The things the stars whisper are not always clear. But whatever the case, the gods opted not to erase all evidence of the spell, just in case the stars were right.”
“Yeah. Well.” I kicked a pebble with my golden sandal. “All that matters to me is saving Amon. I don’t appreciate that all these little rituals of yours take so long.”
“Ah, Lily. How little your mortal eyes see. If we were to forsake the rituals, we would be sending you unprepared toward a certain doom. Each step you take is necessary. Every hurdle makes you stronger. Tempered steel is not easily broken. You must believe we are giving you your best chance. Remember that even in the netherworld, there are certain rules and limitations.”
“Like the one that says you aren’t allowed to go and intervene.”
“Correct. Try not to worry much; if the Devourer had him in her clutches, we would know. And even so, the process of draining him is not a quick thing. She would take her time. Because of this, I want you to understand the importance of what you are undertaking. This spell is not an easy one. You will be tested, and even if you are successful, you will need some time to acclimate to your new self. You must be firm of mind. Fix your gaze on your goal. And above all else, you must open your heart. Otherwise you may lose yourself, much like my handmaid, Baniti.”
“And you’re sure this is the only way to save him?”
“It is the only way I know.”
Swallowing, I nodded. “Then let’s see if we can do something to help him.”
The wings of the goddess fluttered and she smiled. “Vizier, are you ready to receive the spell?”
“Yes,” he answered. “I have one question before we get started, though.”
“And what is that?”
“Why Wasret? Shouldn’t the rite be named for your handmaid, Baniti, instead?”
“What do you know of Wasret?” Isis asked.
“I know she was a goddess of Egypt with most of her worshippers centered at Thebes. I know she was charged to protect your young son, Horus, and that she’s rumored to be Amun-Ra’s first wife.”
“Hmm. It’s interesting how the truths get mixed together until they become almost unrecognizable. The reference to my son was indeed Baniti. She was his nursemaid as a boy. He considered her a second mother and was nearly inconsolable at her death. The reason Thebes is a part of the story is because that is the city where she was born and it is the city where I honored her death, creating a temple guarded by sphinx statues. But these references are for Baniti, not Wasret.
“You see, Wasret, the person rumored to be Amun-Ra’s first wife, the person for whom this rite remained on earth, is a person who hadn’t even been born at the time her name was inscribed on the wall. It is the name the stars have whispered to us over the eons.”
“Then the inscriptions we’ve discovered that speak of Wasret are about two different people,” Dr. Hassan murmured.
Isis admired a sparkling ring around her finger as she inquired of Dr. Hassan, “You found two versions of the sphinx carved upon these walls, did you not?”
“Yes. We did,” he admitted.
“They do not represent two different types of sphinx but two different individuals. One was Baniti, born and died thousands of years ago, and the other, Wasret, stands next to you now. Assuming, of course, that Lily is indeed the one we’ve been waiting for.”
I held up a hand. “Wait a second. You’re saying I am, or could be, Wasret? The goddess woman Dr. Hassan described?”
“That is exactly what I am saying.”
“So have you suspected this about me all this time? Known who I am and what I was supposed to do?”
“Like I said, we’ve known that there would come a time when the spell might be needed. We just didn’t know when until the circumstances presented themselves. Until the moment Amon entered the netherworld, we did not expect you to be anything other than a mortal dalliance.”
“Amon and I didn’t”—I waved my hands in the air, flustered—“dally.”
“Irrelevant. We knew one such as you would exist, and the diviners and seers able to understand the whisperings wrote what they gleaned from the stars, which wasn’t much. The stars are very fickle when it comes to sharing their secrets, even with gods.”
A little shiver ran through me. I’d likely never look the same way at the stars again. Now I could only picture them as