The Enchantress (The Secrets of the Immortal Nicholas Flamel)

are another thousand like them in the fort. Ten thousand like them scattered around the city. Will you fight them all?”
    “If I have to,” the immortal said, turning back to the prison. The anpu had rounded up a handful of people—indiscriminately snatching men and women, young and old—from the crowd and were hauling them to the prison. She saw the boy. He was still struggling in the arms of the huge anpu. He called out, screaming a name again and again. Virginia bit her lip, watching as his mother pressed her hands to her ears and collapsed onto the stones. The anpu guard held the boy aloft in one hand, and just before the gates slammed shut, the boy stopped struggling and called out at the top of his lungs, “Aten!” The crowd roared back the name.
    “What will happen to him?” Virginia asked the mysterious man.
    “If he is lucky, he will be sentenced to the mines or to join one of the slave gangs who build the Elders’ pyramids.”
    “And if he is unlucky?” she began, and then stopped, suddenly realizing that the young man had spoken in English. She turned to face him.
    “If he is unlucky, he will be sent to one of the Shadowrealms as a slave. That’s a life sentence. Some would feel it is better than the alternative.”
    “And what is that?”
    “To be fed to the volcano.”
    “For what?” she demanded. “For throwing a piece of fruit?”
    “All the punishments are unnecessarily harsh. They are designed to keep humans under control. It is how the few control the many. With fear.”
    “Humankind should rise up,” Virginia snapped.
    “They should.”
    “I suppose Isis and Osiris sent you to find me?” she asked.
    “They did not.”
    The immortal looked at the man carefully. “You know me, don’t you?”
    The corners of the man’s eyes crinkled as he smiled. “I know you, Virginia Dare,” he agreed. “And if you look over my shoulder, you’ll see someone else who knows you.”
    Virginia shifted her gaze and looked over the figure’s right shoulder. Leaning against the wall at the mouth of an alleyway, supporting himself on a tall broken stick, was Dr. John Dee. The Magician raised his own straw hat in greeting.
    “Go to him, and wait. I will join you presently.”
    Virginia reached out to catch the man’s arm, but a curved metal hook wrapped around her wrist. “It would be better if you did not touch me,” he whispered icily. Slivers of yellow fire crawled across the hook and the immortal felt her flute grow almost painfully hot.
    The blue-eyed man nodded and walked past her. He moved through the crowd, taking care not to touch anyone, and Virginia noticed that everyone unconsciously stepped out of his way. Uncharacteristically shaken, the flute throbbing like an extra heart against her skin, she crossed the square and slipped into the darkened alleyway alongside the aged Magician. “I thought you were dead,” she greeted him.
    “That’s a charming hello. I almost was.”
    Shaking her head slightly, she looked him up and down. “I should have guessed you’d be hard to kill.”
    “I bet you didn’t think of me once,” he said with a tired smile.
    “Maybe just once or twice,” she admitted warmly. “I hoped you’d died quickly, and feared you had not.”
    “Is that something like concern I’m hearing?” he teased.
    “You’re looking old,” she said, avoiding the question.
    “Not as old as I was. And I’m still here.”
    Virginia Dare nodded. “I’m guessing Isis and Osiris weren’t the ones to renew your youth.”
    “They did not.”
    “The blue-eyed man?” she guessed.
    Dee nodded. “Marethyu, the hook-hand.”
    The name sent a shiver down Virginia’s spine. “Death,” she whispered.
    “Who gave me life,” Dee said, shaking his head. “What a world we live in. Once upon a time, you knew who your friends were.”
    “You never had any friends,” she reminded him.
    “True. Now all is topsy-turvy.”
    Virginia Dare turned to look back across the milling crowd. The blue-eyed man had vanished. She saw the woman who had lost her son. There was a young girl—no more than three or four—clinging to her skirts. “Where is Marethyu?”
    “He’s gone to visit someone in jail.”
    Dare turned back to Dee. “This jail doesn’t look the type that has regular visiting hours.”
    “I don’t think that would bother him too much.” The Magician laughed. “He’s gone to see Aten.”
    “I heard the people call his name. What is he?”
    “Aten was