Everything was made out of white marble. Shiny, perfect marble. A massive chandelier hung from the ceiling, which was held up by four glossy round columns. And as strange as it sounds, the lobby smelled like pink. Pink flowers, pink sugar, pink berries.
Hondo spun in a circle, looking up. “Whoa. This place must cost a gazillion bucks a night.”
Brooks pulled us through the lobby.
“You know where you’re going?” I asked.
She paused to tighten one of the gold sandal straps that wound all the way up her shin. “Jazz gave me directions.”
We headed to a door marked stairs. “Third floor,” Brooks said. “Hurry.”
We raced up the staircase (yeah, that made me feel pretty cool) and when she came to the door for floor three, she stopped. “Hurakan, huh?” So she was still thinking about it.
I nodded. “You know him?”
Brooks let out a light laugh. “Are you kidding? He’s sort of… royalty. I mean, you do know he’s a creator and—”
“A destroyer,” I finished.
Hondo shoulder-bumped me. “Don’t even try to get me to call you king of anything. You still get dish duty.”
Brooks pointed to the wall. “Here it is.”
Inscribed there was a faded image, so faint you’d have to be looking for it to find it. Underneath the word kings’ was a Maya glyph like this:
“What’s it mean?” I asked.
“Sky,” Brooks said. Her voice was on the edge of a tremble.
“Kings’ Sky?” I muttered, thinking there were some seriously grande egos around here.
“Your obsidian,” she said with her hand out. “Place it there.” She pointed to the center bottom edge of the glyph.
I tugged the magician stone from my pocket. “What did Jazz mean about what the twins did to you? And what games was he talking about?”
“Remember when I told you they were tricksters?”
I nodded.
“They play head games. They play them expertly, and by the time you know what they’ve done, you’ve already lost.”
“Man,” Hondo moaned. “I was hoping it would be wrestling or even football. Some kind of contact, head-butting, face-pounding sport.”
“Didn’t they beat the gods in a ball game?” I said, remembering the legend from my book.
“Pitz,” Brooks said.
“Huh?” Hondo raised his brows.
“Basketball,” Brooks said. “Or their version of it. It’s their favorite game, and no one’s ever beat them.”
After everything I’d read and heard, they didn’t seem
like the kind of guys who played games without stakes.
“So what do people play for?” Hondo asked.
“Most don’t play. They know they can’t win, so instead they come to trade. With whatever they’re willing to lose,” Brooks said.