She shook her head and sucked in a sharp breath. “Pacific knew the time rope was our only chance to get rid of Ixkik’ for good.” She hesitated, as if she couldn’t believe she had possession of something so magical, so powerful. “It didn’t work for her anymore, and after you left to face off with Blood Moon, we knew we had to do something drastic. That’s when Marco came up with the plan to be you and throw Ixkik’ off-balance.”
Hurakan opened and closed his jaw like he had been clocked. Which he had. “Your mother sacrificed everything by giving that to you, Ren.”
“Ren can’t give it back?” I asked.
Hurakan shook his head, and Ren pressed her lips together. “It’s definitely mine now,” she said, “and I have a lot to learn. It almost slipped from my hands.”
I tried not to imagine what would have happened in that event.
“Why didn’t you just stop time?” I asked. Seemed like that would have saved us a lot of pounding.
“I tried,” Ren said. “My watch doesn’t work anymore, and even if it had—”
“You couldn’t have also thrown them into a time loop,” Hurakan put in. “Not simultaneously.”
“Bird!” I shouted, remembering that Brooks had gone after him, which meant he was still a threat. “He’s still free!”
“Bird’s in a cage.” Hondo’s voice reached us before he walked in, hoisting an ax over his shoulder. His eyes darted everywhere before he let out a huge whoop. “I don’t see the rest of the wicked familia around, so does that mean the plan actually worked?”
Actually? I wasn’t about to ask how many time-loop practice runs Ren had been through. Probs none. I shuddered thinking how poorly all this could have turned out.
For the next couple of minutes, everyone talked over each other, telling me what had happened after I left Hurakan’s tree house.
Ren said, “Rosie found your dad, and he told us that the only way to trap Ixkik’ was to make her show her face, and that led us to figure out how to trap her, which led to Pacific giving up the time rope—”
Hondo cut in, “And Adrik was a boss. He took control, called his sister telepathically, because, man, we needed our friends to round up all the gods.”
“And when I found out you were in trouble,” Mom said, “I knew I had to come, too.”
Just then, a loud roar from above caught all of our attention. We looked up to see a massive dragon, blue and shimmering, flying our way.
“Itzamna!” Ren shouted.
He had a teen passenger, and from the blazing eyes and murderous expression, I knew it was Ixtab.
The dragon perched on the remains of the roof, claws extended, and threw his head back to release a wave of fire that looked like it could incinerate the entire universe.
Hurakan said to me, “He wants to talk to you alone.”
“You speak Dragon?”
“You don’t?” Hurakan asked, and I couldn’t tell if he was kidding or not.
Almost everyone took off toward the jungle. Mom, who’d been clinging to me, stretched my shirt as she left. My dad hung back.
“I thought he wanted to talk to me alone,” I said.
“Who cares what he wants,” Hurakan said. “I’m sticking around.”
With a fiery snort, Itzamna floated down and shifted into his godly form. Teen Ixtab stormed over, glaring. “Zane Obispo! You are impossible to communicate with.”
Whoa. Seeing the goddess of the underworld as a kid was weird. I felt like I shouldn’t look directly at her, in case I laughed or something. But I didn’t have a choice, because she was only inches from my face.
“Didn’t you see I was inside Rosie?” she growled. “Can’t you read hellhound signals? Howls? Fire colors in the pupils?”
“The orb,” I whispered.
“Yes, the orb, you fool!” Steam practically rolled off Ixtab’s head and I was super glad she didn’t have her goddess powers right then. “I used the hellhound to keep an eye on things here, not knowing she would be my very lifeline, but getting you to listen to me was harder than turning a demon vegan!”