edge of her cot, in the soft light of her lamp.
Before long, a sound echoed through the corridor. She hurried over to the door. Like Alex, Ren was twelve years old. Unlike her best friend, the noise didn’t catch her off guard. In fact, she’d been waiting for it.
“Did you bring me soup, like I asked?” she said once the guard sounded close enough. “I have a gluten allergy,” she reminded him, even though it wasn’t remotely true. “And problems with fruit, too!”
She heard a loud sigh from out in the corridor. “Step back, stupid girl,” said the guard as he knelt down to open the slot at the bottom of the door. “I brought your soup.”
Ren stepped back as the guard retrieved the previous tray and slid the new one into the cell. It held a bowl of dark, lumpy gruel.
It did not look appetizing, but that wasn’t why she’d asked for it.
Partly, it was a test. She wanted to see if her captors cared at all about keeping her alive, thus the “dangerous” food allergies she’d concocted. And they did. Not in luxury, clearly, but alive. That had to mean something, though she had no delusions that it would be good. The last time The Order had captured her and her friends, they’d tried to sacrifice them to a Death Walker.
Ren shuddered, thinking about what she’d learned of the Walkers. They were powerful, evil beings who had clung to the edge of the afterlife for centuries, desperately trying to avoid the weighing of the heart ceremony, where the old gods judged the spirits of the ancient Egyptian dead. Knowing they would fail and be destroyed forever, their souls devoured by Ammit, the Walkers had waited for an opportunity to escape. And Alex’s mom had given them that chance when she’d used the Lost Spells to save his life back in New York — opening a rift between the worlds in the process.
Which made Ren think of New York, and her own parents there. She missed them desperately — and she definitely missed their clean, bright apartment.
Which reminded her of the main reason she’d asked for the soup in the first place.
She knelt down and found the bowl, then held it up to the light from the little window. She slowly shoveled a spoonful of the lumpy gunk into her mouth.
Dis.
Gus.
Ting.
“Bleck!” she said. Still, she licked the spoon clean and held it up to the light. Metal, just like she’d hoped.
She dumped the soup into her bathroom bucket. Then she picked up the bucket’s handle, which she’d managed to remove with slow, repeated bending.
She returned to the door and ran her hand along the side. She felt the heavy plate that guarded the lock and desperately wished she still had her ibis. She’d been the last of the group to get an amulet of her own — and definitely the last to get a handle on its power. If she had the ancient artifact now, she could fill the cell with brilliant light and open the lock with a simple telekinetic click. It might even give her a clue what was waiting for her outside.
But The Order had taken her amulet, along with her phone and her friends.
So these were her tools: a metal spoon and bucket handle, a wooden soup bowl, a plastic tray, and a ceramic cup.
Once more, she thought of home.
It wasn’t for sentimental reasons this time. Her dad had worked alongside Alex’s mom at The Metropolitan Museum of Art, but he wasn’t an Egyptologist like her. He was a senior engineer: a mechanical wizard and the museum’s go-to Mr. Fix-It. And he’d taught his daughter a lot.
Ren went to work.