“Oh…my…god,” Drew whimpered. “Who…”
Anubis ignored her (bless him for that) and held out his elbow for me—a sweet old-fashioned gesture. “May I have this dance?”
“I suppose,” I said, as noncommittally as I could.
I looped my arm through his, and we left the Plastic Bags behind us, all of them muttering, “Oh my god! Oh my god!”
No, actually, I wanted to say. He’s myamazingly hot boy god. Find your own.
The uneven paving stones made for a dangerous dance floor. All around us, kids were tripping over each other. Anubis didn’t help matters, as all the girls turned and gawked at him as he led me through the crowd.
I was glad Anubis had my arm. My emotions were so jumbled, I felt dizzy. I was ridiculously happy that he was here. I felt crushingly guilty that poor Walt was at home alone while I strolled arm in arm with Anubis. But I was relieved that Walt and Anubis weren’t both here together. That would’ve been beyond awkward. The relief made me feel guiltier, and so on. Gods of Egypt, I was a mess.
As we reached the middle of the dance floor, the band suddenly switched from a dance number to a love ballad.
“Was that your doing?” I asked Anubis.
He smiled, which wasn’t much of an answer. He put one hand on my hip and clasped my other hand, like a proper gentleman. We swayed together.
I’d heard of dancing on air, but it took me a few steps to realize we were actually levitating—a few millimeters off the ground, not enough for anyone to notice, just enough for us to glide across the stones while others stumbled.
A few meters away, Carter looked quite awkward as Lacy showed him how to slow-dance. [Really, Carter, it isn’t quantum physics.]
I gazed up at Anubis’s warm brown eyes and his exquisite lips. He’d kissed me once—for my birthday, last spring—and I’d never quite got over it. You’d think a god of death would have cold lips, but that wasn’t the case at all.
I tried to clear my head. I knew Anubis must be here for some reason, but it was awfully hard to focus.
“I thought…Um,” I gulped and barely managed not to drool on myself.
Oh, brilliant, Sadie, I thought. Let’s try for a complete sentence, now, shall we?
“I thought you could only appear in places of death,” I said.
Anubis laughed gently. “This is a place of death, Sadie. The Battle of Brooklyn Heights, 1776. Hundreds of American and British troops died right where we’re dancing.”
“How romantic,” I muttered. “So we’re dancing on their graves?”
Anubis shook his head. “Most never received proper burials. That’s why I decided to visit you here. These ghosts could use a night of entertainment, just like your initiates.”
Suddenly, spirits were twirling all around us—luminous apparitions in eighteenth-century clothes. Some wore the red uniforms of British regulars. Others had ragtag militia outfits. They pirouetted with lady ghosts in plain farm dresses or fancy silk. A few of the posh women had piles of curly hair that would have made even Drew jealous. The ghosts seemed to be dancing to a different song. I strained my ears and could faintly hear violins and a cello.
None of the regular mortals seemed to notice the spectral invasion. Even my friends from Brooklyn House were oblivious. I watched as a ghostly couple waltzed straight through Carter and Lacy. As Anubis and I danced, Brooklyn Academy seemed to fade and the ghosts became more real.
One soldier had a musket wound in his chest. A British officer had a tomahawk sticking out of his powdered wig. We danced between worlds, waltzing side by side with smiling, gruesomely slaughtered phantoms. Anubis certainly knew how to show a girl a good time.
“You’re doing it again,” I said. “Taking me out of phase, or whatever you call it.”
“A little,” he admitted. “We need privacy to talk. I promised you I’d visit in person—”
“And you did.”
“—but it’s going to cause trouble. This may be the last time I can see you. There’s been grumbling about our situation.”
I narrowed my eyes. Was the god of the dead blushing?
“Our situation,” I repeated.
“Us.”
The word set my ears buzzing. I tried to keep my voice even. “As far as I’m aware, there is no official ‘us.’ Why would this be the last time we can talk?”
He was definitely blushing now. “Please, just listen. There’s so much I need to tell you. Your brother has the right idea. The shadow of Apophis is your best hope, but only one person can teach you the magic you need. Thoth may guide you somewhat, but I doubt he’ll reveal the secret spells. It’s too dangerous.”
“Hold on, hold on.” I was still reeling from the comment about us. And the idea that this might be the last time I saw Anubis.…That sent my brain cells into panic mode, thousands of tiny Sadies running around in my skull, screaming and waving their arms.
I tried to focus. “You mean Apophis does have a shadow? It could be used to execrate—”
“Please don’t use that word.” Anubis grimaced. “But yes, all intelligent entities have souls, so all of them have shadows, even Apophis. I know this much, being the guide of the dead. I have to make souls my business. Could his shadow be used against him? In theory, yes. But there are many dangers.”
“Naturally.”
Anubis twirled me through a pair of colonial ghosts. Other students watched us, whispering as we danced, but their voices sounded distant and distorted, as if they were on the far side of a waterfall.
Anubis studied me with a sort of tender regret. “Sadie, I wouldn’t set you on this path if there was another way. I don’t want you to die.”
“I can agree with that,” I said.
“Even talking about this sort of magic is forbidden,” he warned. “But you need to know what you’re dealing with. The sheut is the least understood part of the soul. It’s…how to explain…a soul of last resort, an afterimage of the person’s life force. You’ve heard that the souls of the wicked are destroyed in the Hall of Judgment—”
“When Ammit devours their hearts,” I said.
“Yes.” Anubis lowered his voice. “We say that this completely destroys the soul. But that’s not true. The shadow lingers. Occasionally, not often, Osiris has decided to, ah, review a judgment. If someone was found guilty, but new evidence comes to light, there must be a way to retrieve a soul from oblivion.”
I tried to grasp that. My thoughts felt suspended in midair like my feet, not able to connect with anything solid. “So…you’re saying the shadow could be used to, um, reboot a soul? Like a computer’s backup drive?”
Anubis looked at me strangely.
“Ugh, I’m sorry.” I sighed. “I’ve been spending too much time with my geeky brother. He speaks like a computer.”
“No, no,” Anubis said. “It’s actually a good analogy. I’d just never thought of it that way. Yes, the soul isn’t completely destroyed until the shadow is destroyed, so in extreme cases, with the right magic, it’s possible to reboot the soul using the sheut. Conversely, if you were to destroy a god’s shadow, or even Apophis’s shadow as part of an ex—um, the sort of spell you mentioned—”
“The sheut would be infinitely more powerful than a regular statue,” I guessed. “We could destroy him, possibly without destroying ourselves.”
Anubis glanced around us nervously. “Yes, but you can see why this sort of magic is secret. The gods would never want such knowledge in the hands of a mortal magician. This is why we always hide our shadows. If a magician were able to capture a god’s sheut and use it to threaten us—”
“Right.” My mouth felt dry. “But I’m on your side. I’d only use the spell on Apophis. Surely Thoth will understand that.”