SERA OPENED her eyes, shaking uncontrollably.

Her body no longer felt real now that she’d broken through her repressed memory of the Cataclysm. She felt fake. Made up. Though she was clearly sitting on the clay dirt, behind a massive building, it felt like she was floating floating floating. Up into the sky. Into nothingness.

Everyone was going to die.

Including the parents she’d always dreamed about. They would die trying to fight their way back to her. She’d find them in her uncle’s barn.

Her Remnants would forever take on an entirely different meaning.

Sera turned and saw Dak and Riq looking around, taking in their new environment — which wasn’t new so much as updated. They’d landed in the exact same place they’d landed the last time they warped. Mayan country. Izamal. In a large patch of tall, thick grass. Except where the fallen observatory rubble once lay, a beautiful new observatory, twice the size of its predecessor, now stood. Itchik had done exactly what he had promised. And the temple, where Sera had just watched Pacal paint a ceiba tree into the codex, had been transformed into a massive church.

Judging by the sun, it was late afternoon. The people walking the raised white road in the distance were a combination of traditional Mayas and white men dressed in pious robes. Sera knew right away they were the Franciscan monks she’d read about, the ones who settled in Mayan villages and tried to convert the indigenous people to their own religious beliefs.

“I’m not saying anything this time,” Dak suddenly announced.

Sera found Dak staring at her. Poor Dak. Her best friend had no idea what she’d found in her uncle Diego’s barn.

“Nope,” Dak said, shaking his head. “I refuse to even bring up the fact that tears are literally streaming down your face. Uh-uh. My lips are sealed.”

Sera couldn’t bring herself to tell him about his parents. It was too awful. And it was way off in the future. At the same time, Dak was so worried about his parents being lost in time. Wouldn’t he want to know that they’d made their way back?

Sera stared at Dak, trying to decide if it was better to know the unbearable truth or live as long as possible in happy ignorance.

“Know why I’m keeping quiet?” Dak said. “Because it’s none of my business. Who am I to point out that you’re shaking like a hairless dog in the snow?”

“It’s just the warp again,” Sera managed to say.

Dak held up his hands, saying, “Eh, eh, eh. No need to even discuss it, Sera. I’m steering clear of your hysterics from now on.” He turned to Riq, said, “I see Lover Boy over here has the same strategy.”

Riq didn’t even look up.

“Wow,” Dak said, turning back to Sera. “What’s wrong with you people? Last time I checked, I was the one who nearly got decapitated by a falling wall.”

Sera tried to think up something lighthearted to say back, to at least pretend things were normal, but her mind drew a blank. Every time she looked at Dak she remembered turning over the bodies of his dead parents. And that made her remember the faces of her own dead parents, too. And her uncle Diego.

Dak pulled the SQuare out of Riq’s satchel, shaking his head. He turned on the power. “Nobody has a sense of humor anymore,” he said, typing something on the keyboard. “What we’re doing isn’t easy. I understand that. But we have to keep our composure, right? I mean, we have a fairly important job to do.” He looked up at Sera. “We have to save the world.”

Sera wiped her tearstained face on the arm of her huipil and said, “I’m pretty sure we’re all aware of that, Dak. Just cut us some slack.”

Dak motioned toward Riq with his thumb and said, “I saw what happened to the Riq-ster over here. His girlfriend or whatever tried to give him a parting gift — a locket or something — but he dropped it. Isn’t that right, Riq?”

Sera watched Riq turn to Dak, scowling.

Dak was oblivious, of course. “See, that’s why I tell all my bros back home to steer clear of the lovey-dovey stuff. It’s asking for trouble, dude. You want my advice? If you absolutely have to interact with the opposite sex, make sure it’s with a girl you can treat like one of the guys. Like Sera.” He kicked at her with one of his feet.

“Wow,” Sera said. “That’s so . . . sweet of you.” Sera might’ve slugged Dak in the ribs if she hadn’t just remembered finding his dead and bloated parents during the Cataclysm.

Riq stood up suddenly. Without saying a word he walked away.

“Hey!” Dak called after him. “You can’t leave! It’s going to be dark soon! And we’re supposed to stick together!”

Riq didn’t even turn around.

“Riq!” Sera shouted, but he’d already rounded the corner of the new observatory, out of sight. She turned to Dak. “You happy now?”

“Was it something I said?”

Sera rolled her eyes. “When is it not something you said?”

“I was just offering the guy a little romantic guidance.” Dak shook his head. “Some people are too sensitive.”

“We should go after him,” Sera said. She stood up and looked around to try to get her bearings. It was odd seeing all the things that had changed. The updated huts and new trees and paved streets. But at the same time, everything felt so familiar.

“Fine,” Dak said. “But first let’s look at the latest riddle I just pulled up.” Dak turned the SQuare around so Sera could read the screen:

To save the reproduction of the treasure’s truth, do the following:

Seek the help of those who follow “the most important thing in the world”

Then dig deep, deeper, deepest, unlocking a long-locked door

It will take a polyglot to understand the wisdom of the glyphs

and the forgery of the curse

Sera read it twice and then she stood back up, shaking her head. “I don’t get it.”

“Neither do I.”

She wasn’t surprised the difficulty of the riddles was increasing. She knew that the Hystorians hadn’t had time to completely program the SQuare. Things were more vague now. The further they got into the Breaks, the less information they would have.

“What the heck is ‘the most important thing in the world’?” Dak said.

Sera shook her head. “No idea.”

“It seems like an extension of the first riddle, though,” Dak said. “Both talk about truth and the treasure and the curse.”

“The ‘treasure’ is the codex,” Sera said. “We know that much.”

“And the curse is about the Cataclysm described in the Great Mayan Codex.”

Sera just looked at Dak for a few long seconds. “According to Pacal, there was never any mention of a Cataclysm in his codex.”

“None?”

Sera shook her head, trying not to think about what she knew about the Cataclysm.

“And what does the riddle mean by a ‘reproduction’?” Dak asked. “I still wonder if we should’ve just taken Pacal’s codex with us.”

Sera was having trouble concentrating now. She’d stare at the words “unlocking a long-locked door” and all of a sudden she’d find herself remembering the Cataclysm again. Her flooded barn. The bodies she had to turn over.

“A polyglot has something to do with language, right?” Dak said.

“I’m not sure,” Sera said. “But I know someone who would. We really need to go find Riq. We should all be doing this together. And that means you might have to go easy on him for a little while.”

“I guess you’re right,” Dak said, standing up. He looked at Sera. “You know, I really did see him drop a piece of jewelry that Snake Girl had just given him.”

Sera had seen the way Riq looked at Kisa. It couldn’t have been easy for him to say good-bye. “You missed a few things while you were recovering in the cave,” she said.

“I figured as much.”

They started walking around the corner of the observatory, in the direction they’d seen Riq go. As soon as they rounded the corner, Sera nearly ran right into a teenage boy. It wasn’t Riq, though. It was a Mayan boy who had a large bag slung over his left shoulder. He wore an outfit similiar to Dak’s.

“Sorry,” he said.

“It’s okay,” she said, her translator device kicking in to match his dialect.

He straightened his bag and said, “Well, have a nice evening.” He started to leave, but then turned around and looked over Sera and Dak for a few seconds, noting their attire, before saying, “A bunch of us are meeting in the cave in a little while. If you’re interested in practicing the old ways.”

“Maybe we’ll join you,” Dak said.

Sera and Dak watched the boy hurry along the path that Sera remembered led out of the village and up toward the cave. Dak poked her on the shoulder and said, “A bunch of Mayas racing off to the cave. Isn’t this exactly how things started off last time?”

“It is,” Sera said, but she had a sneaking suspicion that the cave served a much different function in 1562.