The Enchantress (The Secrets of the Immortal Nicholas Flamel)

normal: there was fruit on a plate in front of him, a glass of orange juice beside it. Large bowls filled with salad were in the center of the table, and there were two jugs of water—one with ice for his father and Sophie and a second without ice, which he and his mother preferred.
    Everything was so familiar.
    Except that it was
wrong
.
    The couple sitting at the table looked like his parents, Richard and Sara Newman. They had the same eye color, identical lines on their faces, wrinkles at the corners of their mouths and eyes. This man who looked like his father even had a tiny half-moon scar on top of his shaven head, a pale semicircle standing out against his deeply tanned skin.
    But these were not his parents.
    The woman who looked like his mother was wearing the robes and jewelry of ancient Egypt.
    There was nothing wrong with that. When they had gone to Egypt a few years before, she’d worn similar clothes on the boat they’d sailed in down the Nile.
    But both the woman’s and the man’s nails were painted black.
    That was odd—he’d never known his father to paint his toenails, and black wasn’t exactly a color his mother would ever have chosen.
    When these people smiled, their teeth seemed too long, and although he hadn’t had a close look, so he couldn’t be certain, he thought their tongues looked dark purple instead of pink.
    Nowhere had he seen
that
before.
    And now that he looked at them, even the food and table itself didn’t feel quite right.
    The table was a circle of gold and silver, wrapped together like a yin and yang symbol. He and Osiris were sitting side by side at the gold curve, while his sister and Isis sat in front of the silver sections.
    Josh?
    The plates before him were gold, piled high with a spectacularly vivid selection of fruits—but, upon closer inspection, he only recognized a few of them. And the glass filled with juice was solid gold.
    And his sister . . .
    Josh looked across the table at Sophie. His twin was staring down at a silver plate heaped with cherries and grapes far too large to be natural. A silver cup brimmed with water, and the blunt knife and two-tined fork were also silver. She noticed him looking at her and raised her head, and in that instant he saw the same confusion in her eyes.
    Josh?
    Josh felt the world slip and shift again and he realized that this was no dream. His heart started to hammer painfully, and he could feel his lungs tightening. His subconscious was telling him something important. He just wasn’t sure what that was yet.
    Josh!
    Isis’s voice was sharp.
    He drew in a deep shuddering breath and felt the world shift and settle. Looking around, he discovered that everyone was looking at him, and he rolled his shoulders and twisted his head from side to side. Color flushed his cheeks. “Sorry, I sort of zoned out for a minute there. Might have even dozed off.” He turned to look at his father. “What did you once call them?”
    Osiris stared at him blankly for a long moment.
    “Oh yes, I remember now: a microsleep. I must have been having a microsleep.”
    “Focus, Josh,” Isis snapped. “This is important.”
    He was about to snap a response when he felt his sister’s foot tap against his. He took a deep breath. “Sure. Sorry, Isi—sorry, Mom. I guess we’re just exhausted by everything that’s happened. I know I am.”
    “Me too. It’s been a lot to take in,” Sophie said. She speared one of the huge grapes with her fork and popped it in her mouth, then drained her glass. As soon as she placed it back on the table one of the cat-faced women silently appeared by her side and refilled it.
    “Maybe we could get some sleep?” Josh suggested.
    “I’m afraid that will have to wait. Our schedule has altered somewhat,” Osiris said. “Eat, restore your energies. You have a long night ahead of you.”
    Josh looked at his sister, eyebrows moving fractionally upward in a silent question. She shook her head.
    “You are aware by now that you are in the possession of extraordinary powers,” Isis said. She turned to look first at Sophie, then across the table at Josh. “You don’t need me to tell you that you are both remarkable people. In a week you’ve both been Awakened and trained in most of the Elemental Magics. In a week,” she said to her husband, shaking her head. “It’s truly astonishing.”
    “Ordinarily, it is a process that takes decades,” Osiris agreed.
    “Why didn’t you Awaken us?” Sophie asked,