The Serpent's Shadow (The Kane Chronicles, Book Three) by Rick Riordan Read Free Book Online Page A

with the moon god Khonsu. Now Bes was a hollow shell of a god, sitting in a wheelchair in the Underworld’s divine nursing home.
    “Right,” I said. “But the fifth part…” I looked at Bast. “It’s the shadow, isn’t it?”
    Sadie frowned. “The shadow? How can a shadow be part of your soul? It’s just a silhouette, isn’t it? A trick of the light.”
    Bast held her hand over the table. Her fingers cast a vague shadow over the wood. “You can never be free of your shadow—your sheut . All living beings have them.”
    “So do rocks, pencils, and shoes,” Sadie said. “Does that mean they have souls?”
    “You know better,” Bast chided. “Living beings are different from rocks…well, most are, anyway. The sheut is not just a physical shadow. It’s a magical projection—the silhouette of the soul.”
    “So this box…” I said. “When you say it holds King Tut’s shadow—”
    “I mean it holds one fifth of his soul,” Bast confirmed. “It houses the pharaoh’s sheut so it will not be lost in the afterlife.”
    My brain felt like it was about to explode. I knew this stuff about shadows must be important, but I didn’t see how. It was like I’d been handed a puzzle piece, but it was for the wrong puzzle.
    We’d failed to save the right piece—an irreplaceable scroll that might’ve helped us beat Apophis—and we’d failed to save an entire nome full of friendly magicians. All we had to show from our trip was an empty cabinet decorated with pictures of ducks. I wanted to knock King Tut’s shadow box across the room.
    “Lost shadows,” I muttered. “This sounds like that Peter Pan story.”
    Bast’s eyes glowed like paper lanterns. “What do you think inspired the story of Peter Pan’s lost shadow? There have been folktales about shadows for centuries, Carter—all handed down since the days of Egypt.”
    “But how does that help us?” I demanded. “The Book of Overcoming Apophis would’ve helped us. Now it’s gone!”
    Okay, I sounded angry. I was angry.
    Remembering my dad’s lectures made me want to be a kid again, traveling the world with him. We’d been through some weird stuff together, but I’d always felt safe and protected. He’d always known what to do. Now all I had left from those days was my suitcase, gathering dust in my closet upstairs.
    It wasn’t fair. But I knew what my dad would say about that: Fair means everyone gets what they need. And the only way to get what you need is to make that happen yourself.
    Great, Dad. I’m facing an impossible enemy, and what I need in order to defeat him just got destroyed.
    Sadie must’ve read my expression. “Carter, we’ll figure it out,” she promised. “Bast, you were about to say something earlier about Apophis and shadows.”
    “No, I wasn’t,” Bast murmured.
    “Why are you so nervous about this?” I asked. “Do gods have shadows? Does Apophis? If so, how do they work?”
    Bast gouged some hieroglyphs in the table with her fingernails. I was pretty sure the message read: DANGER .
    “Honestly, children…this is a question for Thoth. Yes, gods have shadows. Of course we do. But—but it’s not something we’re supposed to talk about.”
    I’d rarely seen Bast look so agitated. I wasn’t sure why. This was a goddess who’d fought Apophis face-to-face, claw to fang, in a magical prison for thousands of years. Why was she scared of shadows?
    “Bast,” I said, “if we can’t figure out a better solution, we’ll have to go with Plan B.”
    The goddess winced. Sadie stared dejectedly at the table. Plan B was something only Sadie, Bast, Walt, and I had discussed. Our other initiates didn’t know about it. We hadn’t even told our Uncle Amos. It was that scary.
    “I—I would hate that,” Bast said. “But, Carter, I really don’t know the answers. And if you start asking about shadows, you’ll be delving into very dangerous—”
    There was a knock on the library doors. Cleo and Khufu appeared at