Anyhow, I had to pull the dragon power card again. (Hey, access to knowledge in the temple meant all knowledge, including Saás’s.) When I insisted that she answer, the globe finally said in a bitter tone, “What you seek cannot be accessed.”
“What do you mean?” My voice echoed across the chamber.
“I wasn’t done!” Saás snapped. “La Cueva de los Cristales is part of a hostile environment in Chihuahua, Mexico. It’s a horseshoe-shaped cavity connected to the Naica Mine. Without proper protection, one can only last ten minutes and thirty-two seconds there. Godborns might last an extra two minutes.”
“What do you mean, ‘protection’?” Brooks asked.
“The cave is a magma chamber,” Saás said. “That’s an oven to you. Its air temperature can reach one hundred and thirty-six degrees with ninety to ninety-nine percent humidity. But there is a greater problem.”
“Greater than being cooked to death?” Marco snorted.
“The cave is currently flooded,” Saás said. “A watery world of ninety-nine percent certain death.”
My heart sank. I felt like every step forward jerked us t
wo hundred steps back.
“There has to be another way in,” Alana said. “A back door?”
“No back door,” Saás said. “But there is an air pocket—an area precisely seven feet two inches by eight feet three inches. Should I begin writing your obituaries?”
Marco picked up Louie’s book, white-knuckling it like he might launch it at the globe.
“Hold up!” I said. “Are you saying we have to nail the landing exactly?”
“That is correct, if you are stupid enough to go there. Would you like me to compute your chances of success?”
Alana’s face drained of all color. Adrik put his arm around her shoulder and squeezed.
“We have to go there,” Ren said to Saás, frowning. “Give us the exact coordinates.” Sometimes I forgot that in Ren’s previous life she ran a blog for alien sightings and spent most of her time mapping clues and trying to prove aliens were real. She was well versed in the impossible.
Saás rattled off the coordinates. “There. I’ve practically drawn you a map! Good-bye.”
“Wait!” Brooks hollered, but Saás had already shut down.
We all stood in silence. If our minds could’ve talked aloud, the library would’ve been buzzing with chaotic, terrified noise.
“Hey, Louie,” I said as an idea slowly took root.
“Why are you looking at me like that?” He started backing up.
“You think you can create another snowstorm?”
He hesitated before the full meaning of my words hit him. Then he shook his head vigorously. “No. I am not going cave-diving only to be cooked to death! I do not do quests. I already told you.”
Brooks inched closer to him and said, in the gentlest voice I’d ever heard her use, “We need you to be brave, Louie. Please. You’re the only godborn who can help us survive the cave. You wouldn’t want any of us to die of heatstroke, would you?”
“It’s just a calendar,” Hondo added. “What’s it going to do? Paper-cut you to death?”
“A calendar that wants blood!” Louie argued. He rubbed his cheek. “That bat god really freaked me out last time.”
“He’s more likely to come here,” Itzamna said.
We all spun to see the moon god standing behind us.
No one had a chance to ask the awful question How do you know? before Itzamna dropped the devastating bomb: “Our enemies have infiltrated the underworld. More than half of Ixtab’s army has joined Camazotz—the other half are being held for execution. Demons are climbing up the roots of the World Tree as we speak.”
Louie collapsed into a chair and let his head drop onto his folded arms. Snow began to fall more heavily.