Louie puffed up his cheeks and exhaled super dramatic like. “Me, Serena, Marco, and a few others that we talked to.”
My pulse raced and blood pounded in my ears. I could sense how close we were to getting answers. “What was your dream, Marco?”
He shoved his fists into his pockets and said, “Darkness, all that same stuff, but my…but Nakon and I were skydiving. He couldn’t open his chute and said he was trapped. And then he said some other stuff I didn’t catch, except…‘not here.’”
A loud screech drew our attention to the trees above. Brooks flew down in normal hawk form, and just as her talons touched the ground, she shifted into a human. She had really gotten good at sticking her landings. Louie’s monkey threw its hands into the air and screamed as it leaped into the nearest tree.
“You scared him away,” Louie whined to Brooks.
Glancing around with a scrunched nose, Brooks shook a glob of donut off her shoe and said, “I’ve been tearing apart the jungle chasing miniature monkeys for the stuff they’ve been stealing, and you’ve been here having a food fight and making friends with the thieves?”
“They’re not all thieves!” Louie cried.
Brooks’s eyes flicked to my bloodied mouth.
“I’m fine,” I said before telling her about the drowning-in-darkness nightmares.
She threw her attention to Louie and Marco. “You guys had the same dream?”
Louie shivered. “Something real bad is up.”
“We bet you know what it is,” Marco added, crossing his arms.
Hondo dragged a hand through his hair. “I better get to the arena, see if the other godborns dreamed about their godly parents. Maybe it all adds up to an answer. You good here?” he asked me.
Nodding, I steered Hondo away from the others and said in a low voice, “I need to tell you what I learned. I’ll meet up with you in thirty.”
After my uncle took off, I rejoined the two godborns. Louie said to me, “That lightning ceremony hurt, by the way. You could have warned us about that.”
Marco had the same scowl he’d worn that day when he was imprisoned in the junkyard. “Did you dream about Hurakan, Zane?”
“No.” Only the Red Queen. And then I wondered why Hurakan hadn’t tried to reach out to me. Probably because the Red Queen had taken up all my headspace.
“So the gods are trying to communicate with their kids through dreams,” Brooks said, but it was more like she was talking to herself.
“Well, they’re doing a pretty bad job of it,” Marco said. “You’d think gods would be able to speak more clearly.”
Louie took another bite of the bar and spoke around a mouthful of chocolate. “My dad talked real clear during my claiming.”
“What do you mean?” Brooks asked.
“When I was pounded with lightning,” he said, “he told me I was the son of the great rain god and didn’t need any training. He said our powers were a force…. No, that wasn’t the word. Maybe he said our powers were the greatest of all the gods. Yeah, something like that.” He licked chocolate from the corner of his mouth.
Marco harrumphed, then his eyes widened. “Wait! Why would the gods need to talk to us in our dreams…? Where are they?”
“At their mountain resort,” Brooks said with so much sarcasm I thought her tongue would fall out of her mouth.
Alana emerged from the trees, followed by Adrik and Ren. “We just ran into Hondo. You found chapat?”
I nodded.
Marco’s eyes flitted from face to face. “Come on, man. What are you guys not saying?”
Ren sidestepped a smashed pile of grapes and said, “All the Maya gods were taken by some Mexica sleep god, and Zotz and Ixkik’ have an entry stone that gives them access to this place so they can get in and murder us.”
Ah-Puch’s unfinished words filled my head: Ren is the only one. The only one what?
“Well, that’s one way to put it,” Brooks muttered.
“Actually, I think it’s the devouring earth goddess,” I said. “Not a sleep god.”
“Did you say ‘devouring’?” Louie whined. “As in eating?” His eyes bugged out. “Is someone going to eat the gods?”
I spilled the beans to Marco and Louie about my Red Queen dream and the clues she gave me. After all, we were now in this together—I felt like keeping the truth from them would only make things worse.
Louie looked woozy as he sat on a nearby chair and unwrapped another chocolate bar.
Marco ran his thumb over the scar on his chin. “And this Itzamna dude is the only one not asleep? Pretty convenient, if you ask me.” The way his brain went straight to corruption made me think he really was the god of war’s kid.
Louie gave a short nod. “Yeah, Zane. How do we know the moon god isn’t behind all this?”
“Nah,” I said. “The guy was for sure freaked. Plus, his strength comes from the World Tree, which is powered by the gods. Anyway, we don’t have much time before the underworld falls to Zotz and Ixkik’…and once that happens—”
“Adiós, gods,” Marco said flatly.
“But they’re already out of commission,” Louie said. “Why kill them, too?”
“Maybe they aren’t in a great hiding place?” I guessed. “Maybe…” Think like a villain, I told myself. “Maybe hiding them isn’t enough,” I said, and as the words fell from my mouth, they felt truer than anything that had been said so far. “They can’t risk the gods being found. They want to end them forever.”
“We have to tell everyone the bat god is coming,” Louie said.
“No!” Marco clenched his jaw. “That would only cause a panic.”
“We can’t keep this a secret,” Brooks argued. “It’s only a matter of time before the godborns start asking questions.”
“We can make up an excuse,” Adrik suggested.
Alana tugged on her hair, pacing slowly.
“We aren’t going to lie to them,” I said. I knew the damage lies can do, the mistrust they create, and that was no way to treat the other godborns. They deserved to know that their lives were in danger.
“I’ll tell them,” Louie volunteered, raising his hand. “I’d rather do that than go on any rescue quests or do anything dangerous.”
“Who said anything about a rescue?” Marco said. “I don’t even know Nakon.”
Ren looked stricken. “So you don’t care if Zotz and Ixkik’ hurt your dad?”
“Nakon never cared about me,” he said, crossing his arms. But his mouth trembled, betraying the fact that he did care.
“Fair enough,” Adrik said. Alana socked him in the chest and he rubbed the spot. “Ow!”
I know Marco sounded super harsh, but I kind of understood. I used to be all sorts of angry at my dad for not being around when I was growing up. Connecting the godborns to their parents would take time—time we didn’t have.
I quickly told them about the labyrinth, K’iin, and Ah-Puch communicating with me, withholding the part about Ren. I needed to talk to her alone about that.
Ren’s eyes filled with tears. “A.P. can’t just give up!”