“You’ll have to help me,” he said. “There’s something wrong with Lily.”
My head nodded. “Tia, too. They’ve gone to a very dark place. Will they come back?”
“I hope so. We’ve got to leave this place. Asten and Amon are still alive. Barely. Our energies seem to be maintaining them. I’m hoping that the gods will be able to help them recover.”
“What should I do?” Ashleigh asked.
“Can you heal them using the stela? The Devourer drained me. I’m too weak to fix what she’s done to them.”
“Sorry, darlin’,” my voice said mournfully. “I can’ work the healin’ without Lily.”
Ahmose turned in a circle, scanning the arena. “All right. Then you’ll have to invoke the power of the tether to draw us back.” Ahmose picked up Amon and placed him next to his brother, then knelt down and held out his hand, indicating that Ashleigh should take a position between them. When she knelt in front of Ahmose, she placed a palm upon his cheek. His gray eyes lifted, and in them I could see the pain, the loneliness, and the all-encompassing fear that he would lose those he loved.
“Don’t worry over them so,” Ashleigh said. “Your brothers will live.”
“How do you know?” he asked.
“Fairies have a gift of knowing things. Besides, ya have good arms,” she said, patting his strong shoulder.
Ahmose gave a sad, halfhearted laugh. “What does that have to do with anything?”
“The fairy tree always said, ‘The higher and stronger your reach, the more people ya can shelter beneath ’ur branches.’ I’ve got a feelin’ you’ve got enough strength ta carry the load.”
“I hope you’re right, Ashleigh.”
“Fairies usually are, though they don’t always share what they know. Now, what do you say we leave this foul and fiendish pit?”
Letting out a breath, Ahmose nodded.
Ashleigh placed one hand on Asten’s arm and one on Amon’s. “Now what?” she asked.
“Close your eyes and reach out for the tether.”
Ashleigh obeyed, and I felt my body shiver slightly when Ahmose’s hands gripped our shoulders. We felt a light tug, but it was nowhere near strong enough. “I can’t do it,” she gasped. “Not without Lily and Tia.”
Guilt assailed me. I knew I should be more in control. The fact that I couldn’t feel my connection to Amon at all anymore made me cower in the back of my mind. Forcing Ashleigh to take the lead was wrong, but I just couldn’t be an active participant in what was happening. The Devourer had escaped. It was all my fault. Amon had gifted me with whatever energy he’d had left, and I’d wasted it. I hadn’t killed her. She’d fled, and now the world was at risk. If only I’d been able to discern her true name!
“Tia! Lily!” Ahmose cried. “We need you! Help us!”
Tia roused herself and attempted to nudge me forward, but I turned my consciousness away from her. Without Amon, my mind was a black hole so complete, I felt like it could swallow me.
“Hassan,” Tia whispered. “Think of Hassan.”
Tia joined her mind with Ashleigh, and she fed the fairy images of her brief encounter with the Egyptologist. Wind swirled around us, kicking up dust. It churned in a cyclone, circling our bodies, and a thin pillar of light fell upon us.
“I see the tether!” Ashleigh cried. “But it’s still not enough!”
“Forgive me, Lily,” Tia whispered in my mind, and then my consciousness moved.
Awareness impaled me, stabbing me like needles. “No!” I screamed. “I can’t! Not without Amon!”
Tia and Ashleigh burrowed into my thoughts, digging through my brain with sharp claws seeking the bits and pieces they needed. An image of Hassan was dragged to the surface. Then another and another. I heard his voice, saw his eyes, smelled the dust that wafted from his cargo vest as I hugged him. The light brightened, encompassing us completely, and we were drawn into it.
Then everything went dark.
Tiny lights pierced the shadows surrounding us. I heard voices.
“They’re passing through the Waters of Osiris, headed for the Cosmic River.”
“The three are now one,” another voice murmured indistinctly. “They are more important than you can possibly imagine.”
“They are not quite one. Not yet.”
Stars came into view. They roiled beneath me, moving and shifting without pattern, but then I recognized a fixed constellation. It had formed a kind of symbol. One I recognized.
It was the rising sun. The symbol Dr. Hassan had taught me. The setting sun had guided me to the afterlife, to death, and if this was indeed the rising sun,