The Enchantress (The Secrets of the Immortal Nicholas Flamel)

grass, staring in awe at the fast-approaching object.
    “Is this a Shadowrealm?” Josh asked, looking from Dee to Dare.
    The woman shook her head slightly. “No, this is no Shadowrealm.”
    Josh stood and shaded his eyes, staring at the craft, mesmerized. As the vimana drew closer, he could see that it was made from what appeared to be a milky crystal encircled by a thick band of gold. The saucer dipped and dropped to the ground, filling the air with a low subsonic buzzing that fell to a deep rumbling as it hovered inches over the grass.
    Sophie climbed to her feet and stood alongside her twin. “It’s beautiful,” she whispered. “It’s like a jewel.” The opalescent crystal was flawless, and the gold rim of the vehicle was inscribed with tiny sticklike characters.
    “Where are we, Josh?” Sophie whispered.
    Josh shook his head. “Not where . . .
when
,” he murmured. “Vimanas belong to the oldest of all the myths.”
    Without a sound, the top half of the oval flipped open and the side of the craft retracted, revealing a blinding white interior.
    A man and a woman appeared in the opening.
    Tall and slender with deeply tanned skin, they both wore white ceramic armor etched with patterns, pictographs and hieroglyphs from a score of languages. The woman wore her black hair short, in a style cropped close to her head, whereas the man’s skull was smooth shaven. Their eyes were a bright, brilliant blue, and when they smiled, their teeth were small and perfectly white, except for the incisors, which looked unnaturally long and sharp. Hand in hand, they stepped off the vimana and walked across the grass. The glass and resin flowers melted to globules beneath their feet.
    Unconsciously Sophie and Josh stepped back, squinting against the low sun and the blinding reflection off the couple’s armor, trying to make out their features. There was something so terribly familiar. . . .
    Suddenly Dee gasped, then drew in his arms and legs, trying to make himself as small as possible. “Masters,” he said. “Forgive me.”
    The couple ignored him. They continued on their path, staring at the twins pointedly, until their heads blocked the sunlight, revealing their features in a halo of light.
    “Sophie,” the man said, bright blue eyes twinkling with delight.
    “Josh,” the woman added, shaking her head slightly, lips curling into a smile. “We’ve been waiting for you.”
    “Mom? Dad?” the twins said simultaneously. They took another step backward, confused and frightened now.
    The couple bowed formally. “In this place we are called Isis and Osiris. Welcome to Danu Talis, children.” They stretched out their hands. “Welcome home.”
    The twins looked at one another, eyes and mouths wide in fear and confusion. Sophie reached out and gripped her brother’s arm. Despite a week of extraordinary revelations, this was almost too much to take in. She tried to form words and ask questions, but her mouth was dry, and her tongue felt thick and swollen.
    Josh kept looking from his father to his mother and back again, trying to make some sense of what he was seeing. The couple looked like his parents, Richard and Sara Newman. They sure sounded like them too, but his parents were in Utah . . . he’d spoken to his father only a few days ago. They’d talked about a horned dinosaur from the Cretaceous period.
    “I know this is a lot to take in,” Richard Newman—Osiris—said with a grin.
    “But trust us,” Sara—Isis—said, “it will all make sense.” Her voice was reassuring as she smiled at the boy and girl. “All your lives have been leading up to this moment. This, children, is your destiny. This is your day. And what have we always said about the day?” she asked, smiling.
    “Carpe diem,” they both responded automatically. “Seize the day.”
    “What—” Josh began.
    Isis raised her hand. “In time. All in good time. And trust us—this is a good time. This is the best of times. You have stepped back ten thousand years into your past.”
    Sophie and Josh looked at one another. After everything they’d been through, they knew they should be delighted to be reunited with their parents, but there was something terribly wrong here. They had a hundred questions . . . and the two people standing in front of them hadn’t exactly answered any of them.
    Dr. John Dee scrambled to his feet and fastidiously brushed himself off before pushing past the twins and bowing deeply to the