“Are you sure you’re strong enough to do this?” I asked Hondo as we prepared to go down to the half-burned jungle.

“We have to strike now,” he said. “We might not get a second chance.”

“Uh, guys?” Adrik said, gesturing to Zotz and the other two unconscious gods. “Someone needs to keep an eye on the baddie, right?”

“I am not hanging out here alone with that dude!” Marco argued.

“You’d rather go up against the creepy goddess?” Adrik asked.

Just then, the branches beneath the deck trembled. A low growl climbed up the trunk. I’d know that growl anywhere. I peered into the hole.

“Rosie?”

A paw emerged from the mist followed by the rest of my hellhound. Forget using a ladder—she had clawed her way up the tree like a powerful jaguar with Ren and a fifteen-ish Pacific on her back. I knew it was the time goddess, because who else wears leopard-spotted capes and carries a golden time rope, which, by the way, was trailing behind my dog.

“Ren!” Adrik hollered.

“Rosie can wake the gods!” Ren cried out as soon as she saw us. “Isn’t that awesome?”

“Freaking awesome!” Hondo said, kissing the tips of his fingers and throwing them toward the sky.

My heart hammered in my chest to the rhythm of a single word: hope-hope, hope-hope. If Rosie could wake the gods, it would be like a couple hundred to one. They could pummel Ixkik’!

When the trio had fully emerged from the hole, Ren’s gaze landed on my uncle and she grinned so wide I thought it might split her face. “Hondo!” She leaped into his arms. “I knew you’d be okay.” He hugged her, spinning her off her feet. Even Pacific smiled.

I rubbed Rosie’s neck. Her soft brown eyes held mine like she already knew what I was going to ask of her. She needed to rouse more gods.

Find as many as you can, I told her telepathically. Find Hurakan…and Ixtab.

With a barely perceptible nod, she vanished in a stream of mist.

“Does this mean we’re saved?” Adrik said.

Pacific tugged on her hood and sighed. “We have no powers…yet.”

We? I wondered who else was awake.

“What do you mean, ‘no powers’?” I squeezed the dragon head of my cane.

Marco groaned as he pressed his knuckles into his eyes. Yeah, I knew the feeling—the highs and lows of Maya madness. The forever dangling carrot, promising a treasure but delivering a sucker punch to the gut.

“Well, that sucks,” Adrik said.

“It doesn’t matter,” I insisted. “We have to go down there. We have to—” I suddenly realized that Ren hadn’t returned with Brooks. “Where’s Brooks?” I asked, hoping the hawk would appear any second.

“She’s scoping out some stuff,” Ren said. “When we found Pacific, Brooks and I decided I needed to get her back here safely.”

“You left Brooks alone?!” I didn’t mean for my voice to rise to over-the-top freak-out, but this was Blood Moon we were dealing with, the same one who had Quinn. That fact might have impaired Brooks’s judgment. Brooks was the world’s best planner until her heart got involved.

“I have to find her.” I rushed to the deck’s hole, careful not to touch the time rope that was still hanging over the edge.

Pacific took my arm gently, stopping me. “The nawal promised to be careful. Let the hawk hunt, Zane.”

Hunt? Hunt what? Ixkik’? Demons? Jordan and Bird? It felt like acid was burning a hole in my stomach. I looked down through the deck’s opening…and saw the time rope quiver.

Ren gasped. “I almost forgot!” She brushed past me, dropped to her knees, and leaned over the opening, pulling on the rope. “You still down there, A.P.? You need help?”

“I’m a god,” he grunted.

“Ah-Puch is here?!” I nearly blew flames out of my nostrils.

“Okay, maybe a little tug,” the god said.

“You made the dude climb?” Marco shook his head like it was the world’s greatest tragedy.

“Is there any other way to get up a tree?” the god of death grumbled from below.

Pacific yanked the rope, and a second later, Ah-Puch’s hands emerged through the hole. They were followed by a familiar head of dark hair…but a not-so-familiar face. He clung to the edge.

I grabbed his skinny hand and hauled him up as the time rope unwound from his waist, snapping into Pacific’s grasp. “I think the branches would have held you,” I said.

“Now you tell me.”

Even if Ren hadn’t outed Ah-Puch, I would have known it was him. The fourteen-year-old-looking dude had the same dark suit (now a few sizes too big), the same arrogant stance, and the same I’m-better-than-you expression. Except now it was grim and tight. And instead of a Thank you for traveling back in time and risking your lives to save us, he said, “That was truly dreadful.” I had some words for the god of death about how he had given up back in the labyrinth, but now wasn’t the time.

His dark eyes fell on Zotz, and for the second time I quickly explained everything that had happened.

Ren’s mouth formed a small O like she wasn’t at all surprised by Blood Moon’s deceit.

Ah-Puch looked at the sacked-out gods and snorted.

“Do you know who they are?” I asked.

“Other than the bat loser?” he said with a snarl. “I think that’s Ixkakaw, and the other one? Some minor god.”

“Louie will be happy,” Adrik said, then added, “The goddess of chocolate survived the trip.”

“This is terrible,” Pacific said, tightening her grip on the rope.

“Terrible is right.” Ah-Puch shook his head somberly. “First, I am a glorious death god, then a withered old man, and now this? What has the universe come to?”

“Probs destruction,” Adrik muttered.

“Guys,” Marco said, gesturing toward the World Tree, “shouldn’t we figure out our next play before the whole place goes up in smoke?”

“We need to crush Ixkik’,” Ah-Puch said. He waggled his thick eyebrows and added, “But I get dibs on the twins!”

Was that a zit on his chin?

Hondo harrumphed like the god of death was going to have to arm-wrestle him for the honors.

“No offense,” Marco said, “but you’re probably not going to crush anyone without your godly powers.”

Ah-Puch looked like he might lunge for the guy’s throat, but Ren patted his arm and he stood down.

She said, “The gods still have brilliant minds. They can help us strategize.”

“This is why you’re my favorite,” Ah-Puch said with a smile. “But I’d rather kill.”

Ren gave him a hard stare.

“They totally deserve it,” the god of death said defensively.

Pacific began to pace. “We will not win in open battle.”

I considered what moves we had left. I knew my friends would fight even if it meant losing, and I couldn’t let that happen. “Ixkik’ already knows we’re here,” I said.

“So what do you do when your enemy is waiting for you to make the next move?” Adrik asked.

Marco dragged a thumb over his jaw. “You make it.”

The sky darkened and the air trembled.

Everyone froze.

At the same moment, a familiar voice twisted up through the clouds, gentle and quiet like a slithering snake. “Welcome back to SHIHOM, Zane,” Ixkik’ said. “Did you really think you could hide from me?”

“We were hoping,” Adrik mumbled.

“My son Xb’alamkej is now king over all magic, over all the sobrenaturales,” Ixkik’ went on. “And he has a new queen.” She laughed lightly. “Finally, the mighty nawal is his bride, as it was always meant to be.”

Always meant to be? Just because some really bad matchmaker once put Jordan and Quinn together? Didn’t he remember that she joined a spy network just to get away from him?

Hondo sucked in a sharp breath. He looked like he might punch a second hole in the deck, but he just shook his head and whispered, “She’s lying.”

Ren patted his shoulder as my eyes darted around, searching for the source of the voice that seemed to be coming from all sides.

“We will have a new reign,” Ixkik’ went on. “A new era in which the ruthless gods will exist no more. You may choose to run or hide, but we will find you. Or you can meet my terms, and no one has to die.”

Everyone looked stricken. My throat closed up, making it hard to breathe. “We’ll never hide!” I shouted.

“She cannot hear you,” Pacific said. “Not here.”

Ah-Puch was uncharacteristically quiet as Ixkik’ released a purring laugh that sent chills down my legs. “You may have freed the gods, but they are still asleep. And my demons are hunting them down at this very moment and awaiting my signal to destroy them. So it looks like I am the victor.”

All I could think about was my dad, helpless at the murderous claws of some random demon.

“You’re a coward!” Hondo yelled with so much ferocity I thought, She must have heard that.

My chest blazed hotter than Chak Ek’ and I had a terrible urge to barbecue the cruel goddess, but I couldn’t let emotion rule my mind. That was exactly what she wanted. What she was counting on.

Ah-Puch grinned, and before I could ask what he possibly had to smile about, he said, “She doesn’t know some of the gods are already awake.”

“How do you know?” My chest felt like it was collapsing under the weight of a hundred skies.

“She speaks with too much confidence,” Ah-Puch said.

Okay, so as bad as things were, we had at least one tiny element of surprise. But what good would it do us? Pacific and Ah-Puch were as young as the godborns but with no powers. The rest of the gods were asleep, the demons were hunting them down, and the World Tree was dying.

“So you choose silence,” Ixkik’ said. “It does not matter, because I know you can hear me. Now heed this: I want you, Zane Obispo, alone at the Tree.”