“What did Ah-Puch mean by ‘already gone’?” Brooks said.
“I don’t know,” I said, frustrated. “He just said ‘We are no longer here.’” I turned my gaze to Marco. “Like Nakon said to you. But where is ‘here’?”
Marco’s expression hardened. “How should I know? Maybe you should ask the calendar.”
“It’s not a bad idea,” Brooks said. “I mean, we’re talking about a calendar that can see across time and dimensions.”
“We’re talking about a calendar that can find the gods,” I said.
Maybe I should have softened the blow a little bit. Revealed the details more gradually. I mean, it was a lot for the godborns to absorb all at once. The Maya gods had been taken, and we didn’t know how to find or wake them. There was a cosmic calendar that might help, but if it existed at all, it was hidden, too. And everyone who had tried to find it was dead. Meanwhile, Zotz and Ixkik’, masterminds of power and evil, were raising the stakes every minute. Not to mention the devourer, a wicked Mexica goddess, being resurrected. Oh, and the World Tree was likely to fall in the next couple of days, meaning none of us were safe.
Things were grim. So, no, I didn’t sugarcoat it. I laid it all out there.
No one spoke.
Marco shoved a table; its legs scraped across the stone floor. “Find and unlock a thing that only the dead are allowed to see? Do you have a death wish, man?”
“It’s a threat,” Ren said. “Don’t you see? Pacific put security in place to keep people from looking for her calendar.”
“The centipede tried to choke him!” Marco argued. “That’s no threat.”
My mind kept turning things over and over and over, trying to put all the pieces together.
Time. Evil. Deception.
“Why didn’t the Red Queen just tell you about K’iin?” Louie asked. “Then you might not have gotten choked.”
Brooks said, “Seeing the future isn’t an exact science—sometimes it only comes in little pieces.”
I stared at Ren, wondering what her role was in all this. Was she the time part? Or was I grasping at straws? I thought about her dream—if it was real, was Pacific trying to communicate with her?
“Ren,” I said, “your mom mentioned a cave…?”
“The Cave of Crystals.”
“What if that’s where K’iin is?” I asked. “Could she have been trying to tell you where to find it?”
“So we could see where she and the other gods are being kept!” Ren nearly shouted.
Marco shot me and Ren a glare. “Are you all listening to yourselves? Who cares about K’iin! Let’s get out of here and save ourselves.”
“If Zotz and Ixkik’ are in control,” I said, “there is no ‘out of here.’”
I could tell Marco’s wheels were turning. Prison, death, or quest? Quest, death, or prison? Finally, he grunted. “Fine. But can we at least be smarter than the bat and Ixkik’? We have to think like they do and try to anticipate their next move.”
“How can we be smarter than a god?” Adrik asked.
“We all have gifts,” Marco said.
I threw a side-glance at Alana. Her shades had dropped to the middle of her nose, and her eyes were glued to the ground.
“My dominant power is ‘duplicity,’” Marco went on, making air quotes. “I guess I can change faces. So far all I get are different eyebrows or a different chin or nose. It’s dumb.”
“Cool,” Ren said. “Can you show us?”
Marco scowled. “That would be a definite no.”
“At least you don’t have to be asleep to use your powers,” Adrik grumbled.