Kane 2 – The Throne of Fire

As soon as we started our quest, a magical Russian ice cream salesman named Vlad the Inhaler was going to try to assassinate us.

I still wasn’t half as good as Carter at remembering all those odd names. [And no, Carter. That’s not a compliment. It simply means you’re a bigger nerd.]

Right, right. Myth and science were both true—simply different versions of the same reality, blah, blah. I’d heard that lecture a hundred times, and I didn’t want to hear it again.

You wouldn’t think I’d be hungry, with the world ending and our mission failed, sitting in the Land of the Dead at a dinner table from my past with my mom’s ghost next to me and my dad the color of a blueberry. But my stomach didn’t care about that. It let me know that I was still alive, and I needed food.

Today I had four students. The rest of the trainees would be off researching their own paths of magic, practicing enchantments, or doing regular schoolwork under the supervision of our college-age initiates. As our main adult chaperone while Amos was gone, Bast had insisted we keep everyone up-to-speed on the regular subjects like math and reading, although she did sometimes add her own elective courses, such as Advanced Cat Grooming, or Napping. There was a waiting list to get into Napping.

considered fleeing, but Gran and Gramps might be in danger

He cleared his throat, and I can assure you he was not acting very macho at that moment

Bye-bye,” Ra muttered. “Weasels are sick

I was so relieved, I almost sobbed; but being a macho guy and all, I didn’t

Chaos is impatient. It’s random. And above all it’s selfish. It tears down everything just for the sake of change, feeding on itself in constant hunger. But Chaos can also be appealing. It tempts you to believe that nothing matters except what you want. And there was so much that I wanted