This staff,” Thoth continued quietly, “is no ordinary one. It was born at the same time as me, when the first hieroglyphics were etched into the consciousness of the world. It is not just a symbol. It is a living talisman. It catches the currents between earth and sky, between life and death, between oblivion and memory. That is why the serpents move on their own. They sense where the energy flows strongest and direct it.”
Neferet reached out and touched the staff. For a moment, her eyes lit up with that same green-gold color. “So… all of my father’s amulets, all of the scarabs, all of the lotuses of Hathor that we carried from Petra… are not just memories?”
“No,” Thoth smiled. “They are small gates. When you touch them and direct your thought in the old tongue, they open a way. Weaker than my staff, but enough to heal, to deceive the senses, to bend reality just a little. That is why your father, Nectanebo, built temples as great talismans. That is why we immortals always carried something with us—so that the energy of the universe would not forget us.”
I remembered Aretas. How I had taught him to use the falcon amulet, how his weak mortal energy still managed to flow through the stone. I remembered Hypatia drawing diagrams and warning of limits. It all made sense now.
“That is why the body changes,” I whispered. “That is why the eyes change color. We are living talismans. We ourselves receive and amplify that energy, only it slowly shapes us.”
Thoth nodded, and the snakes on the staff calmed down, as if satisfied with the answer.
"Exactly. That's why we are observers who can also act. When we hold a talisman—or ourselves—focused on something we love long enough, the energy of the universe must adjust. It can bring back echoes of those we've lost. It can make reality bend a little toward our longing."
My cousin Hypatia was the true scientist among us. While I healed with my hands and energy, she recorded, researched, and organized knowledge. In Petra we began to collect everything we knew about the immortals and write it down on scrolls of the finest papyrus and parchment. We would sit for hours in the secret chamber of our treasury, by the flickering light of oil lamps, writing out prayers, magic words, and formulas for healing and magic tricks. We wrote down how to channel the energy of a falcon to stop bleeding, how to call upon the gentleness of Hathor to ease pain, how to create a veil of moonlight to hide a caravan from bandits. Hypatia turned it all into a system—tables, diagrams, warnings about the limits of our power. She said that one day, when we were no more, these scrolls would be a light for those who came after us.
After escaping Egypt, my life changed completely. We settled in Petra, that magical pink city carved into the rocks, which was then just blossoming as the commercial heart of the desert. I became a healer – a woman whom the Nabataeans came to seek in a secret chamber deep in the canyon, not far from our treasury. Immortals know how to channel their own and cosmic energy to heal. It is a gift I carry from my father and mother. I would sit next to the sick, place my hands on their bodies and call upon the same power that my father used in his talismanic temples. I felt the energy of the stars, the warmth of the Nile and the cold wisdom of the moonlight flowing through me. Wounds would close, fevers would subside, and eyes blinded by the desert sand would sometimes see again.