A small, proud smile shadowed her lips.

“But what will happen?” he asked.

That smile faded. “The alchemy here is potent, warping both time and space. Such an act will forever damage the time component. But the backlash … if Oolof’s calculations about time dilation and spatial fields are correct, then—”

“Magister Penelope! Now!” The warrior’s words were punctuated by another screech of the pteranodon, loud enough to sting all their ears.

Ignoring him, Jake’s mother rushed forward and pressed her palms over his. “I love you.” Her eyes bore into his, which made his knees go weak.

“Mom …”

Tears flooded down his cheeks.

But before he could say anything more, a humming buzz sped past his ear. The wisling raced at full speed, seeming not to understand that the mirror wasn’t a doorway into another room. But rather than smashing into it, the little snake shot through the mirror and whizzed in a circle around his mother’s head.

She stumbled back—at first fearfully, then in amazement. “A wisling!” Her gaze found Jake. “Where did you find it? I thought the last one died centuries ago.”

Jake had a more important question and pushed against the mirror. “But how did it get through?”

His mother answered, one hand held out toward the hovering snake. “According to legends, they’re creatures of time. Oolof calls them Thoth’s dragons. They can travel backward and forward as easily as a fish swims in a stream. But no one knows much more about them.”

This thought seemed to give his mother an idea. She reached to her neck and slipped off a braided leather cord. From its length hung a tiny flute made of some type of animal horn. She held out the braided loop and carefully draped it over the wisling’s neck.

The beast hissed at her, baring its fangs.

“Shush, little one,” she said, and made a shooing motion back toward the mirror. “Off you go.”

The wisling turned with an irritated flick of its tail and sailed back toward Jake, carrying the bit of horn. It crossed the mirror as if it were smoke and wound around Jake’s neck, finding its burden too cumbersome.

Jake slipped the cord free and pulled it over his own head. He looked at the flute briefly, noting that the flute had small gold letters imbedded in it. They looked like Norse runes.

“What is it?” he asked as he tucked it away.

Before his question could be answered, a bellow drowned out all conversation. The Egyptian warrior strode forward. From the dark look on his face, he was ready to drag Jake’s mother with him. He grabbed her arm.

She didn’t resist and hurried back to the triangle. She dropped beside the ruby crystal and waved the swordsman to the emerald one. All the time, her eyes never left Jake’s.

“Get yourself home.” She spoke as if trying to get a lifetime of instructions into as few words as possible. “The flute will help protect you. A great war is coming, spreading across time. Stay home. Your father and I will find you.”