Not noticing what had happened, Zahur broke away and stepped back to the woman’s side. “Enough.” He pointed to the scout. “Help me carry her below! I must do my best with my salves to save her life.”
Jake stood up. “But she—”
Zahur elbowed him aside. The scout and the three Magisters used the woman’s own cloak like a stretcher to lift her away.
Marika’s father called, “Mari, take Jacob and show him to his bed. I think we’ve all had enough excitement for one night.”
Marika nodded. Stepping aside, Jake waited for the group to head downstairs. He crossed over to the parapet and stared out across Calypsos. He could make out the spiral of the main street as it wound away from the castle and out toward the main gate. So peaceful and quiet. Yet Jake only had to turn and see the fresh blood on the stones to know that such tranquility was an illusion.
He comes…he comes…he comes…
Jake also pictured the bright blue of the huntress’s eyes. In that brief flash, her eyes reminded Jake of his mother’s—always laughing and bright and so full of love. Eyes he would never see again.
Help me…
Jake shivered. He had not been able to save his mother, but he made a silent vow now to do what he could for the woman here. But how? He knew nothing of this world. As he despaired, his gaze settled upon one last sight, one last hope.
Lit silver by moonlight, a stone dragon hovered over the neighboring dark woods. It stared out toward the ridges of the valley, like a watchdog vigilant against intruders.
Jake sensed answers hidden there.
But could he unlock them in time?
11
THE ALCHEMIST’S APPRENTICE
Jake woke with his blankets knotted around his body. It took him a frantic moment to remember where he was. He’d been dreaming of his parents. He sat up and rubbed his eyes. His heart still pounded like a racehorse’s after a sprint around the track. The dream remained vivid—and still terrified him.
He had been down in the rock quarry at home, rooting around for fossils, when his mother and father started calling down to him. The panic in their voices had him scrambling for a way up out of the rock pit, but its walls had grown to twice their normal height with no path out. And all the while, his parents yelled for him to hurry, but he couldn’t see them. As he searched for a way up out of the quarry, a speck in the sky caught his attention. Jake knew it was the source of his parents’ fear. As he stared, it grew larger and larger, revealing a winged creature, as black as the deepest pit, with a serpentine neck and spear-like head. It plunged toward him, and still its wingspan spread wider and wider, blocking the sun. Its shadow swept over Jake and swallowed up the quarry. The temperature instantly dropped to a wintry cold.
Then a voice called down to him, as if the winged creature bore a rider on its back, hidden out of sight.
“Come to me…”
The words—the same he’d heard when falling through the darkness to this strange land—had shocked him straight out of the nightmare.
Jake sat a moment longer, waiting for his heart to slow. His entire body was damp with sweat, as if he’d had a fever that suddenly broke. He could still hear that voice, scratching like something trying to claw itself out of a grave. Finally he kicked away the sheets and quilted blanket and crossed to the window in his boxer shorts.
He pulled open the shutters and morning sunlight flooded into the room. One of the tiny saurian birds swept past his window, what the people here called dartwings. It cawed out a piercing note and was gone.
Jake took deep breaths, steadying himself.
Far below, the town of Calypsos was already bustling. Wagons rolled, people crowded the streets, and lumbering beasts stalked the wider avenues. Jake felt a pull to get outside and explore this new world.
He turned from the window and crossed to where he’d climbed out of his clothes and dropped them to the floor last night. After the long day, the strange introduction to Calypsos, and the excitement atop the tower, he’d barely made it to his bed.
His room was little bigger than a stone closet, but it was cozy. It held a bed and bedside table with a lamp, a chair, and a wooden wardrobe carved with Mayan glyphs.
As he stepped across the room, Jake noticed two things immediately. His clothes, which he’d left on the floor, were now neatly folded on the chair. They looked freshly laundered. He picked up his safari jacket. It still felt warm, as if it had just come out of a clothes dryer.
But that was crazy, wasn’t it?
Second, he noted that the wardrobe door was cracked open. He nudged it wider and saw that someone had returned his pack. He tugged open the zipper and checked inside. All his stuff seemed to be there, but he searched the pack to be sure. Near the bottom, his finger poked into something strange.
What is this?
His finger probed an inner pocket. During all the tussling of the past day, it must have torn open. Inside, he discovered a silver metal button about the size of a dime. Jake flipped it around. With a fingernail, he teased out a tiny antenna.
“A bug of some sort…” he said aloud, shocked.
His brow crinkled. The Bledsworth corporation had given him the pack, along with his new clothes. Apparently they’d also given him something extra.
Anger boiled through him at the violation. He crossed the room and whipped the device out the window. As it flashed across the sky, a dartwing dove down, snatched it out of the air like it was a real bug, and flew off.
Jake shook his head.
Why would the corporation—the same ones who had financed his parent’s dig—plant a bug on him?
He frowned as he quickly dressed. He had no answer, and any investigation would have to wait. Right now he had a more pressing concern.
Jake searched around his room. The bedroom door was closed, but clearly someone had been in his room while he’d slept.
His fingers suddenly clenched with worry. Last night, he’d taken one extra precaution. Jake hurried across the room and slid on his knees to the edge of the bed. He reached under the frame and found his parents’ journals. He’d hidden them there for safekeeping.
He gathered the books, suddenly feeling like unseen eyes were spying on him, ears listening to him. He tucked the journals back into his jacket and patted them in place, feeling more secure again. He also shrugged his pack over one shoulder.
Once ready, he crossed to the door and opened it. His room was on the second level of the Balams’ home. The stairs to the common room were just down a short hall. He heard voices mumbling, too low to make out. He crossed to the top of the stairs when he heard one voice say a bit loudly, “Just go wake him, Mari!”