Peering through the blackness, I saw that I was in a tunnel with dirt walls and low, craggy ceilings. One by one, tiny torch flames flickered to life along the wall.
Was this some kind of hallucination?
“Hello?” My voice echoed across the chamber as I walked forward. Okay, maybe it squeaked, but yours would, too, if you went from light to underground dark in 0.2 seconds. Was this a trap? What if the earth spirit was some kind of baddie working for Zotz and Blood Moon?
No. No way would Rosie bring me somewhere dangerous.
One step.
“Hello?” My voice echoed across the dark.
Two steps.
Faint images began to appear on the wall. A deep tremble ran through me as I peered closer.
The picture rippled, almost as if it were being reflected off water.
Whoa! This wasn’t an image—it was a memory. A memory of the day I’d met Pacific in the ocean, when she’d given me the jade tooth. She floated on her surfboard, wearing her spotted leopard cape as I shivered nearby in total freak-out mode. It was hard to believe that had happened only nine months ago.
I froze in mid-step, watching the memory play out. Pacific’s voice was like surround sound—it echoed from every torch: I am the keeper of time, she said. No longer the controller of it. Just as I keep but cannot control fate.
The memory vanished. “Pacific?” I called out.
There was no answer. Only her words, which sounded again: I am the keeper of time.
I took another step, and a second memory appeared. I was standing in the Old World with Jazz, Brooks, and Hondo the night I was claimed and took down Ah-Puch. Something heavy surged up in my chest. I don’t know—sadness, longing, some kind of wishing that I could go back. But to what?
Jazz was smiling as he pointed up at the pyramids and said, This is how the marking of time came to be. It was invented in this place. Then someone, no one knows who, created time, and the world began. Or at least the third version of it. Man, I wish I had a camera!
Brooks gazed up. Some say the gods lost the time rope. It used to be wrapped around the earth, but it disappeared, and now they can’t time-travel anymore.
I reached out as if I could touch the memory, but it vanished just as Jazz’s words echoed: It was invented in this place.
Heart pounding, I took another two steps. The next image flared to life. It was from just a few months ago, when I’d stood on that rooftop in Xib’alb’a with Quinn. She looked terrified—that was clear now, but I’m not so sure I saw it then. I peered closer, knowing the details mattered.
Quinn said, The Sparkstriker saw something evil in her lightning pool, something that scared her. I’ve never seen her frightened. She said the seeds of this evil could only be discovered in the underworld.
Again, the memory faded, and the words whispered across the tunnel: The seeds of this evil could only be discovered in the underworld.
I took another five steps into the tunnel. The flames hissed and groaned. Where were these memories taking me? Why did they matter?
As soon as the images disappeared, I fell against the wall, finding it hard to breathe, like the tunnel was losing air. “Come on, Fuego,” I said with as much strength as I could muster. I had to know where these memories led. I had to follow them to the end.
The last memory gripped me hard, and I swear it was like going back to that awful day all over again. I had just become one with fire and was helping the godborns escape the junkyard prison Zotz had created.
I started for Brooks’s and Hondo’s cages, to set them free, when Ah-Puch grabbed hold of my arm. Do not be fooled by anything you see here, he said. The twins’ mother, Ixkik’, is the master of deception.
Master of deception.
Master of deception.
The memory exploded, forcing me to stumble back. Clutching Fuego, I blinked and saw that I had come to a dead end at a cave wall. A rocky ledge stuck out about waist-high, and it cradled a stone bowl. While I stood there, a blue flame erupted in the bowl, like a match had just been struck.
I ran my hand over the flame, trying to make sense of the memories that had appeared. Of all that I’d been through over the last year, why was I shown those particular moments? Why did they matter the most?
I had started to replay them in my mind, looking for any significance, any connection between them, when I heard:
“ZANE!”
Ah-Puch?
I spun wildly, expecting to see the god of death, but the cave was empty. “Where are you?”
“Literally?” His voice was small and distant. “Floating in utter darkness. Again.”
“Are you with the other gods? I don’t know where you are, or how to save you.” I clenched Fuego with both hands. “How are you even talking to me?”
“I am the god of death, remember? Hard to put me under completely. And you and I are connected, in case you forgot.”
“I didn’t forget.” How could I? Our minds were forever linked the moment I saved his life with the jade stone.
“But that’s not the point….” His voice trailed off, and I didn’t catch what he said next.
“Talk louder,” I said. “I can barely hear you.”
“Not surprising. I am in terrible shape. The lowest of the low.”
A plump orange-and-black-striped centipede climbed up the rock wall near the bowl of flame until it was at my eye level. Its skinny legs were twitching and 500 percent revolting.
I stared, trying not to get too close. “Wait. Is that you? You’re an insect? How—”
“This is no time to talk about forms and energy, Zane.” The centipede’s head swayed ever so slightly. Did the thing even have eyes?
“Er…okay. What do you want me to do? How do I save you?” I prepared for the god of death to lay out a brilliant multi-point plan.
Instead, he said, “You can’t save me. You can’t save any of us.”
“WHAT?! No! Why…why would you bother coming here if—”
“To say good-bye. To tell you that you really were one of my favorite enemies. And to ask you to give Ren a message from me. Gods don’t feel attachment or love—not like you humans do—but my heart was bigger when she was around. Tell her that.”
“NO! You can give her that message! I just had a bunch of memories about time and magic and evil, and I think they’re connected…. Just tell me where you are.”
“No idea. But it’s far. So far that it took everything I had to reach you. It’s almost as if…”
“As if what?”
“It doesn’t matter.”
“It does matter! Zotz and Ixkik’ can’t get away with this!”
“Don’t you see?” he said angrily. “They already have. We walked right into their trap. We are to blame for our stupidity.”
“I have to try to help!”
“I knew you would feel that way. That’s the other reason I came: to warn you. Do not risk your life for gods that are already gone. Your father would kill you.”
“Yeah? Well, he’s out of commission right now, so no one’s killing anyone.” My voice had risen to full-throttle panic. “What do you mean, ‘already gone’?”
“We are no longer here, Zane.”