The Enchantress (The Secrets of the Immortal Nicholas Flamel)

servants.”
    “Let’s walk,” she said very softly. “Our boots will echo off the walls in here and it’ll be harder to listen to us.” She clasped her hands behind her back and started down the center of the room, eyes seeking out the dark corners, watching for movement in the shadows.
    Josh fell into step beside her. Their metal boots pinged off the floor, then echoed and reechoed off the stone.
    “Maybe this was a library. It looks like there were shelves on the walls here,” Sophie said loudly, pointing. “You can see the marks.” Then she frowned. “Osiris said not to touch anything”—she looked at her twin and lowered her voice—“but there’s really nothing here to touch.”
    “So whatever
was
here was removed,” Josh said, rubbing his hand across his mouth as he spoke.
    “And Isis and Osiris don’t know about it yet,” Sophie added.
    “I get the impression they don’t spend a lot of time here,” he said.
    Sophie nodded in agreement. “I wonder why.”
    The twins moved back to the center of the floor, as far away from the walls as possible. They spoke loudly about the size of the room, its height, the light. Josh even whistled and clapped his hands to hear the echo.
    After they’d been walking for quite some time, they reached one of the end walls. Horizontal lines etched into the gold stone clearly marked the outlines of shelves, and tiny punctures in the brickwork showed where they’d been fixed in place. But the shelves themselves were missing, and along with them, whatever they’d held.
    Josh ran his finger along the wall and it came away clean. “This happened recently. Dust hasn’t even had time to gather.”
    Sophie looked at her brother, impressed. “That was smart. I wouldn’t have thought to check that.”
    “I saw it in an old Sherlock Holmes movie,” he admitted with a grin.
    The twins started back toward where Isis and Osiris had left them. Sophie hesitated for a moment, then reached over to touch her brother’s arm. Her metal glove scraped against his armor. “They’re not our parents, are they?”
    Josh continued walking. He had taken almost a dozen steps before he answered. “I’ve been thinking about that almost from the first moment they told us who they were.”
    “So have I,” Sophie admitted.
    “On earth, for all these years, they sure acted like our parents. They were good parents to us too, and they did every thing the right way. But . . .”
    “But they were always a little cold,” Sophie said, nodding. “Even before all this happened, there were times when I’d wonder if they’d read instructions out of a book on how to be parents. There was something weird about it. Everyone else’s mom and dad were more . . .” She paused, looking for the word.
    “Natural?” Josh said.
    “Yeah. Natural. It seemed easy for them, and I don’t think that was ever the case with our parents. I even said something to Mom—Isis—about it once; right after we settled in Austin. She just laughed and said that of course we were different, and of course we’d feel weird about it. We were twins, and new to the school, of course we were going to feel out of place.”
    “And remember what they said?” Josh added. “That they were educating us . . .”
    “Preparing us.”
    “Training us,”
    “They just didn’t say it was for this role,” Sophie finished.
    “But if they’re not our parents, then what are we?” Josh slowed and stopped. “I was thinking about this earlier. You know the Flamels spent all their lives looking for Gold and Silver twins. . . .”
    Sophie started to nod; then her eyes widened in shock, realizing what he was suggesting.
    “Maybe Isis and Osiris did the same thing. Only they found us first.”
    Sophie’s jaw dropped. “But then who does that make us, Josh? Where do we come from? Are we adopted?” Her hands flew to her mouth. “Are we even twins?”
    Josh rested his hand on her shoulder and brought his forehead down to rest against hers, strands of their blond hair mingling. “I will always be your brother, Sophie. I will always look after you.”
    She blinked away tears. “I know that. I just wish I knew who we are.”
    “Would the Witch know?” Josh wondered. “Would it be in her memories?”
    “I’m not sure . . .,” Sophie began, but even as she was speaking, a tumble of images sent her staggering. Josh grabbed her arm, holding her upright. The girl shuddered, then gasped for breath. She opened