How It All Goes Down
I Have a Date with the God of Toilet Paper
- Before the boat can go from the river to the lake, it needs to pass through a giant bronze gate.
- As Sadie wonders aloud how they will get past the gate, someone pops up saying perhaps they should ask him. It's a ba, but the face and voice are familiar: it's Iskandar.
- Sadie tears up and asks Iskandar why he died—it wasn't her fault, was it? He says it wasn't.
- As they talk, Iskandar says that he regrets not realizing sooner what was happening, so that he might have protected them as much as—
- Who? Iskandar doesn't say. He just says that he'd had to make difficult choices.
- Sadie asks whether her mom convinced him that forbidding the gods was a bad idea.
- Iskandar says that it seemed like a good idea at the time, when Egypt had fallen to Rome. It worked for the next two thousand years.
- But Sadie's mother foresaw a great imbalance that would allow chaos to overthrow Ma'at and destroy all of Creation. Only reuniting magicians and gods could prevent it. Iskandar wasn't willing to act on it, but Sadie's parents were, and they sacrificed their lives for it.
- For that, Iskandar apologizes. Sadie reflects that it's rare for adults that old to admit that they were wrong, so she accepts Iskandar's apology and asks what she should do next.
- According to Iskandar, the choice rests with Sadie and Carter. The upcoming clash between order and chaos will be more violent than it has been in eons, and Sadie and Carter will have a crucial role to play (which their mother also foresaw).
- Iskandar says that he'll let them pass, since he's assessed Sadie's courage and found plenty of it.
- The gates open, and the boat goes toward a small island: the Hall of Judgment.
- Sadie and Carter say goodbye to Bloodstained Blade, who vanishes. As they walk into a black temple, Bast says she can smell the Dog. Then something from the shadows tackles her, and she vanishes.
- Up walks a black canine sort of creature—a jackal, Sadie realizes. Then it turns into a boy, the same pale (and hot) boy Sadie had run into twice in visions.
- Because Sadie is crushing on this guy and can't think of anything to say, she's relieved when Carter addresses him as Anubis and tells him they need a feather of truth.
- Anubis identifies Carter and Sadie as Horus and Isis and asks if they intend to challenge Set. Carter says yes and asks for Anubis's help. Anubis says he won't help them, and he'll show them why. They follow him deeper into the gloom.
- In the center of the temple is a great room with a giant set of scales. They appear to be broken.
- Sleeping at the base of the scales is a poodle-sized monster with the head of a crocodile, the middle body of a lion, and the back parts of a hippo. It's Ammit the Devourer.
- However, Sadie also perceives another layer of the hall: it looks like a graveyard, with tombs and moss and other outdoors things like cypress trees.
- When Sadie mentions this, she realizes that she and Anubis are in a New Orleans graveyard. Anubis says that he feels a connection with New Orleans. The funeral rituals there are very similar to those of ancient Egypt—and he should know, since he's the god of funerals.
- Anubis says he brought Sadie here to talk. He summons a long white ribbon that wraps itself into a bench. Sadie's first thought is that it's toilet paper, but she realizes that it's mummy wrappings.
- Back to business: Sadie asks for a feather of truth. Anubis refuses, because it's too dangerous for a mortal to have one—and besides, Osiris forbids it. Sadie asks where Osiris is now and finds out that Set is Anubis's father.
- Anubis asks whether Sadie is always this infuriating, and he also asks why her family hasn't married her off to someone far, far away yet. Sadie retorts that Anubis may know everything about funeral rituals, but he's not up to date on courtship rituals.
- Then Sadie returns to the discussion of Set being Anubis's father. Anubis says yeah, it's true, but that his mother (Nephthys) basically gave him to Osiris so that Osiris could raise him. But Anubis was really different from his cousin Horus.
- Anubis talks a bit more about how kind Osiris was to him, and how the Land of the Dead has gone bad with Osiris gone. Sadie uses this as a chance to try to persuade Anubis to give her a feather of truth so that she can set things right.
- Anubis agrees on a few conditions: only Sadie can handle the feather, she must listen to Nephthys if she communicates with her, and she must answer three questions while holding the feather in order to prove that she can be honest (since lying while holding it will destroy her).
- Anubis hands her the feather and asks if she's ready. Sadie says no and asks if that's the first question. Anubis agrees that it can be and tells Sadie that she bargains like a Phoenician trader. We're not sure if that's a good thing or not.
- Second question: would Sadie give her life for her brother? She answers yes, surprising herself a little.
- Third and final question: is Sadie prepared to lose her father if it means saving the world? Sadie struggles to answer this one, and feels super guilty when she finally says that yes, she would choose to save the world over her father.
- Anubis commends her for having the strength to tell the truth, painful as it is. He says he'll leave her now, as they only have 24 hours before Set's birthday. Before they part, though, he teases Sadie that maybe she can bring him up to speed on modern courtship rituals.
- When Sadie reappears in the Hall of the Dead, Carter asks whether she got the feather. She says that she did and then storms off to find Bast, because now she has to tell the truth if asked—and she doesn't want to tell the truth if it's about Anubis.