Izzy didn't pay attention to Cleo teaching her friends how to play Senet on the floor in the center of the room. Not that she needed to; her mom taught her years ago. At least she'd have some people to play with now.
She sat on her bed beneath a wide window overlooking the bay. Her eyes gazed at the dark water; the glittery flecks dancing along the surface reflected the gorgeous stars above. She'd seen stars before, but they were always a welcomed view (she loved New York but all the light pollution ruined casual star gazing. She'd tried searching for her constellation; Andromeda. It was hers on account she had a collection of moles on her back that resembled the star formation.
A sigh escaped her lips. Izzy's mind drifted towards what happened in the boys' room. She had no clue what she did to upset Jodie. She didn't say or do anything, at least nothing significant she could remember. Was it because Izzy was an outsider, someone who shouldn't get to time travel and didn't belong with the trio?
A flick to her forehead broke her out of her thoughts. "Earth to Izzy. Helloooo? Anyone home?"
Fred stood in front of her with his usual goofy grin. Somehow he made his way to her bed without her noticing.
Izzy scooted over and made a spot for him to sit. "Sorry. I was… thinking."
"No kidding, you were more spaced out than my brother's eyes."
"You don't wanna learn to play Senet?"
Fred put his hands behind his head leaned back. "Nah, it's pretty much chess with extra steps."
Izzy tried to laugh, but it quickly fizzled out.
Fred frowned. "What's up?"
She hugged her knees to her chest. "I think Jodie hates me."
"What gave it away?"
Ow. Sometimes Izzy wished Fred wasn't so blunt. "Y-you think so, too?"
"I mean… she's kind of a mean girl, but she's not that bad. I wouldn't worry about her, she's still getting used to me, and we've been friends for years!"
Izzy smiled. "Thanks, Fred. Still… I'm worried about what her and Joe were talking about."
Fred shrugged. "Don't sweat it. They're just trying to fix The Book."
"You're probably right– wait, they found The Book?! When?" At Izzy's outburst, the others turn to look at the two of them. Cleopatra screamed.
Arms snaked around Izzy's throat and waist and dragged her towards the window. Izzy yelped. She grabbed the arms of her kidnapper and flipped them will all her weight.
It worked a little too well. The momentum dropped them both on the floor with a thud. The whole room wobbled like a spinning top. Thankfully, Fred was there to help her up.
Her cloaked attacker stood, glaring at them beneath the hood, seemingly unfazed. They didn't cower, even when outnumbered.
"What's going on?"
Joe rushed into the room, Jodie right behind him. They stopped in their tracks once they noticed the cloaked figure.
"Some creep tried to yank Izzy through the window," Sam explained.
Cleo stomped towards the hooded would-be kidnapper, despite Freddi warning her not to. "What is the meaning of this, villain?!"
The figure reached into their sleeve and pulled out something small and wooden. In an instant, Fred tackled the assailant to the ground. The item flew out of their hand and shattered to pieces on the floor.
The hood fell and they all could see the person underneath: tall nose, proud dark eyes, and she looked like–
Cleopatra gasped. "Berenice!"
Izzy's heart sunk. "What?"
"Crocodile!" Sam shrieked.
Where Berenice's wooden trinket fell, stood a crocodile, slimy from the Nile. A normal crocodile was bad news enough, but this one must have had a gym membership because it was easily twice as big. It hissed and snapped at them with razor-sharp teeth.
Sam, Freddi, and Samantha, who were the closest to the beast, yelled and scrambled away, almost toppling Joe and Jodie. The crocodile's eyes glowed with an unnatural human hatred, but despite this it wasn't going after any of them. It was like a yapping dog on a porch: it insisted you watch your step, but was incapable of making you do so.
Izzy looked at the wooden pieces and the croc, and slapped herself for not putting two and two together sooner. She rushed to her friends. "Guys, it's not–"
Berenice kicked Fred off her and grabbed Izzy's ankle, sending her a quick trip to the floor.
Izzy drew ragged breaths, trying to get some air back into her lungs. Berenice pounced on Izzy and dug her knees into Izzy's back. Izzy clawed at the arm shoved into her neck, but the more she fought, the more Berenice put weight on her.
Berenice held something above her, and Izzy stilled. She thought it may be a weapon… until it glowed gold.
Then suddenly, the weight flew off her. A thud, followed by Berenice spitting curses at Cleopatra. Cleo had lunged past the crocodile and threw herself at Berenice.
"No!" Berenice wailed and reached for Izzy. "He wanted you! He–" The item Berenice held glowed stronger and brighter than before. It enveloped the two of them before dying in a pop! And the royal sisters vanished without a trace.
The others stared where the two once were. The room was deathly silent compared to the chaos before. Joe was the first to speak. "What the–"
The crocodile snapped at him, and he screamed.
Izzy jumped up, "I-it's okay! Watch."
She approached the crocodile, ignoring the pleas of her friends to stay back. The animal turned on her, but Izzy simply walked through the crocodile like it was made of mist, kicking it apart like a sandcastle. "It's an illusion."
Freddi's brow furrowed. "So this whole time it couldn't have bitten one of us?"
"It still could've, but it wouldn't have hurt."
"There are bigger things to handle," Jodie said. "Like, I don't know, how Cleopatra just disappeared!"
"I-I–" Izzy rubbed the back of her bruised neck. "Of course that's more important, but I had to let you know the crocodile wasn't serious..."
"It's fine." Joe shot Jodie a stern look and stepped towards Izzy. "Thanks, Iz. Are you alright?"
Izzy nodded and slowed her breathing. She hadn't noticed she was nearly hyperventilating.
A barrage of footsteps thundered down the hall. Two guards burst through the door, one Izzy recognized from earlier, Ahmose.
"We heard screaming!" The other guard said.
"Great reaction time, guys," Fred muttered. Samantha elbowed him in the ribs.
Ahmose eyes searched around the room. "Where is princess Cleopatra?"
"Berenice took her!" Freddi cried.
His curious looked turned into a glare. "Berenice was here and all seven of you thought to alert no one?"
"It's not our fault!" Samantha said.
"Yeah, man," Fred added. "It was all so fast! She had a buff killer crocodile and a glowing piece of wood and then they crossfaded out of here and–"
Sam rubbed his temples. "You're not helping, you're not helping!"
Even if Berenice were here," the other guard said, "how are we to know you weren't working with her. You foreigners showed up just as she escaped."
It was fair to be suspicious, Izzy thought, the timing was not in their favor.
"We wouldn't do anything to hurt Cleopatra. You've got to believe us," Izzy pleaded. She looked from Ahmose to the other guard, trying to communicate her honesty through her eyes. The one guard wasn't convinced, but Ahmose's glower softened by a fraction.
He shook his head. "It is not up to me to believe you or not. That will be for the Pharaoh to decide."
The guards carted the seven of them to the Pharaoh to plead their case. They begged for him to believe them, they tried to reason with him; if they meant Cleopatra harm, then why go about it in this way? But the Pharaoh was incorrigible. He refused to listen to anything they had to say. Fred tried to argue he had diplomatic immunity, but that only served to make the Pharaoh angrier. He had them sentenced to prison until he decided their fates.
Their jail cell was little more than a dank, damp hole in the ground. The air was dusty and hard to breathe, as if they were inhaling 20% dirt. The stone bed against the wall made the floor look like a better sleeping option.
There weren't any bars covering the hole and obstructing the starry sky above. The view was more haunting than alluring now that they were at least twenty feet below the surface. Despite this, Fred was trying to climb his way out. He'd get about a third of the way up before losing his grip and falling– usually on Sam– scattering prison hole dust every which way.
"Can you stop that!" Jodie said after his third attempt. "It's not going to work."
"You got a better plan?" Fred asked.
Apparently not, as Jodie turned troubled eyes on the floor.
"Let's face it," Sam said. "We have no way out. If the Pharaoh won't have us tortured for answers, then we'll definitely be executed."
"We could be drowned, impaled, beheaded, burned alive..." Freddi listed off.
Izzy rubbed her arms. "Burned alive?"
"That's the one that bothers you?" Fred asked.
"The ancient Egyptian's actually didn't burn many people as a punishment," Samantha explained. "They thought that destroying a person's body would rob them of an afterlife."
Joe threw up his hands. "Could we not talk about execution methods for a minute and figure a way out of here."
"Wait a minute." Fred turned to Izzy. "You can levitate us out of here, right?"
Izzy twisted an earring. "I-I don't know if I can. I've never levitated myself, let alone another person, before. Maybe I could do one at a time, but we'll get caught doing it that way."
"Would it be easier with two of us?" Joe asked.
Izzy nodded, considering it. "Jodie, do you think you could help? I think we can do it between the three of us."
Jodie twisted her hair around a finger. "Magic like that isn't really my strong suit."
"So you can't do it?" Fred said.
"I didn't say that," Jodie snapped. "I just don't do it. Kind of like how you have a brain but don't like using it."
"Oh, yeah? Well you don't like–"
Sam, Samantha, and Freddi stepped between them before they got a chance to really go at it.
"I think you can do it!" Izzy said. "I mean, Anna told me the women in your family are good at magic and you're Joe's cousin after all. He picks things up pretty fast so I'm sure you can do it, too."
Jodie smiled at Izzy, which completely caught her off guard. "I guess I can give it a shot. What do I have to lose?"
"Okay," Sam said. "So we get out of here. Then what? We need to find The Book and save Cleopatra. Who knows how history will be rewritten if something were to happen to her."
"At least we know where The Book is," Jodie said. "I left it in the guy's room."
"Good going," Fred snarked.
"If I had brought it with me, the Pharaoh might have confiscated it. Prisoners don't usually get to keep their belongings."
Izzy frowned. "If you had The Book the whole time then why didn't we warp home earlier?"
"It's busted," Joe explained. "Jodie and I were trying to fix it."
"How–"
"That's not important right now," Jodie insisted. "Getting out of here and saving Cleo is."
"How are we supposed to do that?" Sam asked. "We have no clue where Berenice took Cleopatra or why."
Freddi wrung her hands. "Um, isn't it obvious why she took her? I mean…"
She didn't have to finish her sentence for the implication to be loud and clear.
Samantha shook her head. "If she wanted to kill Cleo, she would've done so when she had the chance or attack her later when we were asleep. Besides, Berenice wasn't after Cleo. She was... after Izzy."
Izzy's fist clenched. She knew Samantha was right even before she confirmed her fears. But why? What would Berenice want with her? How would she even Izzy? No, Berenice said, "He wanted you!" So she was working for someone who wanted Izzy? For a blissful second, she thought it might be her father, but then a nastier possibility hit her.
"It doesn't matter," Izzy said. She pushed the thoughts out of her mind. "First thing's first, we gotta get out of here. It might be easier if we all held hands."
"Alright." Joe offered Izzy his hand. Izzy reached to take it but Jodie was giving the two of them a weird look.
Izzy retracted her hand. "I-it's probably better if we spread out in a circle. To disperse the magic."
"Oh." Joe rubbed the back of his head. "Makes sense."
The three of them spread out evenly among the group, with Fred on Izzy's left and Samantha on her right.
"Now what?" Joe asked.
Izzy smiled a bit, despite their dower situation. "Now, it's time for boring meditation."
As Berenice feared, the man flew into hysterics upon seeing she hadn't brought the correct girl back to him. He stomped like a petulant child who hadn't gotten his way, waving his arms as he ranted.
"What is this, you incompetent buffoon? How on Earth did you manage to bring the wrong girl here? Did I not give you specific instructions? You had one job!"
"I had your girl!" Berenice. "But this," she motioned in disgust at Cleopatra, bound with rope in the corner, "pushed me away once I had her. I can try again–"
"No. By now, the palace will be on high alert. The Pharaoh's men will be–"
"They all will be looking for me!" Cleopatra yelled, as if she had any power to intimidate them while tied up. "My father will find you and we will have your heads!"
The mad man rolled his eyes and shot a green beam of light at Cleopatra with his cane. She slumped to the ground, limp and still; proof she was still alive was the shallow movements of her chest as she breathed.
"This is not the end," Berenice said. "We can use her for leverage. My father will easily trade her for a worthless priestess."
The man opened his mouth to argue but stopped himself. He paced the floor, rubbing his chin. "Those warp runts are foolish enough to try and tell the truth," he said to himself, "which will no doubt land them in prison. We need to get her before they're all surely executed"
"What is this girl to you?" Berenice asked. "Is she... your daughter?"
Berenice winced at her impulsive question. But instead of the usual anger and yelling, the man was silent. He gazed at nothing with an amused look on his face.
"My daughter, eh?" His laugh made Berenice's stomach turn on itself and she wished he'd never saved her.
The man pulled an odd object from his cloak: a circle of wood the size of his hand, the decorative strings across it formed a spider web-like pattern. Three ostrich feathers hung from the bottom.
He grinned wickedly. "I can work with this."