And waited.
Nothing happened.
“Try the watch,” Alana said like she’d just been holding her breath.
Ren closed her eyes, inhaled deeply, and pressed her wrist against Orion. The second the watch met the floor, that section shook, then opened with a wide, grinding yawn.
A bright light poured out, as if the moon itself was rising.
Louie jumped back. “What’s down there?”
I blinked and whispered, “I think we found K’iin.”
In a single blink, the iridescent walls around us flipped to reveal new ones made of intersecting mirror shards.
The piercing light coming up from the floor bounced off the shards and skewed our reflections, like fun-house mirrors that give you a giant football-shaped head or stunted elephant legs. Alana put her sunglasses on as we all stepped back and watched the beam dance around the room.
A woman’s soft voice echoed across the chamber. “Seekers.”
We all looked at each other like Who/what the heck?
“Yes. We are seeking K’iin,” Ren said with so much confidence I was kind of in awe.
“The calendar,” Alana added.
“I am very familiar with K’iin,” the voice said.
“Where is it?” Louie asked.
There was silence and then the voice said, “You are inside it.”
“You’re K’iin?” I practically shouted.
It was a big moment—I mean huge. We had been looking for a magical object that could see across time and dimensions. I’d been imagining a toy model of the calendar. But we were inside the artifact. Inside!
“Yes,” she said. “And I do not like trespassers.”
Itzamna’s voice dropped to a tiny whisper. “Take off the shades. Hurry.”
“Why are you whispering?” I asked quietly.
“Just do it!”
I figured the god had to have a good reason for wanting to hide, so I removed the shades as slyly as I could, hung them on my waistband, and covered them with the bottom of my T-shirt.
Ren blew out a long breath, standing taller. “It’s nice to meet you…er…We’re so glad to be here, and we’re not trespassers.”
“We kind of are,” Louie whispered.
>
“You were not invited,” the voice said. “Which makes you trespassers.”
My brain was on overload, and I felt a little woozy. I wiped my forehead, wishing I had Fuego to lean on. Then I took a couple of calming breaths like Hondo had taught me. They totally didn’t work, by the way.
“We’re here to ask a question,” I said, recalling what the earth spirit had told me. “Isn’t that how this works? If we stand before you…”
I didn’t get to finish my sentence before the mirrored walls rippled and the light dimmed a few watts. “I see who you are,” K’iin said. “Godborns on a mission. A futile mission to save what cannot be saved, to reverse a fate that was set eons ago.”