100 pages • 3 hours read
Rick RiordanThe Red Pyramid
Fiction | Novel | YA | Published in 2010A modern alternative to SparkNotes and CliffsNotes, SuperSummary offers high-quality Study Guides with detailed chapter summaries and analysis of major themes, characters, and more. For select classroom titles, we also provide Teaching Guides with discussion and quiz questions to prompt student engagement.
Chapters 40-41Chapter Summaries & Analyses
Chapter 40 Summary: “I Ruin a Rather Important Spell”
Sadie arrives where the end of Chapter 38 leaves off. With Isis’s help, Sadie summons a portal to Washington, D.C., taking the entire battle with her. The Washington Monument gives Carter and Sadie power, and removing the pyramid from the desert weakens Set. Sadie summons the spell to defeat Set and the feather of truth. As she reads, the pyramid breaks apart, and Set falters. Before she can finish the spell, the form of Apophis appears in the sky. The serpent has brought all this destruction with only a whisp of its essence and warns them to “imagine what I shall do when fully formed” (482). Apophis disperses. Rather than destroy Set, Sadie realizes the gods will need his help to defeat the serpent. She banishes him to the Duat with the condition that he will not return until called.
Sirens blare in the distance, getting closer. Amos wakes but is still in bad shape, so Sadie puts him back to sleep. Zia’s wounds look even worse. Carter cradles her head, begging her to stay with him. Zia tells him she isn’t really there and turns to clay, revealing her shabti nature. Desjardins arrives, enraged that Sadie and Carter bargained with Set. He vows to hunt them down and destroy them for hosting gods. Sadie and Carter release Horus and Isis, bewildering Desjardins. Carter and Sadie will learn the path of the gods, and they offer Desjardins a chance to help them. After a moment, Desjardins declares, “The path of the gods shall remain closed” (491) before disappearing in a gust of wind. Sadie and Carter change into birds and morph Amos into a small creature they can carry, leaving just as emergency vehicles surround the Washington Monument.
Chapter 41 Summary: “We Stop the Recording, for Now”
The group only gets a few miles before Amos changes back to human and curls into a ball. They rest in a train station, where Carter and Sadie watch the news. Washington D.C. goes under lockdown for a few hours until no threat is found. Carter and Sadie buy train tickets back to New York and return to the mansion, which is still damaged from the fight. Amos looks at Thoth’s headless and broken statue and collapses into a chair. Carter tells his uncle everything will be okay and that “we’re going to make it right” (495).
Carter and Sadie spend the next several weeks repairing the mansion and getting better at magic. They put their amulets in a box but refuse to wear them again because the power is too tempting. One night, Anubis brings them to the Hall of Judgment, which has been rebuilt and now looks like the living room of the house where Carter and Sadie lived. Their dad sits on Osiris’s throne and is now the god of death. Since the night Sadie and Carter’s mother died, he has planned to host Osiris and sacrifice himself to give order a foothold in the Duat. He calls their mother’s spirit to his side, and though everything feels different and a little wrong, Carter is glad his parents are happy.
Their dad gives Carter a new amulet, one in the shape of the spine of Osiris. Before they part, their dad tells the kids to remind Amos that Egyptians believe “each morning begins not just a new day, but a new world” (504).
Next, Anubis leads Carter and Sadie to the palace of the gods, where Horus asks Carter if he’ll join with him to rule order. Carter declines, and Horus claims the throne of the gods. The gods are in Carter and Sadie’s debt, and the kids find the mansion completely repaired the next morning. Amos joins them for breakfast, fully dressed. He’s finally feeling better and wants to take some time in Egypt’s House of Life to see if they can help him heal from Set’s possession. While he’s gone, Amos wants them to start recruiting other kids with pharaoh’s blood to train for the upcoming battle. Just as Carter and Sadie realize it will be difficult for them to travel and recruit without an adult, Bast appears, fully healed and herself.
The book ends with Sadie, Carter, and Bast going to a school that Sadie saw in a dream. There, they place a package containing Osiris’s amulet in a random locker that Sadie spells to be partly in the Duat. When a descendent of the pharaohs opens it, they’ll get access to the amulet and hopefully be guided to the mansion by the gods. Sadie and Carter end by saying this isn’t the end of their story, and they know “the Kane family has a lot of work to do” (514). For anyone who finds their calling, they’ll be waiting in Brooklyn.
Chapters 40-41 Analysis
The final chapters conclude The Red Pyramid’s plot arc and set up for the rest of the Kane Chronicles series. The reveal that Apophis did escape when Sadie and Carter’s parents released Bast creates the overarching conflict for the trilogy. It also shifts Set’s role in the story from primary villain to a side antagonist. While Set is still a potential threat, he is nowhere near as strong or chaotic as Apophis, which makes him now a reluctant ally of the Kanes and the other gods. Amos’s suggestion for Carter and Sadie to begin recruiting in Chapter 41 sets up the new army of magicians they will need to defeat Apophis. It also shows that he is dedicated to pursuing the path of the gods and defying the House of Life, even as he seeks help from the other magicians. This suggests that Amos may be a bridge between the two magician paths in future installments.
Zia’s mystery is concluded in Chapter 40. She dissolves back into clay and releases another blue sphere like the one Carter saw in Chapter 17. Carter’s resolution to find the real Zia will be a part of the next books in the series. It is unclear what the blue spheres contained, but they may be memories a shabti creates for the person it imitates. The nature of the magic that protects the real Zia is also unclear, meaning Zia may or may not recall anything about her shabti, Carter, or Sadie.
Carter and Sadie releasing Horus and Isis is the final step in their character arcs. Throughout the book, the extra power offered by the gods has given the kids an edge in combat against gods and demons. After the amount of power merging offered them, both kids realize that having access to such strength long-term could corrupt them beyond reason. It is difficult but necessary for them to release the gods, showing how much strength of will they possess. Carter’s later refusal to rejoin Horus shows that the decision was not made in haste or to appease Desjardins in the moment.
The end of Chapter 41 brings the story full circle to the beginning of Chapter 1. It offers information about the school and locker referenced in the opening chapter and how the locker is set only to trigger for a descendant of the pharaohs. The news broadcast where Washington D.C. is declared threat-free shows the impact of magic on regular humans. The battle by the Washington Monument is attributed to freak circumstances, not an attack on the United States, and the human world moves on, unaware of the danger from Apophis and the impending battle. The gods repairing the mansion allows Sadie and Carter to focus on the more pressing matters of learning to use their powers and amassing a group of magicians for the battle with Apophis. Bast’s return shows that the gods don’t blame her for Apophis’s release and are thankful enough to Carter and Sadie to give them whatever will be of the most aid.
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