Where do you wish to go? Isis said in my mind.

God, I don’t care! America!

I realized I was crying. I hated to, but shock and fear were starting to overwhelm me. Where did I want to go? Home, of course! Back to my flat in London-back to my own room, my grandparents, my mates at school and my old life. But I couldn’t. I had to think about my father and our mission. We had to get to Set.

America, I thought. Now!

My burst of emotion must’ve had some effect. The pyramid trembled. Its glass walls shimmered and the top of the structure began to glow.

A swirling sand vortex appeared, all right. Only one problem: it was hovering above the very top of the pyramid.

“Climb!” Bast said. Easy for her-she was a cat.

“The side is too steep!” Carter objected.

He’d done a good job with the bats. Dazed heaps littered the pavement, but more still flew round us, biting every bit of exposed skin, and the magicians were closing in.

“I’ll toss you,” Bast said.

“Excuse me?” Carter protested, but she picked him up by his collar and pants and tossed him up the side of the pyramid. He skittered to the top in a very undignified manner and slipped straight through the portal.

“Now you, Sadie,” Bast said. “Come on!”

Before I could move, a man’s voice yelled, “Stop!”

Stupidly, I froze. The voice was so powerful, it was hard not to.

The two magicians were approaching. The taller one spoke in perfect English: “Surrender, Miss Kane, and return our master’s property.”

“Sadie, don’t listen,” Bast warned. “Come here.”

“The cat goddess deceives you,” the magician said. “She abandoned her post. She endangered us all. She will lead you to ruin.”

I could tell he meant it. He was absolutely convinced of what he said.

I turned to Bast. Her expression had changed. She looked wounded, even grief-stricken.

“What does he mean?” I said. “What did you do wrong?”

“We have to leave,” she warned. “Or they will kill us.”

I looked at the portal. Carter was already through. That decided it. I wasn’t going to be separated from him. As annoying as he was, Carter was the only person I had left. (How is that for depressing?)

“Toss me,” I said.

Bast grabbed me. “See you in America.” Then she chucked me up the side of the pyramid.

I heard the magician roar, “Surrender!” And an explosion rattled the glass next to my head. Then I plunged into the hot vortex of sand.

I woke in a small room with industrial carpeting, gray walls, and metal-framed windows. I felt as if I were inside a high-tech refrigerator. I sat up groggily and discovered I was coated in cold, wet sand.

“Ugh,” I said. “Where are we?”

Carter and Bast stood by the window. Apparently they’d been conscious for a while, because they’d both brushed themselves off.

“You’ve got to see this view,” Carter said.

I got shakily to my feet and nearly fell down again when I saw how high we were.

An entire city spread out below us-I mean far below, well over a hundred meters. I could almost believe we were still in Paris, because a river curved off to our left, and the land was mostly flat. There were white government buildings clustered around networks of parks and circular roads, all spread out under a winter sky. But the light was wrong. It was still afternoon here, so we must’ve traveled west. And as my eyes made their way to the other end of a long rectangular green space, I found myself staring at a mansion that looked oddly familiar.

“Is that…the White House?”

Carter nodded. “You got us to America, all right. Washington, D.C.”

“But we’re sky high!”

Bast chuckled. “You didn’t specify any particular American city, did you?”

“Well…no.”

“So you got the default portal for the U.S.-the largest single source of Egyptian power in North America.”

I stared at her uncomprehendingly.

“The biggest obelisk ever constructed,” she said. “The Washington Monument.”

I had another moment of vertigo and moved away from the window. Carter grabbed my shoulder and helped me sit down.

“You should rest,” he said. “You passed out for…how long, Bast?”

“Two hours and thirty-two minutes,” she said. “I’m sorry, Sadie. Opening more than one portal a day is extremely taxing, even with Isis helping.”

Carter frowned. “But we need her to do it again, right? It’s not sunset here yet. We can still use portals. Let’s open one and get to Arizona. That’s where Set is.”

Bast pursed her lips. “Sadie can’t summon another portal. It would overextend her powers. I don’t have the talent. And you, Carter…well, your abilities lie elsewhere. No offense.”

“Oh, no,” he grumbled. “I’m sure you’ll call me next time you need to boomerang some fruit bats.”

“Besides,” Bast said, “when a portal is used, it needs time to cool down. No one will be able to use the Washington Monument-”

“For another twelve hours.” Carter cursed. “I forgot about that.”

Bast nodded. “And by then, the Demon Days will have begun.”

“So we need another way to Arizona,” Carter said.

I suppose he didn’t mean to make me feel guilty, but I did. I hadn’t thought things through, and now we were stuck in Washington.

I glanced at Bast out the corner of my eye. I wanted to ask her what the men at the Louvre had meant about her leading us to ruin, but I was afraid to. I wanted to believe she was on our side. Perhaps if I gave her a chance, she’d volunteer the information.

“At least those magicians can’t follow us,” I prompted.

Bast hesitated. “Not through the portal, no. But there are other magicians in America. And worse…Set’s minions.”

My heart climbed into my throat. The House of Life was scary enough, but when I remembered Set, and what his minions had done to Amos’s house…

“What about Thoth’s spellbook?” I said. “Did we at least find a way to fight Set?”

Carter pointed to the corner of the room. Spread out on Bast’s raincoat was Dad’s magic toolbox and the blue book we’d stolen from Desjardins.

“Maybe you can make sense of it,” Carter said. “Bast and I couldn’t read it. Even Doughboy was stumped.”

I picked up the book, which was actually a scroll folded into sections. The papyrus was so brittle, I was afraid to touch it. Hieroglyphs and illustrations crowded the page, but I couldn’t make sense of them. My ability to read the language seemed to be switched off.

Isis? I asked. A little help?

Her voice was silent. Maybe I’d worn her out. Or maybe she was cross with me for not letting her take over my body, the way Horus had asked Carter to do. Selfish of me, I know.

I closed the book in frustration. “All that work for nothing.”

“Now, now,” Bast said. “It’s not so bad.”

“Right,” I said. “We’re stuck in Washington, D.C. We have two days to make it to Arizona and stop a god we don’t know how to stop. And if we can’t, we’ll never see our dad or Amos again, and the world might end.”

“That’s the spirit!” Bast said brightly. “Now, let’s have a picnic.”

She snapped her fingers. The air shimmered, and a pile of Friskies cans and two jugs of milk appeared on the carpet.

“Um,” Carter said, “can you conjure any people food?”

Bast blinked. “Well, no accounting for taste.”

The air shimmered again. A plate of grilled cheese sandwiches and crisps appeared, along with a six-pack of Coke.

“Yum,” I said.

Carter muttered something under his breath. I suppose grilled cheese wasn’t his favorite, but he picked up a sandwich.

“We should leave soon,” he said between bites. “I mean…tourists and all.”

Bast shook her head. “The Washington Monument closes at six o’clock. The tourists are gone now. We might as well stay the night. If we must travel during the Demon Days, best to do it in daylight hours.”

We all must’ve been exhausted, because we didn’t talk again until we’d finished our food. I ate three sandwiches and drank two Cokes. Bast made the whole place smell like fish Friskies, then started licking her hand as if preparing for a cat bath.