Awkward. Sorry."

"Don't be," Sadie said. "I'll rather enjoy bashing my brother's face in.

This was a few weeks ago," Annabeth said. "Percy told me a crazy story about meeting a boy our near Moriches Bay. Apparently this kid used hieroglyphs to cast spells. He helped Percy battle a crocodile monsters."

"The Sob of Sobek!" Sadie blurted. "But my brother battled that monster. He didn't say anything about-"

"Is your brother's name Carter?" Annabeth asked.

An angry golden aura flickered around Sadie's head-a halo of hieroglyphs that resembled frowns, fists, and dead stick men.

"As of this moment," Sadie growled, "My brother's name is Punching Bag.

Carter, not to be unkind," I said, "but the last few months you've been seeing messages about Zia everywhere. Two weeks ago, you thought she was sending you a distress call in your mashed potatoes."
"It was a Z! Carved right in the potatoes!

Annabeth nodded. "That's right.Alexander conquered Egypt.After he died, his general Ptolemy took over. He wanted the Egyptians to accept him as their pharaoh, so he mashed the Egyptian gods and the Greek gods together and made up new ones."
"Sounds messy," Sadie said. "I prefer my gods unmashed.

I looked across the river to Manhattan. It was a great view. When Sadie and I had first arrived at Brooklyn House, Amos had told us that magicians tried to stay out of Manhattan. He said Manhattan had other problems--whatever that meant. And sometimes when I looked across the water, I could swear I was seeing things. Sadie laughed about it, but once I thought I saw a flying horse. Probably just the mansion's magic barriers causing optical illusions, but still, it was weird.

That sounded about as likely as Apophis and Ra becoming Facebook buddies, but I decided not to say anything.