“We did it,” Marika exclaimed.

“But what have we done?” Jake asked.

“Listen.” Bach’uuk cocked his head.

Jake heard a soft pulse growing, felt it in his chest: a beat timed to each turn of the sphere. Like the crystal heart of Kukulkan. The sphere here had come to life. It was beating again.

But that wasn’t what Bach’uuk was referring to. He had turned toward the exit. “Listen,” he said again. “The storm’s howl.”

Jake couldn’t hear anything—then realized that was exactly what Bach’uuk was talking about. The constant scream and moan of the sandstorm had died. Whatever they’d done had turned off the Great Wind. He had to see what that meant.

He hurried toward the tunnel with Bach’uuk in tow.

Marika stayed behind. She stared up at the spinning crystal heart. Its glow was so bright now that the metallic archway below looked like a churning silvery pool. Marika took a step closer to the wall.

“Jake …” she started, her voice curious.

“I’ll be right back!” he said as he hit the tunnel heading up to the outside.

Jake and Bach’uuk raced back to the pyramid’s opening, bright with moonlight. Reaching the open air, Jake stepped out onto the first step. From his perch, he stared beyond the city, searching the skies. The small patch of stars above Ankh Tawy had spread wider in all directions, stretching to the horizon. Past the broken walls of the city, a slight haze still clouded the desert, coming from small particles of dust still suspended in the air. A few sparks of lightning popped and sizzled as the last of the storm’s static energy dissipated.

But that was all.

The Great Wind had blown itself out.

“Jake …” Bach’uuk said, drawing back Jake’s attention. His friend was not staring out—but down.

At the foot of the pyramid, movement drew his eye. The stone statues slowly shifted, at first almost too slowly to tell. Then the movement became more evident. Arms shifted, swords were raised. As Jake watched, color slowly returned to the guards as if some invisible hand were painting them stroke by stroke. As the color filled in, the movement grew fuller. Heads turned. One figure leaped down to the square.

“They’re not stone,” Jake said.

“Time’s river is unfreezing,” Bach’uuk said, recognizing the truth, too.

The warriors below hadn’t been turned to stone but had simply been frozen in time, so thoroughly that flesh refused to move. Even sunlight must have been trapped by the spell, unable to reflect back color, turning all to a dark gray.

Jake understood. The spell of the ruby timestone wasn’t one of petrifaction. It simply stopped time, freezing the assaulted so solidly that they appeared to be stone.

Hope surged as Jake pictured Kady, frozen into a gray statue with a sword. Was the same resuscitation occurring to her right now?

But his hope was short-lived.

A trumpeting screech made him jump. It wasn’t only the warriors who were coming back to life. As he stared, the Howling Sphinx slowly lowered its head, one black eye rolling toward Jake.