The Enchantress (The Secrets of the Immortal Nicholas Flamel)

“Or you? . . . Or you?”
    “Our quarrel is not with you. We were sent to kill the humani.”
    “Then your quarrel
is
with me,” she answered. “They are in my charge. I watch over them.”
    “Who are you?” Josh and the berserker asked simultaneously.
    “I am She Who Watches. I am Tsagaglalal. . . .”
    And even as she was speaking, Sophie realized who she was. “Aunt Agnes,” she breathed.

CHAPTER SIXTY
    THE COUNCIL CHAMBER at the heart of the Pyramid of the Sun took up the entire 314th floor, at the precise midpoint of the building. Rows of tiered seats were arranged in squares and dropped down to a circle at the heart of the room. The chamber was acoustically perfect: conversations on the opposite side of the room, even at its farthest point, more than one thousand feet away, were clearly audible, as if they were taking place at one’s side.
    The room, like the rest of the pyramid, also absorbed all auric energies.
    When the Great Elders had created the even larger original Pyramid of the Sun, they had recognized that they needed a secure environment in which to conduct their business. One where no Elder could influence another by force of aura. A combination of mathematics and crystal with sheets of gold and silver lining the walls swallowed any auras. Any energies that leaked from this unique security system were channeled into lighting the vast rooms. Within the Pyramid of the Sun, all the immensely powerful Great Elders and the Elders who came after them were equals.
    And most of the modern Elders who ruled over the island empire hated the pyramid for exactly that reason.
    “Look at them,” Bastet hissed.
    “Who?” Anubis asked, searching the room to see where his mother’s gaze had fallen.
    “Isis and Osiris—who else!”
    Bastet and Anubis were standing in one of the highest tiers of the chamber. As prominent Elders, they were always positioned in the front row in the square of gilded seats before the circle. But Bastet had insisted that they hang back so they could look down over the huge crowd now filing in.
    Most of the figures were still vaguely human, but the rest had grown hideous as age and the cumulative use of their auras had damaged them. Furry animal heads and limbs were commonplace; some figures had wings. Others had begun to warp into creatures of stone or wood, while a few had become tentacled monstrosities.
    “Only a handful have not turned up,” Anubis noted. “I don’t see Chronos.”
    “Good.”
    “Black Annis is missing.”
    “Pity, she is a good ally,” Bastet said absently, leaning forward to follow Isis and Osiris’s progress through the crowd. They were easy to track—they stood out, dressed in white ceremonial armor. She watched them nodding and smiling. “They will do nothing at this time. They’ve created this excitement and will promise to reveal all very soon.”
    “How do you know?” Anubis asked his mother.
    “It’s what I would do.” She glanced quickly at her son. “The children: are they dead?”
    He nodded confidently. “I sent three berserkers.” He grinned.
    “Three for two children. That’s overkill, don’t you think?”
    Anubis shrugged. “I wanted to be sure.”
    Bastet nodded happily. “Good. Keep thinking like that and you’ll make a great ruler. And Aten?”
    “On the way. Ard-Greimne said there were humani protesting outside the prison. He just needs to clear them away first.”
    “I like him. He is brutal and efficient,” Bastet said. “I’m sure we will find a role for him in the days to come.”
    Anubis noted her use of the word
we
but said nothing. He had plans to rule Danu Talis his way . . . and they did not include his mother.
    Tiny Janus strode to the center of the circle. The Change had altered the Elder terribly, and he now had four completely different faces, each one capable of moving and talking independently of the other. Usually he kept them covered under a black glass helmet and revealed only one face at a time to the world, but today he had left off the covering. While horrible to behold, his particular Change meant he could face all four sides of the chamber at once. Raising a miniature silver triangle, he struck it with a gold hammer. The pure sound cut through the room, instantly silencing all conversations.
    “Elders of Danu Talis,” he announced. “Please be seated for this, the first Grand Session in lo these many years.”
    There was a hum of movement as everyone began to move into