And what could I have said anyway?

Jake had a hard enough time with Bach’uuk, hugging him tightly, leaving his friend with damp eyes. Jake made a promise he hoped he could keep.

We’ll see each other again.

“Take my hand,” Mer’uuk ordered.

Jake gripped the man’s fingers, then took Kady’s. They needed a Magister to lead them through the barrier that sealed this temple’s heart. As they passed over the threshold, Jake felt the telltale tingle wash over him.

Once through, Mer’uuk remained at the doorway, leaning on his staff. “From here, your path must be your own.”

Jake nodded. He knew what he must do. Last time, it had been an accident; now it would be on purpose.

“C’mon,” he told Kady.

In silence, lost in their own thoughts, they headed down the tunnel and through the chamber that held the crystal heart of Kukulkan. Jake didn’t stop, barely noting the giant sphere turning overhead, twin to the one in Ankh Tawy. He led the way down another tunnel to a room below.

Inside the smaller chamber, circled by maps of Pangaea, a golden mechanism spread across the floor. It looked like a cross between a Mayan calendar wheel and the inner works of some great clock. Jake stepped through a pair of giant gold wheels, one inside the other, intertwined by toothed notches like gears.

As he reached the center, Jake stopped and stared around, sensing something important, something that had been nagging at him since he first saw the Skull King’s pteranodon outside the pyramid.

Kady joined him and must have read his expression. “What?”

As he stood a moment longer, Jake continued to work a puzzle in his head, a riddle as tricky as any posed by a Sphinx. And like those brainteasers from that Greek myth, Jake’s puzzle also centered on time and involved a Sphinx.

“The Skull King’s mount,” Jake started, and turned to Kady. “I’ve been racking my brain trying to think how that monster could be frozen in the distant past.”

“And made into an omelet by your friend a week ago,” Kady added, crinkling her nose at that thought.

“Kalverum Rex rode that same pteranodon when he attacked us in the valley of Calypsos,” Jake explained. “For it to have been frozen in Ankh Tawny, he must have traveled into the past after we’d stopped him in Calypsos. Defeated, he went to Ankh Tawy looking for a new weapon, possibly drawn by something Mom was doing. That’s the only order of events that makes sense.”

Jake again heard his mother’s words.

A great war is coming, spreading across time.

“But Mom stopped him there,” Kady said, pride sparking in her voice.

Jake nodded. “The Skull King escaped, but his mount got frozen back in time. If I’m right, if Kalverum Rex came to Ankh Tawny because of Mom, I think that means she must still be alive, still a few steps ahead of him. Which means Mom and Dad could be anywhere, any time.”