I summoned Fuego to my hand just as Alana said, “Nobody move,” with not a single tremor in her voice. Maybe she was used to bulls? Maybe this was her pet and, like Rosie, he just looked ferocious?

The muscular beast was about ten feet away—too close for comfort. He pawed the dirt and started to rumble and grunt.

Rrrummph. Rrrummph.

“Eek!” Louie squealed.

“Nice bull-y,” Ren purred.

I gripped my cane as we stood frozen in the fenced pasture not sure what to do. I know what you’re thinking: You’ve got amazing Fuego! You’re the son of fire! But I couldn’t just gore the innocent animal or turn him to steak.

The bull glared at us, tossing his head. I quickly threw up a wall of smoke, hoping it would be enough to at least slow him down if he decided to charge.

He decided to charge. And guess what? The smoke only gave us a ten-step lead at best, and the corral’s gate was a good thirty feet away.

“AAAAH!” we screamed, and ran. Have you ever tried to sprint through mud and manure? It’s worse than wet sand. And a whole lot smellier.

“Do something!” Louie screamed.

“Ren, shadow!” I hollered.

Suddenly, the world went still. No sound, no movement, no breeze around us. Just my crashing heart and wheezing breaths.

I came to a stop in my poop-covered shoes, held my side, and turned to Ren. Her watch was glowing.

“Thanks…for…stopping…time,” I said between gasps.

“No way could I sic a monster shadow on the poor thing,” she said, a small smile playing on her lips. “But sometimes you just have to take the bull by the horns.”

“Ha!” Louie muttered, nearly tripping as he slowed down.

“I thought we’d be skewered for sure.” Alana fell against Ren, laughing between gasps of air. “Old Smalls is faster than I remember.”

“Smalls is bigger than a tow truck.” Louie was panting and sweating like he’d run a marathon in the Sahara Desert.

We all spun to see the bull suspended in the air mere steps behind us. He was in mid-stride, openmouthed, and wearing a glare so deep it looked etched on his face. And those long spiky horns that could double as demon fangs, size extra-large? Practically in my back pocket. Okay, I didn’t have a back pocket, but you get the point.

But something was missing. The last time Ren had stopped time was at SHIHOM, and she had used a shadow to protect those of us she didn’t want frozen. So where was the shadow now? When I asked, she just shrugged and said, “It was all instinct. Maybe I’m getting more precise?”

As we headed to the gate, I took in the amazing scenery. All trees, mountains, and a dozen shades of green that folded in on us as if to say Welcome. The daylight was fading, and it was hard to tell where the horizon ended and the sky began.

“Can we eat now?” Louie said as he exited the corral.

We hosed ourselves off near the cows’ water trough, and I steam-dried everyone’s clothes as best as I could by waving handfuls of fire over them. Then we walked about a quarter mile. The land rose and fell until we emerged on a wide grassy plain that smelled like pine and wet wood. In the distance was a log mansion complete with a wraparound porch and at least six stone chimneys. Behind the house was a gran white barn, a field of grazing horses, and three other houses—we’ll call them mini mansions, because they were way bigger than a normal house but not quite supersize.

“Whoa!” Louie said. “This is the hideaway?”

Alana nodded and sighed as we approached the wide porch of the main house. Lights shimmered behind the big windows.

Hondo bolted out of the front door, slamming the screen behind him. “Adrik said you found K’iin?”

I nodded.

“So where are the gods?”

“Where is everyone else?” I said, wishing I didn’t have to give him an answer.

“They’re doing a training exercise over by the barn,” he said. “Don’t deflect, Diablo.”

“How are the godborns?” Ren asked. “Do they know anything?”

Hondo eyed us suspiciously. “They know nothing. Now how about you tell me what you know.”

Alana walked up the porch steps and said, “I have to find Adrik.” Probably to check on his head bump. And then she was gone, followed by Louie, who was no doubt looking for the kitchen.

Hondo’s eyes found mine and held my gaze. I saw the questions rising, so I cut to the chase. Not wanting to repeat myself, I put on Itzamna’s shades.

“Zane!” the god cried. “You left me alone for so long I thought K’iin had thrown you into a time loop. Those are the worst—imagine living the same moment over and over and over for all eternity.”

“We’re fine,” I said before I explained the shades to Hondo. He just rubbed the back of his neck, shaking his head. “Wait a second,” I said to Itzamna. “How come you didn’t want K’iin to know you were there?”

“We have a bad history, and that’s all I’m going to say on the matter.”

Yeah, probably some dumb calendar war, I thought.

“If she’s so all-seeing,” I asked, “how come she didn’t see you?”

“She wasn’t looking.”

“Zane,” my uncle said impatiently, “give it up, man.”

“The gods are lost….” Being the bearer of bad news sucks. Big-time. “They’re in a place we can’t get to,” I said, and even as the words left my mouth, I didn’t want to believe them.

“Of course we can get there,” Brooks said as she came around the side of the house. “Just tell me where. I’ll fly around the world if I have to.”

I loved that Brooks thought that scheming and planning and outsmarting your opponent would always win the day. And I really wanted her to believe that for a little longer, but there was no longer. There was no way to prepare her or Hondo for what I had to say next. “They’re in 1987.”

Brooks shook her head. She staggered back like someone had punched her in the chest. “WHAT?! How? No…Why?” Her brain was in full-throttle denial mode. “Did you say 1987…as in the year?”

I nodded slowly.

A terrible silence pressed against us, against our breath and hope and confidence.

My uncle ran a hand over his long hair. “We have to stop them.”

“We will,” Ren said, touching his arm gently.

“How?” Hondo asked.

“Nothing is impossible,” Brooks said. “If we can pool the godborns’ powers and work together, we can fix this. Right, Zane?”

Her determined amber eyes softened as she looked my way, and I found myself nodding, making a silent promise I wasn’t sure I could keep.

“Can any of the godborns travel through time?” I asked hopefully.

Hondo quickly told us about the godborn gifts. They ranged from being able to talk to animals and bending like a rubber band to walking through solid surfaces and having supersonic hearing. “No time traveling,” he said.

Brooks twisted a strand of hair around her pinkie. “But Marco has off-the-charts super strength.” She said it with so much admiration I felt a stab in my chest. I know, I know, bad time to be feeling jealous. But give me a break—he couldn’t be that strong.

“And Adrik,” she went on, “he…uh, got a new skill when he hit his head.”

“Alana said something about that,” I said. “What is it?”

But I didn’t get an answer, because Itzamna gasped so loud I thought it was his last breath. “That’s it!” he shouted.

“What’s it?” Ren said.

Itzamna posed a question none of us had thought to ask: “How could Zotz and Ixkik’ lock the gods in time?” He paused, like he was waiting for one of us to say what he already knew. “The time rope!”

Ren practically jumped out of her skin. “But I thought no one could take the rope from Pacific!”

“They would only need a single strand for a one-way ticket,” he said. “Zotz and Ixkik’ must have found a way to steal it before the devouring, and they used it to send the gods back to 1987.”

My mind buzzed with one part hope and another part horror. “But how could they send them across time all at once? There’s, like, a couple hundred of them.”

“Do I have to do everything on this quest?” Itzamna sighed. “I don’t know where the enemy would get that kind of power.”

“Power isn’t always what you think it’s going to be,” Marco said as he waltzed onto the scene with a scowl and a puffy black eye. I didn’t bother asking. His eyes darted from face to face. “What? Did I say something wrong? Who wants to fill me in?”

Ren grabbed his arm and must have told him everything telepathically, because his eyes (even the puffy, half-closed one) went wide.

“Man,” Marco said, rubbing his chin. “1987? A hiding spot your enemy can never get to? Wish I’d thought of that. But why that year? Seems kind of random.”

“Perhaps it was as far as they could go with so many gods all at once,” the moon god said.

“Itzamna,” Ren said, drawing closer to me, “you said that Zotz and Ixkik’ only needed a strand of my mom’s rope to trap the gods in time.”

And then Ren’s logic seemed to hit all of us at the same time.

“The watch!” someone said.

“The watch,” Brooks echoed.

“Ren!” Hondo lifted her off her feet, spun her, and set her back down. “You’re my favorite bruja godborn, you know that?”

In the labyrinth, Ah-Puch had told me Ren was the key. This must have been what he meant!

“We can go back in time, too!” Brooks said.

Marco grunted and muttered something under his breath I didn’t catch.

“How many strands will we need, Itzamna?” Ren was breathless.

“To make a rope strong enough for a round trip?” he said. “At least two.”

Ren gave a half-hearted smile. “I already lost one thread, and Zip said there’s only so much time magic to go around. I don’t know how many more are in the watch.” Ren held her wrist up to my glasses for Itzamna to see. “Do you?”

“Does it matter?” Hondo said, pacing. “We just have to make it work with however much we have.”

Itzamna took a shuddering breath. “Even under the best circumstances, time travel is not easy. It’s not like going through a gateway. It requires precision. Perfectly executed precision. And failure can spell disaster.”

“I’m in!” Hondo said with renewed energy.

Everyone else nodded and raised their hands—everyone except Marco, whose shifty eyes told me he was weighing the risks and rewards. “Wait,” he said. “Any chance I—we could get stuck in 1987?”

“A very good chance,” Itzamna said. “But that isn’t the only risk. You could get devoured. But even worse, you could disrupt the time continuum. You could do something in 1987 that would have consequences today. Dire consequences.”

“Like what?” Ren asked.

“No idea,” the god said. “Just avoid all people.”

Marco stuffed his fists into his pockets. “Even if we could get there, how do you plan to rescue the gods and get them back across thirty-plus years without anyone noticing?”

“One step at a time,” I said, not wanting to lose the momentum and hope we were building. “What do we have to do?” I asked Itzamna.

The god said, “To ensure the most precise landing, you will need to return to where time began.”

“The Old World,” Hondo, Brooks, and I said at the same time.

The images I’d seen in the labyrinth flew at me. Were they clues?

Time. Evil. Deception.

“We can totally do this, guys,” Ren said, nodding vigorously.

“No human has ever done it successfully,” Itzamna said.

“Well, no human ever succeeded in finding K’iin, either,” I reminded the god.

“You’re a godborn,” Itzamna retorted.

“Exactly,” I said with a smile.

Marco continued to scowl. “Time travel. You guys are serious.”

Ignoring him, Itzamna said, “Someone on the 1987 crew will need to stay connected to the present at all times. ALL times. Losing the connection will result in you being imprisoned in the past.”

“And…?” Brooks asked like she knew there was more, because there is always more.

“How do we stay connected?” Hondo asked.

“That’s the darker, more terrible piece that must be put into place,” Itzamna said.

“Yeah,” Marco said. “How to get the gods back!”

I braced myself. “Tell us, Itzamna.”

“You’ll need a shadow crosser.”