The Enchantress (The Secrets of the Immortal Nicholas Flamel)

pinging off the silver table. “None of this was by chance: millennia of careful planning went into ensuring that this exact sequence of events would unfold.”
    “You planned everything?” Sophie asked. Every new revelation made her feel slightly more sick to her stomach. “Even the bad parts?”
    “Were there bad parts?” Isis asked. She looked at her husband and he shook his head. “What are you referring to?”
    “I think she means the parts where we were almost killed,” Josh answered for his twin. “I was almost eaten by a Nidhogg in Paris.”
    Isis waved a ringed hand as if Paris meant nothing. “You were never really in that much danger, Josh,” she said. “You were in the company of some of the finest warriors of any generation. They protected you.”
    “I fought the Disir,” Sophie said. She was unwilling to let this go so easily. “I got the impression that they were trying really hard to kill me.”
    “And don’t forget the Awakening process,” Josh added.
    Isis let out a light, musical laugh that sounded strangely false and practiced. “You were never in any danger from that. You are Gold and Silver,” she said. “True Gold, pure Silver. Only the impure are damaged by the Awakening.”
    “And what about the attack by the undead in Ojai?” Josh pressed.
    Isis tried another laugh. It sounded as false as the first. “Dee was not powerful enough to sustain them for very much longer. You destroyed them minutes before they would have collapsed of their own accord.”
    “And Coatlicue?” Sophie asked. “She was ready to feast on Josh.”
    “And I barely escaped the burning building,” Josh added. “And then there was that thing with horns in London.”
    “Enough!” Isis clapped her hands, the rings on her fingers sparking as they snapped together. “This was all planned.”
    “Including Dee betraying you?” Sophie asked defiantly. “Because I got the clear impression that that was not in the cards.”
    The table fell silent.
    Josh stared at his twin closely. “Dee went out on his own, didn’t he?” He hadn’t known for sure until she’d said it out loud.
    Sophie nodded. “He grew tired of being a servant. He wanted to be the master.”
    Osiris held up his hand. “No plan is entirely foolproof. There will always be some tiny unforeseen factors. Variables. Toward the end, Dee became a variable.” He flashed a smile, and like his wife’s laughter, it was practiced and false. “But we should balance that with the fact that he was a true and loyal servant for centuries.”
    “But he was your agent on earth,” Josh protested. “That’s not a tiny factor. That’s a fairly major error.”
    “Enough,” Osiris snapped. “He has paid the price. As does everyone who defies us. He was not our first servant. He will not be our last. Indeed, I believe Miss Dare is already moving into a position to replace him. I have made her an offer she’s really not in any position to refuse.”
    “And she has accepted this offer?” Josh demanded.
    “She has.”
    Josh couldn’t believe what the Elder had just said. Virginia Dare? A servant to Isis and Osiris? To
anyone
? “I think you’ll find that Virginia Dare is not John Dee,” he said quietly.
    “I know what she is,” Osiris snarled.
    Isis reached over and placed a hand on her husband’s arm, stopping him before he could say anything else. “Josh is right.” She looked at her husband carefully. “Dare is dangerous. And the flute makes her . . . unmanageable. I think you should withdraw your offer. We can easily find another human agent.”
    “Of course,” he agreed immediately.
    “But what will you do with her?” Sophie asked.
    “That depends,” Isis said.
    “Depends on what?” Sophie demanded. Thoughts flickered at the corner of her mind, and she had a sudden image of Virginia falling from a great height into a bubbling volcano.
    “On how cooperative she is.”
    “And if she isn’t?” Josh demanded.
    The smile that curled Osiris’s lips was genuine this time. “We’ll feed her—as we feed all traitors and criminals—to the volcano.”
    A door opened, breaking the silence that had fallen across the table. A red-eyed anpu appeared. One of the cat-women padded over to the monstrous creature and stood on her toes to put her head alongside his. They did not speak audibly, but the slight creature suddenly turned and ran back toward the table, tail whipping agitatedly from side to side. Isis and Osiris