on the other side of the wall—the treasure of the sphinx or a path to Amon? Before I could second-guess myself any longer, I took a step forward and pressed the symbol for Amon.
A heartbeat later the whole wall started to shake. Stone crashed down on either side of us, and I was worried that I’d made a terrible mistake. I stumbled against the quickly shifting wall and my arm disappeared in a new opening. Fearing that I’d be crushed, I fell away from it and was caught by Dr. Hassan, who barely remained standing. With a final, terrible grating, the last stones shifted out of the way.
We stood clutching one another and breathing hard as the dust settled, and when it did, we both gaped at the sight before us. The treasure of the first room was nothing compared to what had been hidden behind the wall.
Sparkling, jewel-crusted opulence covered every surface. Life-sized statues of a cat goddess stood as lines of sentinels, eternally guarding the overflowing treasure in the room. My eyes lit on everything and nothing, unable to focus on any one object when surrounded by such splendor.
Then something moved.
Before us, seated on a golden throne with radiating beams of the sun lined with sparkling diamonds, was the most beautiful woman I’d ever seen. At first I thought it was a trick of my eyes. She seemed frozen in place, a dazzling centerpiece in an indescribably magnificent space, and I wondered if she was a painted image or a very lifelike statue. Then I heard a laugh and the woman lifted her hand and beckoned us forward.
Her silky, dark hair was as straight as an arrow and just brushed the small of her back. She wore a diaphanous white dress that gathered at the waist and then draped down her body in the style of an Egyptian goddess. Bands of gold encircled her arms and wrists, and golden sandals that looked very similar to my own adorned her feet. She smiled at me and I was transfixed by her ruby lips and her thickly lashed eyes that seemed alight with the colors of a churning nebula.
I couldn’t speak or even manage to walk when she again summoned us closer. Dr. Hassan seemed to be suffering from the same affliction. We were both rooted in place. Utterly transfixed.
Since we weren’t coming to her, she must have decided to come to us, because she then stood up and I realized that the golden beams of sun radiating from the throne were no such thing. They shifted and moved with her, lifting higher, stretching to encompass her entire body.
“Isis,” Dr. Hassan breathed in a reverent whisper, and I knew he was right. It was the goddess herself. The one who inspired Amon’s spell that connected our hearts.
And she had…wings.
Isis didn’t seem to care about my desultory stare or my absolute lack of coming up with anything even remotely appropriate to say. I was thunderstruck. All I could do was stand in place and squeak. There was something special about her and it wasn’t simply because she was an immortal. She had a very different vibe from Anubis, who was dark and mysterious and with his inflated ego could come across as a temperamental sort of rock god. He was much more…human.
Isis was every inch the goddess. Power emanated from her. It was in her eyes, her bearing, and in every lithe flick of limb and wing. Maybe it was because she was more than a goddess. She was a sorceress, too, able to wield a kind of magic that intimidated even someone as powerful as Anubis. As she approached me, I felt a terrible, almost heady mix of awe and fear.
Her gossamer dress whispered around her form, her wings shifting before they folded up. When she spoke, her rich voice echoed in the room as if the wind were a jealous lover who desired to capture her words for himself and proclaim to all that she belonged only to him. A woman such as Isis could intimidate even my mother, and that was saying something.
“Hello,” the goddess said. “You must be Lilliana.”
“Lily,” I corrected her, and then bit my lower lip, realizing that was a terrible first impression I’d just made. I knew better than that. I’d spent my whole life being trained on how to speak to VIPs, even when I was nervous.
She didn’t seem to mind, though, and smiled. “Lily, then. Anubis has spoken of you frequently.” I