How it Ends ▸ House of Anubis [4]

chapter seven. house of digs

            "No, no," Eddie says. "Where is it, Dexter?"

            "Why won't you believe me?" Dexter asks.

            It's either great timing or horrible timing that Sophia comes in just as Dexter is accusing Sophia of taking the touchstone. "Sorry I'm late, guys—oh!" She knocks into Patricia. "Oh, sorry. Hi, Dex."

            "Dexter," Eddie speaks the boy's name harshly, "was just leaving."

            Dexter looks at us and defeated, he leaves, all but slamming the door behind him. I withhold a sigh, sitting on the edge of Fabian's bed beside KT. It is weird that Dexter would accuse Sophia of stealing the stone to deflect suspicion off him. If I were him and trying to put suspicion onto someone else, I'd accuse Victor, considering we took the touchstone from his safe. Then again, from what I can tell, Dexter isn't exactly the smartest apple in the bunch.

            Sophia's eyebrows furrow. "What happ—?"

            "The touchstone's gone," Eddie informs, mumbling.

            "No! What terrible—how?"

            "It's not just the touchstone we need to worry about," Fabian points out. "I mean, the other stones are buried somewhere. We need to find them and dig them up."

            KT nods. "Okay, so any leads before one of us gets sacrificed? Ashley, is there anything in those hieroglyphs in Lily's diary?"

            "Lily?" inquires Sophia, an eyebrow quirked now.

            "Uh, my great-grandmother," I answer. "She used to live here."

            "Your grandmother used to live here? That's cool."

            "Yeah, uh, not now, Sophia," I brush her off, answering KT's question. "And no—I was looking at it last night, I looked up every translation possible for areas. All the hieroglyphs say is that someone will be sacrificed if the pyramid is built. It's not really a surprise it doesn't have anything other than what we already know—I'm not sure even Lily's dreams would tell her where the pieces are."

            The door opens again, and to my surprise (and everyone else's, I imagine), it's Mara, who's smiling like she knows something we don't. "I think you might find this useful." She's holding an old newspaper clipping in her hand. I know it's old even though I can't see the date because it's yellowed.

            Fabian takes the clipping from her as Patricia says, "Look, Mara, if you've come here to—"

            "No, no, no, no, no," Fabian quickly interrupts, "Wait a minute." I stand to join the others crowded around him, looking over his shoulder. A photograph of a man whose face I know well—Robert Frobisher-Smythe. He's with someone in it, a man who looks about the age Frobisher turned into. There's something in his hands, a jar. "This photo, it's from the Cairo Telegraph, uh, 1890. Is that our alchemist?"

            "Let me see," Sophia states, pulling Fabian's hand with the clipping toward her when he was showing me and KT.

            "Nice fez," remarks KT. "What's he got in his hands?"

            I open my mouth to answer, but Sophia beats me to it. "It's a canopic jar."

            I tilt my head at her, confused along with the rest of the Sibunas. Someone tell me why the new girl knows this and KT doesn't. Like, a lot of things don't make sense here, but this is pretty high on the list. "Okay, I know how we knew that," I comment, "but I wanna know how you knew that."