“Bloody fools, I call them.” He tried to laugh, but it sounded fearful. Glancing to the Egyptian guards, he lowered his voice “A dark sect has grown in the city, and they’ve been growing stronger with every passing moon. They also have the ear of Princess Nefertiti, who rules in her father’s absence. Not sure why she listens. Thought the girl was smarter than that. But now laws have begun to change. Punishments have grown harsher. The Blood Games have started up again.”

He sighed loudly and shook such dark worries away. His smile returned. “But surely things will right themselves. They always do. A rocking boat always comes to rest. And speaking of boats, I should get below and see to the wings. Don’t want them falling off, now do we?”

Kady and Pindor groaned in chorus, not happy with even the suggestion of such a mishap.

Politor took out a bronze tool that looked like a cross between a screwdriver and a wrench and flipped it in his hand, catching it expertly.

Before Politor turned away, Jake asked, “Where did you learn all of this?” He waved to the ships and to the zipping and cavorting skyriders.

“Ah, the old alchemies.” Politor scratched his head with his screwdriver thingy. “Comes from a time when the Gypts used to live in some great city called Ankh Tawy. Stories say that their alchemies were once far greater, that they could control the wind itself; but much was lost with the destruction of their great city. Only ruins are left of the place, locked deep in the Great Wind where no one can reach them.”

Jake had a thousand questions, but Politor saluted with his tool and headed away. By now, others had come over to gawk at the newcomers.

One asked, “Are you truly outlanders from beyond the Great Wind? From the fabled city of Calypsos?”

Marika nodded. There was no point in denying it now. “And Calypsos is not a fable.”

“And we’re not evil,” Pindor added sharply.

Whispers spread across the group. Jake distinctly heard the word prophecy several times. Way too many eyes stared at him, some in hope, some in fear.

The large man knelt closer, dropping his voice to a rumbling whisper. “Then it is true. The Prophecy of Lupi Pini. You’ve come to free us. To slay the Sphinx. To kill the howling winds that trap us here.”

Shocked, Jake went speechless. Eyes bore down upon him.

He was saved by a booming shout from Skymaster Horus.

“Harpies ahead! Ready for battle!”

A screech ripped through the sky—an all too familiar screech. Jake tensed. Such screams had filled his nightmares for months. He read the same recognition and terror in Marika’s face.

He burst toward the front of the boat and searched beyond the prow. The others crowded with him. Off in the distance, he saw them: winged bodies churning in the wind, spinning and diving, coming straight at the skyships. More than three dozen.