Phantom Queen
So, the brilliant part of our group is stuck as a jackal as we try to figure out the Forsaken Ones and how to kill them.
Whatever Morgana and the witches did seems to be preventing them from hurting people for now, but Morgana said it's just a Band-Aid. Hardly anyone else would be able to undo the binding spell if they found it, but someone with Void powers could just suck the magic out of it.
We're narrowing in on who the other Forsaken is in this life, but we also have to figure out how to do what the old gods couldn't and get rid of them for good this time.
So, if I can’t dedicate this book to coffee, my dogs, and mental illness, can I dedicate it to all the people who bought books one and two?
You’re awesome at life. You’re a great parent; those kids were just in a mood today. And your ass looks fabulous in that outfit.
Iknew I should be taking this new information to Headmaster Mykene and Professor Gefn, but this was my real father. I had a million questions, and I wouldn’t get to ask them until I learned to travel the veil. This was going to be the one night this year. I wanted to get to know him and find out everything Blue Matthews stole from us, but that would have to wait.
“Do you know who Apep is in this life?”
“I’m sorry, none of us do. Apep and Hemlock are void creatures. They are the only people who can survive it. They are slipping into the void to travel and using it to hide from the spirits. The protection spells your professors give you keep us out of your bedrooms. We can’t tell if someone only enteredtheir bedroom to enter the void to murder someone, or they are just in there studying or having sex.”
“Thank Jesus or whatever deity we are supposed to thank now,” Liam said.
My father darted his eyes at Liam and scowled.
“If you defile someone’s child in a classroom, they can see you if they are in the veil.”
“Oh, shite, did my Nana watch me get my sack waxed? She’s probably slagging me to everyone in the veil.”
“We slagged you together after the classroom incident.”
“No one slags as good as my Nana.”
“I’m sorry, why are we talking about your Nana when fucking Apep is back?” Mazen snarled.
Lucian was buried in his phone again. Khalid kept trying to say something, but he was still stuck in his jackal form.
“Mazen is right,” Lucian said. “Apep was the big bad back in ancient Egypt. The majority of the Egyptian pantheon was just complicated. Some of them did bad things, but they also did good things. Apep was always bad, but clearly, we are missing information.”
“Clearly,” Mazen said. “Because a lot of the stories were that Apep kept trying to steal the sun because he was the Sun God before Ra and was jealous. That’s clearly not the case. It took all of them to fight him and he never fucking stayed dead.”
“Everything dies, and nothing is unkillable. It just so happens no one knows what would kill Apep or his creation because it wasn’t managed in his first life.”
“Wonderful. So, how are we supposed to do that?”
“Well, the Ancient Egyptians only had one god with the gift of foretelling. Thoth clearly never saw anything, or they wouldn’t have banished him to Fairy. We’ve got Alexios and you, and you are supposed to be able to foretell death,” Mazen said.
“Don’t pressure my girlfriend. If you upset her, I’ll punch you,” Liam said.
“I hit back.”
“Promise? I haven’t gotten into a good brawl since I got here. I keep kicking Lucian in the kidneys and he won’t play with me and fight back.”
Lucian gave him a dry look and flipped Liam off.
“While you were being a fucking moron, I was digging into the files Headmaster Mykene gave Sage. There are twenty Egyptian students at Ouroboros Academy. Since it’s a rather large pantheon, there are twelve students who haven’t figured out who they were yet. The older students have it narrowed down to a few gods or magical creatures and are taking extra shifting classes to know for sure. Of course, Lola lied about not knowing, so anyone else could be.”
I bit my lip because I was about to make this really complicated.
“Headmaster Mykene said Americans are complicated because of our mixed genealogy. My dad is obviously Irish, but my mom said she knew some of her ancestors came here from Germany. How much of your DNA has to come from a certain region to be a reincarnation? We could be dealing with someone with blonde hair and blue eyes who was snatched from a totally different country and happens to have a tiny bit of Egyptian blood.”
“It’s possible. The theory is that reincarnations are descendants of their originals. I have access to all my past lives and the shades of other reincarnations, but this is probably a question for a God of Wisdom.”
