A short crossover novella that brings together two of Rick Riordan's mythological worlds for the first time, pairing Carter Kane of The Kane Chronicles with Percy Jackson of Percy Jackson and the Olympians. Narrated by Carter, the Egyptian magician of the House of Life and host of the god Horus, the story follows him to the marshes of Long Island, where he is investigating reports of magical disturbances and a rumored monster. The hunt goes badly when an enormous crocodile swallows him whole, only for a strange older teenager to force the creature to spit him back out. That teenager is Percy Jackson, the Greek demigod son of Poseidon. Their first meeting is a tense, suspicious clash of magic against demigod power before the two realize they share a target: the giant crocodile is a petsuchos, a son of the Egyptian god Sobek, immortal and invincible unless the enchanted necklace it wears, the seat of Sobek's power, is removed. Setting aside their distrust, the Greek demigod and the Egyptian magician combine their very different abilities to defeat the beast. Along the way they glimpse unsettling signs that their two mythologies, long kept apart, are bleeding into one another, seeding the larger crossover adventures to come. Fast, funny, and built on banter between two very different heroes, it is the first of three Demigods and Magicians crossover novellas.
