How It All Goes Down
- Meanwhile, Dee waits until the last of the cats and birds go into the Shadowrealm before he enters.
- He has been careful all these years not to be the first into battle, and is convinced that this has helped him stay alive. (It's also a bit cowardly, if we may say so.)
- When he steps into the opening to the Shadowrealm, he emerges onto a battlefield.
- Taking out his sword, once called Excalibur, he sets off to find the World Tree.
- Then we jump back to our heroes.
- Scatty, we learn, is allergic to cats and birds and hates them both. So we're guessing that the whole herd of cats and birds headed for the Shadowrealm can't mean anything good.
- In any case, Scatty finds Flamel and gives him an update about the battle.
- She says she'll hold down the fort to allow the twins to get as close as possible to finishing the Awakening process.
- But she wants to know when Flamel will tell the twins the whole truth—that he and Perenelle will age a year for every day they go without the formula for immortality.
- Soon he says. And then he takes the short staff Hekate has given him made from a branch on the World Tree.
- If Bastet and the Morrigan's forces manage to get past Scatty, Flamel knows he is ready to take them on, staff in hand.
- But, still, he's hoping he won't have to, because using his powers might weaken him, causing him to age even faster.
- Back inside the hollow, Hekate chooses to Awaken Sophie, the elder twin (although older only by a few seconds) first.
- She states her parents' names—Sarah and Richard Newman. She feels strange calling them anything other than Mom and Dad.
- Hekate proceeds to Awaken Sophie's powers, having her "see with acuity... taste with purity... touch with sensitivity... and smell with intensity" until Sophie's aura glows.
- She levitates off the floor. Awesome.
- What's not so awesome is that Sophie actually passes out cold from the intensity of her Awakened powers.
- This makes Josh both angry and worried.
- He snaps at Hekate, furious that his sister might be in the danger they heard about.
- Suddenly, Hekate's nostrils flare and she screams that the World Tree is burning.
- Josh feels powerless to help the girl floating off the floor.
- She was once his sister, but now she's so different in ways he cannot understand.