Jake agreed fully with that. “What can we do?”

Again the roar of the winged dinosaur echoed through the mirror from his mother’s side and was answered by the beast on his side.

“Before it’s too late, I must spirit two of the timestones away,” she said. “Magister Oolof has manipulated the alchemy of the remaining stone. It’ll transform the protective barrier around this land into a vortex of time.”

Jake recognized that name: Oolof. He had heard it from Marika’s father. He was the mad writer of the scroll describing the storm. No wonder the guy knew all about it.

“Oolof will hide the timestones, and has already aligned your father’s pocket watch to find them … in case, we need them again.”

That explained the timepiece, but the stones hadn’t remained lost. Jake had found the emerald, and somehow the Skull King had acquired the ruby. But the mention of the pocket watch raised another question.

“What about Dad? Where is he?”

A shadow clouded his mother’s features. “I don’t know. He left three months ago with the watch. I haven’t heard from him since. But once done here, I’ll follow in his footsteps. Don’t worry. I’ll find him.”

Jake wanted to tell his mother about his discovery of the watch in Calypsos, but she turned toward the crystals.

“I’ll use the ruby timestone to halt the battle outside,” she said, “to buy you the time you’ll need.”

“Time for what?” he called to her. “What am I supposed to do?”

She turned, looking infinitely sad. “I can’t believe you’re here. That this burden has fallen to you, Jake. Magister Oolof has spent many years with Thoth’s mirror, carefully using it, going a bit crazy from it. He saw this war coming, and he saw that someone from Calypsos would come again to Deshret. I carved a warning so future generations would have hope.”

Jake nodded. It was the warning that would become the Prophecy of Lupi Pini.

“But I never imagined it would be you.”

Again her eyes swept over him, as if trying to memorize every detail—then an Egyptian warrior popped into view behind her. The swordsman’s face blanched at the sight of Jake, but he was plainly frantic.

“Magister Penelope! We must go now!”

His mother lifted a palm toward the man—a gesture so familiar that it bruised Jake’s heart. She turned to the mirror, speaking in a rush.

“Jake, according to Oolof’s calculations, there’s a way to break Thoth’s mirror. It requires turning it off in the past and doing something very dangerous in the future.”

“What?”

Her gaze flicked over Jake’s shoulder to Marika and Bach’uuk. “It will take all three of you.” She pointed to the timestones at her feet. “Once the mirror goes dark here, you must take out all of the timestones and replace them in the wrong corners.” To emphasize this, she swung her hands clockwise and stared at Jake. “It will be hard.”

He remembered the strange force resisting such an affront, but he nodded. “We’ll do it.”