A museum's exploding artifact. An attack on a mansion. Two people running from longnecks. Snippets of conversation. The Hall of Ages. "…question long-held beliefs…" Zia, looking confused. "Tell me your story." Two kids who looked remarkably familiar. "You were almost dead." A large, red pyramid in a sprawling desert. A whisper: "Things are changing." A face, leering down with cruel, angular features and glowing red eyes.

Then Iskandar, looking sad but relieved, saying, "And it seems I, too, can rest at last."

She woke to someone shaking her. "Machaela!" a voice said. "Machaela, wake up! We need to move!"

She bolted upright, the scattered dreams running through her mind, but then Jesse spoke again, focusing her attention on him.

"Sofia just scried," he told her. "Iskandar wants us back in Egypt ASAP."

She had been up late the night before, and greatly wanted to go back to sleep, but something may be wrong. She climbed out of bed and started gathering her things, all the while trying to wake up.

In the year and a half since Iskandar had scared them so badly, he hadn't had another episode quite that bad, though he had had some health trouble. It had taken nearly a month for them to leave his side after that, so worried were they that something would happen while they were gone. Eventually, though, Sofia had convinced them to do their job, and promised that someone would call them should something happen. With his health still declining rapidly, Machaela and Jesse still refused to leave for more than a few days at a time.

Currently, they were in Sydney, Australia, the Three Hundred and Thirtieth Nome. The nome's leader, Steve, had called for help when an initiate's spell backfired a few days prior. The backfiring spell had released a couple dozen demons, which greatly outnumbered and out-skilled the four magicians and five initiates in his nome, so, despite not being very happy about travelling on Christmas, Machaela and Jesse had come to help track them down.

They were supposed to stay in the nome for twenty-four hours after the last demon had been killed, which would be that evening, but, with the Demon Days starting at sunset, they had been planning to leave slightly early.

"Sofia said forget about that," Jesse said when she mentioned it. "Iskandar wants us there now!"

The last part of her dream came back to her, and she saw with horrifying clarity what may be happening.

She pulled Jesse away from his packing and said a command word. All of their stuff piled into a suitcase, which she then put in the Duat.

Jesse's jaw had dropped at her using a Divine Word, but she snapped him out of it.

"I had a dream. Explain later. Come on!" Leaving a quick note for Steve, who was still sleeping at this early hour, the siblings sprinted to the roof, where Machaela opened a portal.

Ten minutes after waking up, Machaela and Jesse were sprinting through the deserted streets of the First Nome. With so few people out and about this time of night, Machaela didn't worry about being overheard as she told Jesse her dream. That last line had them hoping they were wrong.

As they ran towards their rooms, they passed Zia leaving her shrine to her parents. They waved at her, but didn't slow, which was just as well. Zia looked a bit distracted anyway.

Sofia stood from the couch as they barged it.

"What's going on?" Jesse asked. She shrugged, pointing toward the bedroom Iskandar had been using.

Machaela knocked, Jesse standing right behind her. "Iskandar?" she said.

Entering at his permission, she found him sitting on his bed, apparently reading a book. He was calm, which calmed the siblings down quite a bit.

"What's going on?" Machaela asked.

"You called for us?" Jesse said at the same time.

He patted the bed in front of him, and they sat, waiting for him to start.

"I need to give you some things," he said. His voice was raspy, and a lot quieter than it had been when they left for Australia, barely a week ago. His breathing was louder.

Magic rippled, and a faded, folded piece of paper appeared in his hand. "A friend gave this to me for safe-keeping several years ago." He handed it to them. "She asked for me to give it to you when you were ready, but I forgot about it until a few days ago." Taking the piece of paper from him, they looked at the familiar handwriting on the front, but they didn't open it, too focused on what was going on with Iskandar. He smiled at their hesitation. "I will be fine," he said. "Don't you worry."

"But what's going on?" Machaela asked. "I had this dream…"

He looked at her, more focused than she had seen him since they walked in. "What did you see?"

She described her fragmented dreams. When she finished, he looked thoughtful. "What you saw was true, and things are changing. Carter and Sadie Kane have their path to follow."

"Kane," Jesse muttered. "Do we know them?"

His chuckle turned into a wracking cough, which had them scurrying, trying to help, but he waved them off. "I doubt it," he answered when it passed. "You may have heard of their parents, though. An accident claimed Ruby Kane's life right about the time we got back to Egypt."

His gaze lost focus, remembering all that had happened. Though the siblings were used to this by now, and usually just waited it out, they tapped his leg.

He jumped, then focused on them and smiled slightly. "Pardon me. Anyway, keep track of the Kanes. They are on a noble path, and will need help."

Machaela and Jesse looked at each other. Iskandar apparently hadn't realize he had spoken in Greek. Now they had to decide whether to tell him they knew Greek. Machaela finally nodded, and Jesse nodded back. They had kept it hidden for nine years. He may as well know, now.

"What path?" Machaela asked, responding in Greek.

He nearly answered before the language clicked. He raised an eyebrow. "I spoke in Greek, didn't I?" he asked in English. They nodded, smiling slightly. "When did you learn Greek?"

Machaela chuckled slightly at the look on his face. In all the years they had lived and travelled with him, they had only ever managed to hide one thing: their Greek fluency.

Jesse shrugged. "We found out we were fluent after the Rome earthquake."

"Found out you were fluent?" he repeated. "You never learned it?" They shook their heads. "And you kept it a secret this whole time?" The siblings chuckled, glad that they had successfully hidden this.

Iskandar muttered a phrase that Machaela recognized as an Arabic expression of frustration. "What have I done?" he muttered.

Now it was their turn to look at him funny. "We know Greek," Jesse said. "So what?"

Iskandar shook his head. "I cannot say." Machaela opened her mouth to protest, but Iskandar spoke first. "Back to the original topic, the Kanes will need help, and you are two of the few able."

The siblings exchanged a glance. "Few able?" Machaela asked.

He nodded and pointed to a scroll on a table across the room. "Would you bring that here please?"

Jesse handed it to him. "Blood of the Pharaohs," Iskandar read from the top line after unfurling it.

Jesse looked thoughtful. "When Liv accused us of being godlings," he remembered, "you mentioned that title."

"You have a good memory," Iskandar responded. "Yes, this book records the lineage of all royal descendants."

"Why is this important?" Machaela asked as she tried to look closer. The scroll was filled with lines of hieroglyphs, all written inside cartouches. She remembered Sofia mentioning at one point that cartouches symbolized magic ropes, and they were supposed to protect the bearer of the name from evil magic. They looked like an oval drawn around the hieroglyphs. As she watched, another cartouche appeared at the end of a line.

"You will need this knowledge to help the Kanes," was Iskandar's only answer as he further unrolled the scroll, obviously looking for something. "Ah!" he said finally. "Here it is." He turned the scroll to where they could see it. "Each section of the scroll is the genealogy of a different pharaoh," he began. "This is the section for Thutmose III, of the eighteenth dynasty. He was the stepson of Hatshepsut, the first woman to ascend to the full reign of Pharaoh, and the only one to have a successful reign. Hatshepsut had one daughter, Neferure, who was one of Thutmose III's wives. One of their children was Amenemhat."

"Gesundheit," Jesse told him, in response to the mouthful of a name.

Both Machaela and Iskandar grinned, but neither responded as Iskandar followed the genealogical line to the end, where he tapped on one particular cartouche. Jesse and Machaela looked closer. Inside the circle were four hieroglyphs. The first was a zigzagging line, the second a profile of a lion, another zigzag line, and the last a mittened hand.

"Do either of you recognize this?" he asked.

They kept staring at it. "It does look familiar," Machaela eventually said, "but I can't remember where I saw it." She thought about it for another minute while Iskandar patiently waited. "Is—" She cut herself off but, at Iskandar's encouraging look, spoke her question. "Is it our name?"

Iskandar smiled widely. "Very good. I know you have only seen it once or twice. Yes, this is your name. These hieroglyphs are N, L, N, and D. You remember that Egyptians usually did not use vowels?"

They nodded, but Jesse had a question. "We're blood of the pharaohs?" he asked, slightly stunned their family went back that far.

"You are," Iskandar confirmed. "Your family comes from Hatshepsut through Thutmose III, making your ancestor the first female pharaoh to prosperously assume full rule of Egypt."

"That's pretty cool," Jesse said, "but what does this have to do with the Kanes?"

"That is better understood when the time comes for you to help," Iskandar said. "For now, just remember your ancestry." He set the scroll on the bed next to him, changing the subject before they could protest. "Now, there is one other thing I must give you." He handed Machaela a different scroll, tightly bound and teeming with magic. "I have put many spells into this book," he told her. "Be careful with it. In the wrong hands…" he trailed off into Memoryland again, but Machaela chose not to ask, only setting the scroll aside.

"Why did you call us back early just to give us these?" Jesse brought Iskandar out of his reverie. "What's going on?" he asked again.

He smiled at them gently, but didn't answer, only drawing them into a remembering conversation that stretched well into the night. In between his focus slipping, they talked about the two years they had spent travelling the nomes, and what had happened since then. He told them how proud he was at who they had grown up to be. He reminded them that they should help the Kanes. And he refused to answer any pointed questions on anything he left vague. Eventually, they let him carry the conversation where he wanted, and the three of them talked late into the night.

Something woke Machaela from a dreamless sleep. She opened her eyes, finding herself sprawled in the chair next to Iskandar's bed, having fallen asleep talking.

But what had woken her? She looked around the dark room. Jesse was asleep in the other chair. The door was open, and no noise came from the living room.

Noise. Something was missing. Her head jerked over to look at Iskandar, and her heart broke. She couldn't hear his breathing.

"Iskandar?" He didn't move. "Iskandar, wake up." She reached out to nudge him, but immediately recoiled. She touched him again, confirming her fear.

He was cold. Iskandar was gone.

Thank you for the reviews from Guest. To the one who asked how long this story will be, we're about halfway through.

This and upcoming chapters were so hard to write, probably because Iskandar was one of my favorite characters.

Don't forget to review :)