Chapter XIV

The Ritual

"The Frobisher library." he said, making Elizabeth jump. "Sorry..." Elizabeth nods and roams around the place. "We're inside the Frobisher library. That's where she held us. Menhit."

"Menhit? The Egyptian goddess who..." Set holds both of her arms.

"Who?" he looks at her straight in her eyes.

"Who massacres."

Elizabeth caught her breath after she woke up from the dream. She looks at Aleesya who's sleeping and she looks at her alarm clock and falls back into her bed. "Menhit... It was Menhit all along..."

±

"Oooohhh... So you're dreaming about Set again, huh?" Aleesya teased Elizabeth inside their class. She gives her a deadly look and Aleesya stops laughing at her. "Where's the Frobisher library again?" Aleesya now asks.

"Near the Anubis house. It was used as an exhibit for Egyptian artifacts years ago but was abandoned after."

Aleesya nods and Mr. Sweet enters the class to discuss their new lesson in Geography. This bores Elizabeth. She slyly looks at Stephen who's busy listening to Mr. Sweet talk about how the canals were open for trading across the world. When the bell rang, Elizabeth went near Stephen who was still fixing his bag. "How do you know about the House of Lives?" she asks quietly. One by one, the students were dispersing the classroom, and only she and Stephen are left.

Stephen half-smiles like he's excited to share how he learned about it. He stood up from his seat and he asked Elizabeth if she could have lunch with him.

±

"So, you believe that the Egyptian gods exist?" she asked him. They're eating their sandwiches at the field of the school, surrounded by the Football team practicing and different groups of students gossiping over the series they've watched and their crushes inside the campus.

"For a long time. My parents were the ones who got me into the whole mythology. I don't blame them. I learned how to live it for them."

Elizabeth takes a bite of her sandwich and munches on it until it dissolves in her mouth, "Where are they though? If I may ask."

"They're gone."

"Gone?"

"I believe they were taken by Menhit and Nephthys. Either of the two. But I couldn't find them. I thought I could find them but I guess they were taken somewhere outside London."

"But... who are you with right now? You're all alone?" Elizabeth asks again, making Stephen smile more as he can sense Elizabeth is worried about him.

He lays down the blanket that they've set up earlier, putting his sandwich back at the paper plate that they took. "I live with my grandma now. Nothing to worry about, Eli."

Elizabeth froze. No one called her that since kindergarten. And then she mentally notes that he was trying to flirt with her.

"You just gave me a new nickname."

"What? No one calls you Eli?"

Elizabeth shakes her head. "Once. In kindergarten. My teacher used to call me Eli."

Stephen nods, sitting down on the blanket, and continues to eat the sandwich. "Then I'll call you Eli from now on."

±

At around 11:30, when everyone settled down to sleep (even Victor), Aleesya, Tomas, Elizabeth, and Stephen all headed to the Cellar quietly. They took a white candle, a pen, and a paper as per Stephen's request. Then they all formed a circle around the white candle and sat there quietly. "So... What do we do now?" Tomas asked.

"We put the names of the people trapped in the library and we burn it." Stephen said firmly. They started doing it and Elizabeth realized something.

"We don't know Set's name."

"Jerome Clarke." Aleesya answered.

Tomas nods and writes Set/Jerome's name on the paper and starts folding it. They all took a deep breath and Stephen started saying an unfamiliar phrase to Aleesya and Tomas but to Elizabeth, it's not.

نكتب هذه الأسماء وسنأخذها من نفتيس.

"Nak- what?" Tomas whispered to Elizabeth. She looked at him and quietly whispered the translation in English: We write these names and we will take them away from Nephthys.

After the paper got burned and Stephen ended the chant, nothing happened. "What now? Nothing happened." Aleesya said.

Elizabeth feels like her head is spinning and for a brief moment, they can hear them breathing. Them being Jerome, Eddie, and George. She can hear them say that this will be the end of their lives because they can't do anything to get out of the library. Then her amulet started glowing.

"She's here." she heard Jerome say. Eddie and George look at him, confused. "I can feel her presence."

Elizabeth tries to tell them that they're going to save them but they can't hear her.

"Who's she?" Eddie asked Jerome.

"Eli."

"Eli?"

"Elizabeth."

Elizabeth snapped. Tomas is shaking her aggressively because she was paralyzed for a good 10 minutes. When she regained herself, she started saying that she can hear Eddie and others from the House of Lives and then Tomas explained that her amulet started glowing after Aleesya's question.

"So it worked?" Aleesya asked, getting nods from the other three.

"So we just keep on doing... this?" Elizabeth asked Stephen as she faced him. She just realized that his eyes have different colors as he nods. When Stephen realized that Elizabeth was staring at him for a long time, he looked away.

"Sorry. Uh, I guess that's it for tonight? Do you think we can do this in the Frobisher library sometime soon?" she asked Tomas now.

"I think so. We can do it this weekend if you guys are up for it." he said.

"Of course!" Aleesya said and did the hand gesture for Sibuna, followed by Tomas and Elizabeth. "Sibuna!"

Stephen was left puzzled. "Sibuna?"