The Throne of Fire recap

With the chaos serpent Apophis straining to break free and swallow the sun, Carter and Sadie Kane decide their best hope is to awaken Ra, the ancient sun god, who long ago retired into the depths of the underworld. They must find and reunite the three scattered sections of a lost spellbook, the Book of Ra, and complete the ritual within a few days, before Apophis escapes. Running their new training school at Brooklyn House and aided by allies old and new, including the cat goddess Bast, the dwarf god Bes, and the newcomer Walt, they are opposed by the House of Life and by a sinister magician, Vlad Menshikov, who secretly serves chaos. Carter also searches for the magician Zia. On the longest night of the year the Kanes journey through the twelve houses of the night and awaken Ra, but the sun god returns aged and feeble rather than mighty. Menshikov's schemes help free Apophis, the Chief Lector of the House of Life dies fighting the serpent, and Amos Kane is chosen to lead the order, allying it at last with the Kanes as a far greater battle looms.

Previously: In the first Kane Chronicles book, Carter and Sadie Kane learned that their family descends from the magicians of ancient Egypt and that the old gods are real. After their father accidentally unleashed the gods at a London museum and was imprisoned by Set, the god of chaos, the siblings discovered they could host divine power, Carter linked to the war god Horus and Sadie to the magic goddess Isis. Hunted by both Set and the House of Life, the ancient order of magicians who forbade their path, they raced to stop Set from destroying North America with a great red pyramid and overcame him. In the process they learned that a far worse enemy, the chaos serpent Apophis, loomed behind Set, and that their father had become the host of Osiris, lord of the dead. The siblings returned to a Brooklyn mansion to train other young descendants of the pharaohs. As this book opens, they run that school while Apophis strains toward freedom.

The Kanes gather the three sections of the Book of Ra and, on the longest night of the year, travel through the twelve houses of the Duat, the nightly path of the sun, to reach and awaken the sleeping sun god. The ritual succeeds, but Ra rises ancient, frail, and half-senile rather than the powerful champion they had hoped for. Vlad Menshikov, revealed as a servant of chaos, is destroyed, but the struggle helps loose Apophis from his long imprisonment. The Chief Lector of the House of Life, Michel Desjardins, expends his life force to strike at the serpent and dies, and in the aftermath the Kanes' uncle, Amos, is chosen as the new Chief Lector, finally uniting the House of Life with the Kanes' path of the gods. Walt's hidden affliction, an ancestral curse, grows more dangerous, and the young magician Zia is recovered but shaken. Apophis is now free and gathering strength for a full assault, and the awakened but weakened Ra is a fragile hope at best. The book ends with the enemy loose, the magicians newly allied under Amos, and the Kanes bracing for a final confrontation with chaos.