01_-_The_Alchemyst

“How could I sleep with all this activity?” Hekate demanded. “The
house awakened me.”
“The house…,” Josh began.
“The house,” Hekate said flatly, “is alive.”
There were a dozen comments Josh could have made, but remembering
the green slime from the previous night, he wisely decided to keep his mouth
shut.
“I understand that the Morrigan and my Elder sister Bastet are planning
an assault on my Shadowrealm,” the girl said grimly.
Nicholas glanced quickly at Scathach, who shifted her shoulders slightly
in a shrug. She had no idea how Hekate knew.
“I am sure you understand that everything that happens in this house,
every word said or whispered—or even thought,” Hekate added, glancing
sidelong at Josh, “I hear.” The girl smiled and, in that instant, looked like the
older versions of herself. The smiled curled her lips, but did not light up her
eyes. She walked into the room, and Sophie noticed that as she moved, the
house reacted to her presence. Where she had stood in the doorway, green
shoots had sprouted, and the lintel and doorsill had blossomed tiny green
flowers. The Goddess with Three Faces stopped before Nicholas Flamel and
looked up into his troubled eyes. “I would have preferred that you not come
here. I would have preferred that you not bring trouble into my life. I would
have preferred not to go to battle with my sister and my niece. And I would
most certainly have preferred not to be forced to choose sides.”
Scathach folded her arms across her chest and regarded the goddess
grimly. “You never did like to choose sides, Hekate—no wonder you have
three faces.”
Sophie was watching Hekate as Scathach spoke, and for an instant she
glimpsed something dark and immeasurably old behind the girl’s eyes. “I
have survived the millennia because I heeded my own counsel,” Hekate
snapped. “But I have chosen sides when the struggle was worth it.”
“And now,” Nicholas Flamel said very softly, “I think it is time to
choose again. Only you can decide, however: is this a worthy struggle?”