“Didn’t Colin say that it wanted to go home?”

“Yes, right.” Isaac clears his throat. “Snake, go home.”

As soon as Isaac says the word home, the snake comes alive. Amelie jumps behind Isaac, still clutching his arm, but the snake lowers itself to the ground and moves away fast, following the girl. She’s already at the square arch of the gate and walking into the city.

“I guess we had better follow,” Isaac says.

When they reach the gate, the snake slides along the walls, making for the temple complex, while the girl moves off through the crowds in the streets.

“Which way?” Isaac asks.

“The snake,” Amelie answers. “We need to follow the magic.” Then, “Look! Those are llamas.”

“Llamas live in South America,” Isaac says. “I guess, then, that these mountains are the Andes.” He tries to remember his geography. “Maybe that big lake is Titicaca?”

“That would explain why we’re dizzy. We’re at a high altitude,” Amelie says. “Somewhere in the Andes, and somewhere in the distant past. Wasn’t the Inca culture in the Andes near Lake Titicaca?”

“I do not know for certain.”

Ahead of them the snake passes through the streets as they follow. It is climbing the stone steps to the terrace when Amelie pulls at Isaac’s arm.

A man steps out of the crowd and makes his way toward the terrace ahead of them. He wears a type of loincloth and a brilliant cape and a pendant around his neck, hanging from a thick leather strap.

The pendant is the eternity knot.

Isaac’s pendant.

Isaac and Amelie exchange a glance. His heart begins to pound.

A procession approaches. Men in elaborate woven robes in scarlet, blue, and yellow, with high feathered headdresses, march past and climb the steps of the terrace toward the temple. The man with the pendant falls into step at the tail end of the procession. The snake, now on the top step, coils and turns, as if it’s waiting for Isaac and Amelie, so they follow.

Three sides of the terrace are bordered by walls inset with stones bearing carved faces. Just faces. No two faces are alike, and their highly realistic expressions of pain, of terror, of anger make Isaac shudder. The snake slithers straight across the terrace, weaving among the men in the procession, making for the center of the temple with its smooth-fitted stone walls.

Then something happens, and for a moment Isaac is confused. He and Amelie pause.

The earth has—for an instant—shuddered beneath their feet.

Everything stops. Time, the sun, the procession, sounds from the surrounding city, the wind, even the snake. The world freezes.

Then, dogs in the city begin barking.

A flock of roosting birds bursts into the air.

A deep rumble like thunder rolls through the earth and a heavy gray cloud billows from somewhere outside the walls of the temple complex, expanding up and up, blotting out the sun.