Jasper paused a beat before responding. “Meaning what? It’s already destroyed?”

  “Not necessarily,” Ihra replied, “Wouldn’t this ‘goddess’ have been freed if the ritual site had been destroyed?”

  “Assuming she’s telling the truth,” Jasper agreed. “So, what, the site's buried under the rubble? Can we even reach it?”

  “Could be. The sinkhole collapsed,” Ihra squinted, trying to calculate in her head, “maybe a hundred and fifty feet down? This whole acropolis seems to have been dug out, so there may be tunnels below the sinkhole that survived.” She turned back to the sheaf of metal pages she’d been reading, examining it for further clues.

  “Here,” she said after a few minutes of silence. “It mentions three routes to the ritual site: a direct entrance from a temple built above it,”

  “Now collapsed in a sinkhole,” Jasper muttered.

  “A route from a location referred to as ‘Birat-S?ahor’ - that’s a fortress somewhere outside the city, if I’m reading the map right,” she added.

  “Guess that answers the question of whether or not there’s another way into the acropolis,” he pointed out. “What about the third entrance?”

  Ihra frowned, scrutinizing the map. “I think…yes,” she rotated the map and bobbed her head. “The third route is a tunnel from what they call the ‘Ekalla?li.’ I think we’ve already been here, Jasper. This is the building the council was meeting in, wasn't it?” she said, shoving the map into his hands.

  He glanced over the map, noting the building’s proximity to the forum, and passed it back to her. “I think so,” he agreed. “Was the building still standing in our own time?”

  “I didn’t notice one way or another” she admitted, “But most of the city was in good shape except for the sinkhole, so probably.”

  “Then I guess we know what we need to do. The only question is - how do we get back?” Jasper frowned, as the realization hit him that the goddess hadn’t told them how to return. “Maybe we just need to pray?”

  “Qaspu?l!”

  Jasper started as a booming voice filled the library, followed closely by the sound of thudding steps. A moment later a familiar face appeared and, though Qaspu?l’s mind was quick to supply him with the man’s name - Ame?l-Bele?t - it took Jasper a moment to remember why he knew him. Right - he was the council member who wanted to flee.

  “What are you doing down here, Qaspu?l?” The man paused as he noticed Ihra standing beside him, and he grunted in understanding. “Oh, finding some comfort in your final moments. No offense, Tahana?t,” he added hastily as Ihra’s face darkened. “But the council is waiting for your votes - unless you’ve already made a decision?”

  Jasper hesitated, uncertain how to reply, and the Fey took his hesitation as an invitation to press his case. “I know those cowards don’t believe we can break through, but there’s still hope. We have good reason to believe Birat-S?ahor is still inhabited, and the fortress is close to the cavern's exit. If we make it there and can combine forces, we have a real shot of breaking free. I’m sure there will be casualties,” Ame?l-Bele?t admitted, “but that’s better than all of us dying.”

  Why not? The goddess had made it clear that their actions couldn’t change anything, so rather than argue with the Fey, Jasper nodded his head in agreement. “Better to die fighting than by our own hand.”

  The Fey blinked with obvious surprise, but then a broad smile swept his face. “Ah, I knew you still had some fight left in you,” the man roared. “I’ll gather my followers and meet you at the temple of our lady.”

  “What about the council?” Jasper asked. “Shouldn’t we have a vote?”

  “Would be a waste of time,” the man grunted. “Even if you and Lady Tahana?t vote with me, that would be three against their four. Let the cowards kill themselves if they must. The sooner we leave the better our chances of success.”

  Jasper had no intention of meeting Ame?l-Bele?t at the temple; with any luck, as soon as he got rid of the man and had the chance to pray, they’d be back in their own time, so he went along with the plan. “Very well. I’ll gather what remains of my House and meet you at the temple.”

  With a final adieu, the captain of the western quarter rushed off to gather his followers, leaving the two of them behind.

  “Do we have everything we need?” Jasper whispered - just in case Ame?l-Bele?t had stuck around to eavesdrop.

  “I wanted to verify the ritual spot for myself,” she replied with a frown, “But we’ve already been here an hour or two. We can’t afford to stay any longer.”

  Jasper’s eyes fluttered shut and he reached out to the goddess. “Bele?t-Imtu, if you’re listening-”

  His thoughts went unfinished as he collapsed to the ground as waves of pain assaulted his senses. He flailed wildly, smashing the bookshelves around him to pieces with the Fey’s overpowered body, and then the blessed darkness came for him.

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  Sweat laced his brow as he rose to his feet, and looked grimly around the sacred chamber he’d just destroyed. “What am I doing here?”

  His confusion was magnified as he glanced down and found Lady Tahana?t at his feet, her dress shredded beyond repair by her thrashing. “Tahana?t? Are you alright?”

  Qaspu?l bent down to help her up but she brushed his hand aside. “Do you remember?”

  “Remember what?”

  “The two spirits that visited us.”

  “No, but then I never was as sensitive a mage as you,” he replied ruefully. “I take these spirits are why we're here?” As he spoke, he realized the last thing he remembered was sitting in the council. “What about the council? Did we decide to...?” He trailed off, reluctant to speak of their impending fate.

  Tahana?t rose shakily, clutching one of the ancient tuppu in her hands, and shook her head. “No, the spirits interrupted the vote, but they seemed to know the outcome. We voted for death, Qaspu?l.”

  He wasn’t surprised; while he had not been entirely unsympathetic to Ame?l-Bele?t’s pleas, he’d lost the desire to continue the day his daughter had become one of them. “Then so be it,” he said stonily. Yet, as the words left his lips, he was surprised to find a stirring of rebellion in his chest, a discordant note of hope in a symphony of doom.

  “No.” The clang of metal against stone filled the air as the priestess tossed the tablet she’d been holding aside. “The spirits promised Ame?l-Bele?t we’d help him.”

  “Why?” he frowned. “It’s a suicide mission to leave the acropolis.”

  “Weren’t we prepared to commit suicide,” she pointed out.

  “On our own terms,” he argued back, “We are choosing to end ourselves lest we become one of them.”

  “But what if that didn't happen?” A distant look filled the Tahana?t's eyes as she cocked her head to the side. “What if we can escape? Maybe Marat-As?nugallu sent the spirits to nudge us onto a path of salvation.”

  “The responsible thing to do is make sure this plague - and the madness - ends here,” Qaspu?l replied stiffly.

  “You may do what you want,” the priestess replied, giving him a sad smile, “But I shall honor the spirits’ word.”

  Despite the darkness that consumed his mind, a flutter passed through his stomach as Tahana?t brushed past him and his body turned, almost unconsciously, to watch her shapely ass as she climbed up the stairs.

  He felt ashamed at the instinct, embarrassed, even. The end of their world was upon them. Nearly all of Ilta?brit had either fled its fate or succumbed to the madness of the knockers. A cup of wine laced with kurs?iptu sap awaited him in his chambers, warming on the mantel beside the ashes of his daughter. Why should such pointless desires still plague him? And yet…

  The darkness dimmed as tendrils of hope wrapped around his heart. Was he really ready to give it all up? To surrender himself to the void’s cold embrace? He turned heel, sprinting up the stairs with a newfound urgency. “Tahana?t, wait!”

  “They’re coming to!” Jasper winced as he sat up, his shoulders protesting after spending hours pressed against the cold crystal floors of the temple.

  “What happened?” A pair of warm, soft arms wrapped around his neck and dragged him to his feet, a worried face thrust into his own. “You just collapsed and nothing we did could wake you.

  “We went back in time, that’s what happened,” Jasper grumbled, struggling halfheartedly to release himself from Tsia’s grip.

  “You what?” In her shock, she loosened her grasp enough for him to wiggle out of her arms.

  “The goddess sent us back to the city’s final days,” he explained shortly, before locking eyes with S?ams?a?dur.

  “Are they here?”

  “Nearly,” the prince replied with a grimace. “I don’t think they’ve reached the gates yet, but they can’t be far.”

  “That might not stop them anyway. We know there’s at least one other route off this acropolis, maybe more,” Jasper replied, thinking of the tunnel to Birat-S?ahor that Ihra had noted on the map.

  “Tell me you found what you were looking for,” the durgu growled, and Jasper nodded.

  “We found it,” though the prince’s face fell as he continued. “But it’s not here. We have to go back to the forum.”

  “Again?”

  Ignoring the prince’s muttering, Jasper turned his eyes back to the statue. The goddess had asked him to take it with them when they left the city, but he still didn’t see how that was possible. He also had no desire to backtrack to the temple for a third time. Belet-Imtu?

  The weak voice whispered in his ear again. “Do not worry about the statue,” she said, answering his unspoken question. “Deal with the ritual, and I will take care of the rest.”

  The thought of the horde coming from them overwhelmed his sense of curiosity and, turning away from the statue, Jasper clapped his hands. “Alright, we need to get moving, fast. We have a general sense of where to go, but we didn’t have time to visit the ritual site in person, so hopefully the route is still there. But first, we need to get back to the forum.”

  The group fell into place silently as Jasper cast Spectral Wings on himself and Ihra, and the three fliers each grabbed a passenger. Unhindered by the meandering streets or the fallen sinkhole, it took only a few minutes for them to backtrack to the forum, and as Jasper set down on the central podium, his eyes were glued to the Ekalla?li. He’d barely noticed the building the first time they'd passed it, but the city palace was a magnificent edifice. Roughly circular in shape, the slides sloped up gradually at first before sharpening into a thin spire that stretched a few hundred feet above the forum. But Jasper had little time to enjoy its beauty. Dropping Samsadur, he began jogging toward the building, his eyes searching for the entrance he’d remembered, until a hand wrapped around his shoulder.

  “Hey, does something look different to you?” Ihra asked

  “Huh?” He tore his gaze away from the building long enough to look back at the forum. “Uh…yeah.” His steps slowed as the realization took root. “Like half the crowd is missing, isn't it?”

  “That’s what I was afraid of,” Ihra replied worriedly. “You don’t think…”

  “Think what? No…” he rejected the idea immediately. “The goddess said we couldn’t change things.”

  “Did she?” Ihra questioned.

  Nothing you can do can change what happened here. As he thought about it, Jasper realized Bele?t-Imtu's words were open to interpretation. Maybe she had meant that they couldn’t make any changes to the past, but it was equally possible she had simply meant that the city’s fate was irreversible. “Damn it,” he sighed. “Why is nothing ever simple?”