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felt
right
—and from the corner of her eye, she could see Josh nodding in agreement.
    “Of course,” Osiris said evenly. “I’m sure this is a lot to take in. Let’s get you back to the palace and get some food into you. That’ll make things easier.”
    “Palace?” Josh asked.
    “Just a small one. The bigger one is in a nearby Shadowrealm.”
    “So you are the rulers here?” Virginia Dare called up from her place on the floor.
    The tiniest flicker of annoyance danced across Osiris’s face at the question. “We are rulers, yes, but we are not the ultimate rulers. Another rules.”
    “Though not for much longer,” Isis said. She turned her head to smile at her husband.
    This time Osiris’s pointed incisors appeared against his lower lip as he grinned. “Not for very much longer,” he agreed. “And then we will be the rulers of this world and all the worlds beyond.”
    “So we are definitely on Danu Talis,” Josh said, almost talking to himself. He raised his head to look out the speeding vimana. All he could see from his side was the mouth of a massive volcano, a thin thread of gray-white smoke curling into the skies. “The famous source of all the legends of Atlantis.”
    “Yes, this is Danu Talis.”
    “When?” he pressed.
    Osiris shrugged. “It’s hard to say, really. The humani have adjusted and readjusted their calendars so often that a precise measurement is impossible. But roughly ten thousand years before your time on Earth.”
    “From
our
time?” Josh said. “Not your time?”
    “This is our time, Josh. Your world is just a shadow of this one.”
    “But you lived in our world also.”
    “We have lived in many worlds,” Isis said, “and many times, too.”
    “Your mother is right,” Osiris said. “We have walked between the worlds for millennia. Between us we have probably explored more of the Shadowrealms than any other Elders.”
    “So you’re Elders?” Sophie asked.
    “Yes, we are.”
    “And what does that make us?” Josh asked. “Are we Elders or Next Generation?”
    “That remains to be seen,” Osiris said. “At this particular point in time, there are no Next Generation. And if all goes according to plan, then there will be no Next Generation. They only arrived after the sinking of the island.”
    “All that matters is that you are here and that you have both been Awakened and trained in many of the Elemental Magics,” Isis said.
    The craft dipped and suddenly a vast circular, mazelike city appeared before and below them. Sunlight ran silver and gold off stretches of canals and waterways that ringed a huge pyramid at the center of the city. The streets were teeming with people, and the tops of scattered small pyramids blazed with fire from torches, while others were bright with flags. There seemed to be houses, palaces, temples and mansions in dozens of architectural styles. At the fringes of the city lay a vast warren of low tumbledown buildings.
    “It’s huge,” Josh breathed.
    “The largest city in the world,” Osiris said proudly. “In fact, it is the center of the world.”
    Josh pointed toward the enormous pyramid the city was obviously built around, and the sprawling palace that lay beyond. “Is that where we’re going?”
    “Not yet.” Osiris smiled. “That is the royal Palace of the Sun, currently home to Aten, the ruler of Danu Talis.”
    “It looks busy . . .,” Josh began.
    Isis suddenly sat forward and the vimana dipped sharply. “Husband!” she called, alarm clear in her tone.
    Osiris spun around and leaned forward to stare at the pyramid. The air above the palace was busy with vimanas of all shapes and sizes, and lines of black-armored guards were taking up position on the ground. An enormous crowd milled in front of the building, and there were people streaming in from all the surrounding streets.
    Isis glanced sidelong at Osiris. “Looks like something happened while we were away,” she said quietly.
    “Bastet!” he hissed.