“Yes, I was. And so were you, Scathach, and you too, Palamedes, and you, Shakespeare and Saint-Germain and Joan. You were all there. You went to stand and fight with the original twins.”

There was a long silence, when even the sounds of the landscape faded to stillness.

Finally, Scathach shook her head. “That’s impossible. If I was on Danu Talis in the past, why don’t I remember?”

“Because you’ve not been there yet,” he said simply. He slid off the rock and stood before them. He was slightly taller than Saint-Germain, though not as tall as Palamedes. “I’ve gathered you here to take you back to Danu Talis with me. The twins need warriors they can trust. Come now, there is little time to waste.”

“Just like that?” Palamedes demanded. “You cannot expect us to travel into the past and fight just because you say so. Why should we fight for you?”

“You are not fighting for me,” the hooded man said impatiently. “You are fighting for the continued existence of the human race. If you choose not to come, then Danu Talis will not sink and the creatures you know as humani will never rise to civilization. You have all in your differing ways been champions of the humani. It is time to champion their cause again.”

“But we cannot go with you, not now,” Saint-Germain said. “We’ve got to get back to our own time.”

Joan nodded. “What about Nicholas and Perenelle and the creatures on Alcatraz that Dee and Machiavelli are about to release into the city? We need to fight with the Flamels.”

The hooded man shook his head. “If we fail and Danu Talis is not destroyed, then nothing else matters.”

“A moment,” Shakespeare said. “You said Danu Talis has to fall.”

“Of course. If the island is not destroyed, then there is no human history. The Elders will remain and the world you know will never have existed.”

“But Nicholas and Perenelle…,” Joan began.

“I am afraid that the Flamels and the twins are on their own. You cannot help them. But you can help fight for an entire species. If you do not, there really is no reason to worry about the Flamels-for they will not exist.”

The group was silent for a moment, trying to piece together what the man was saying. Danu Talis hadn’t fallen yet because there had been no battle yet. And they themselves were the warriors who would fight the battle. A group brought together from the future to shape the events of the past.

“What if we refuse?” Saint-Germain asked. “Can you send us back to our own world? To Paris, Sherwood Forest or San Francisco?”

“No. It took an enormous expenditure of power to create this Pleistocene Shadowrealm; I have neither the power nor the ability to send you back to your own worlds. As soon as I leave the world, it will start to decay and die.”