The Enchantress (The Secrets of the Immortal Nicholas Flamel)

the air, sending their broken halves spinning off into the night. But the second two struck his breastplate, shattering it.
    The Elder fell without a sound.

CHAPTER THIRTY-NINE
    “MOTHER! STOP FUSSING.” Anubis realized his mistake even as the words were leaving his lips.
    Bastet turned and stalked away, her black metal foil cloak scraping across the floor with the sound that set his overlong teeth on edge. “Fussing,” she hissed. “Is that what I was doing? Fussing? Well, excuse me for trying to make my son the ruler of an empire!”
    “Mother . . .,” Anubis sighed.
    The cat-headed Elder turned her back on him, leaned her furry forearms on the window ledge and stared out over the city. Her ragged claws dug gouges in the stone. “Do you know how long I have schemed to bring us to this particular moment in time?”
    “Mother.”
    “The sacrifices I’ve made?”
    Anubis knew when to admit defeat. “Yes, Mother.”
    The huge Elder went to stand alongside Bastet. He pressed his back against the wall and folded his arms across his chest. When she was in this sort of mood, it was easier—and safer—not to argue. And although he commanded one of the largest armies in the world, and had created the anpu—which he was now starting to resemble as the Change took him—he was still in awe of his mother. “I’m just nervous,” he admitted, his teeth pressing against his chin.
    Bastet relented. “You have nothing to be nervous about. You are of the house of Amenhotep. I ruled with your father, your brother ruled, it is only right that you should rule. Very few of the Elders will oppose you. Why, even Isis and Osiris are coming tonight. They will support us,” she said confidently.
    Anubis looked around. He had grown up with his brothers in this palace, and they’d spent more time in this room than in any other part of the house. It was their father’s library, the long stone shelves overflowing with books, piled high with the treasures of a hundred Shadowrealms, while tables and drawers were stacked with fragments, scraps and hints of the earth’s distant history. It was in this room that his brother Aten had discovered his fascination with the past.
    “Will I really have to kill him?” he asked suddenly.
    “Who?”
    “My brother.”
    Bastet moved back from the window. She could hear the distant braying of a mob, and it was starting to annoy her. Where were the guards? Why was she not hearing screams as the humani were dispersed?
    “No, you will not have to kill Aten yourself,” she said. “You will simply sign his death warrant. Someone else will push him into the volcano.” She looked her son up and down and nodded approvingly. “The black armor is a nice touch.”
    Anubis was wearing ornate black armor etched with red on every joint and seam. The rivets looked like drops of blood.
    “I wasn’t sure about the color,” he said. “It was either this or the purple, and with my skin beginning to change, I though the red and black would look more dramatic.”
    “The purple would have clashed,” Bastet agreed.
    The texture and hue of Anubis’s copper-colored skin was undergoing the Change. In some places it was coal black, lined with tiny red veins; one hand had begun to stiffen into a claw, and the cartilage of both ears was beginning to thicken and extend upward
    “What will I say at the council meeting?” he asked.
    “As little as possible,” Bastet directed. “You will be the strong silent type. I will speak for you.”
    There was a swell in sound and the streets and alleyways on the other side of the canal suddenly boiled with a humani mob. They were all howling Aten’s name. Some were carrying sticks or brooms; a few carried long knives. Most were unarmed.
    “They want their leader,” Anubis said, joining his mother at the window. The crowd was about a hundred strong, and there were at least twice that many heavily armed guards on the bridges.
    “Your brother was weak,” Bastet snapped. “He began to see the humani as our equals. They are little better than animals. Just because he abolished servitude, they think he is their savior. Now look at what his weakness has spawned. They are burning the city in protest.” She shook her head in astonishment. “Do they honestly think this display will force us to release him?”
    Smoke curled from scores of fires across the city.
    “My officers tell me that hundreds are streaming toward the jail,” Anubis said. “There are even