“What are you doing?” Ren shouted.
A few seconds later, Brooks landed on board. She was so well camouflaged against the night sky, I hadn’t even seen her descend. The devourer slipped off the hawk’s back, unconscious. Ren squatted and cradled the toadlike head in her lap.
Jazz glanced over his shoulder with wide eyes. “Great costume! That looks just like Jabba the Hutt!”
Brooks shifted back to human form and man, I wanted to hug her for being so brave. But there wasn’t time. “Can you get Adrik and me close to the twins so he can do his thing?”
“Seriously?”
“We can’t risk them remembering me in the future,” I said, still trying to catch my breath. “Ren, you and Rosie keep Jazz on course for the beach. We’ll meet you there.”
With a sigh, Brooks turned around. Adrik and I gripped her shoulders, and she shifted into a hawk beneath our hands. She launched herself into the darkness with the two of us hunched over her back, trying to remain undetected by Jordan and Bird, whose focus was still on Jazz’s boat.
We soared across the sky, keeping our eyes on the enemy below.
Brooks glided lower and lower. She was in serious stealth mode.
My heart rammed up my throat. We would have one shot at this—a single shot to save the future.
I watched as Betty broke through the waves, Jordan and Bird a mere fifty-ish yards behind.
“They’re still too far away,” Adrik said.
Brooks’s wings flapped silently as we sailed closer and closer to the twins.
Just as Jazz’s boat skidded onto the beach, I whisper-shouted, “Now!”
Adrik lifted a hand to blow a breath and lost his balance. As he began to slip off Brooks, he cried out. I grabbed him by the waistband of his drawstring pants, gripping it so hard I thought my wrist was going to snap. Adrik made a choking sound, which I could only assume meant I was giving him the worst wedgie of his life.
Jordan looked up. His eyes searched the sky and zeroed in on us.
White bolts came flying at us, some slamming into Brooks’s ribs. She screeched and rotated too far to the left, nearly tossing me and Adrik.
Brooks! I yelled telepathically.
I’m okay, she said with a shaky voice. Just hurry.
I felt helpless. I couldn’t put up a smoke screen because it would block Adrik’s view, and I couldn’t scorch or spear the evil jerks, either.
Then an idea occurred to me. Carefully, I created a thin stream of smoke and directed it toward the twins. It was enough to blind them, but not so wide it obscured Adrik’s line of sight. We swept by, slowing down and getting so close I could reach out and touch the brothers. Adrik blew a breath across his palms.
The motor of their speedboat cut out. Jordan and Bird looked at each other and shook their heads like they were disoriented.
We did it! Adrik shouted telepathically as Brooks rocketed toward the shore, where the time rope awaited. A thrill wave washed over me. Had we really done it? Had we really traveled back in time and stolen the gods out from under the twins’ noses?
You okay? I asked Brooks.
Just a little shocked, she said.
Ha, ha.
Right?
As soon as Brooks set us down on the sand, I saw Ren, Rosie, and the now-awake devourer. Ren came running over. “He’s gone. Marco’s gone.”
“Gone?” Fire erupted across my knuckles. “How can he be gone?”
“We checked the bench!” Ren cried. “He’s not there.”