Jix pulled away from her, spun her around, and put her in a firm, yet tender headlock. “There are things you don’t know about me,” he told her.

Jill struggled, but he knew it was only for show. She could have gotten out of his grip if she had wanted to.

“What? That you’re on a mission from the jaguar gods?”

“Close,” said Jix, “because His Excellency does think of himself as a god.”

“His Excellency? I thought you were alone.”

“I never actually said that. You just assumed.” Now the struggle was for real and so he let her go.

“I gave up my coin to save you! You owe me the truth.”

“Very well,” Jix said. “But not now. There are too many others who can hear us.” And sure enough, a few Neons passed by the saddle room, taking note of them.

Jill nodded her reluctant acceptance. “I really hate you, you know that?” Then she stormed away.

In truth there were several reasons for Jix to stay. Bringing Mary to the king was just one of them. But there was also something about this jukebox which caught in his mind. Only a fool would worship a ridiculous machine—and while the Neons weren’t the smartest, they had been able to avoid detection and resist being conquered by His Excellency. Did the jukebox have something to do with that? Was their devotion to this machine based on something real?

Jix knew there were signs in Everlost. Signs that truly pointed to something beyond all of this. The most obvious ones were the coins: objects which were from neither the living world nor from Everlost, and had the ability to transport a soul to the next world, whatever that might be.

And then there were the fortune cookies—which they knew about even on the Yucatan peninsula, although they were harder to come across there. Everyone knew how in Everlost, all fortunes were true. Each one provided actual guidance, speaking to every Afterlight individually.

There was one time Jix had been sent to scout out a band of Afterlights that had been gathering newcomers in Mexico City with hopes of raising an Everlost Aztec Empire at Tenochtitlan. Thanks to Jix’s help, His Excellency conquered them. Jix was rewarded with one of the king’s own personal fortune cookies. Not just an ordinary one, but one coated in white chocolate—and those were supposed to contain the most powerful fortunes in all of Everlost.

Jix’s fortune had read, “You will free them.”

When His Excellency had asked what it said, Jix told him “The jaguar gods smile on you.” It was the only time Jix had ever lied to the king. That fortune was always at the back of Jix’s mind and he often wondered who it was he was meant to free.