“Mom …”

31

FAMILY REUNION

“You’ve gotten so big,” his mother said, stepping out of her triangle and coming forward.

Choking on tears, Jake struggled to his feet and rushed toward her—only to hit the mirror. He pressed his palms against the metal. His mother did the same, but they were unable to touch, separated by centuries. She was in the past, standing in the same spot, but hundreds of years ago. Still, Jake swore he could feel the heat of her palms through the cold metal.

He soaked in her every feature as if she were the sun and he was some starving plant: how her dark blond hair curled at her cheeks, how her blue eyes sparked when she smiled, how tiny sun freckles glowed through the tan of her skin.

In turn, she studied him just as deeply.

“How … how long has it been since we left you?” she asked, struggling to compose herself, to push back her shock.

“Three … three years,” he stammered out.

Her body sagged in disbelief mixed with a bone-deep sadness. “So long …” she mumbled breathlessly to herself. “What have we done?”

“I don’t understand. Where’s—?”

His words were cut off by the trumpeting screech of the pteranodon—but it didn’t come from behind him. It echoed through the mirror from his mother’s side. She glanced over her shoulder toward the exit of her pyramid’s chamber. Jake heard screams and clashes behind him. The war that had started during her time was ending during his.

When his mother turned back, her eyes shone with concern.

“He’s almost breached the last bastion. Cornelius’s forces will not hold him back much longer. He’s almost here.”

“Who?” Though Jake knew that answer.

“Kalverum,” she said, using the name in a frighteningly familiar manner. “He’s come for the timestones and Thoth’s mirror.”

Jake’s palms still rested on that mirror. The Egyptian god Thoth was the deity of wisdom and time.

“The timestones are potent weapons,” she said, stepping back, speaking fast, glancing often toward the exit, judging how much time she had left before the Skull King’s forces came storming inside. “I can’t let him have them.”

Jake understood. He’d experienced the power of those timestones. He turned to the ruby crystal. It was capable of stopping time. And he now understood the emerald’s ability. He stared at the arrow by its cup, pointing to the right, pointing forward. He pictured again the rapidly decaying bodies of those caught in its spell, like time-lapse photography speeding up. The power of the green stone accelerated time forward.

“Jake,” his mother said, drawing him back. “The timestones’ powers are the least of their potency.”

“What do you mean?”

She patted the mirror between them. “With the stones in place, they can be used to manipulate Thoth’s mirror, opening a window that can peer forward and backward—both in time and space. With that knowledge, he could rule all times. That must not be allowed to happen.”