“Is that your preferred cut?” I asked the cat. He didn’t respond, but I felt like maybe he smiled. Not that I believed he could speak English, but maybe he liked my tone.
“Another,” I said.
“‘Kay.” Her magic swelled, and she tossed another steak at the cat.
This one, he ate slower.
“I think he’s getting full,” I said.
“Good. I don’t want to burn through all my magic.” She eyed the cat’s fangs as they tore through the steak. “Although, it’s for a worthy cause.”
Once the jaguar had finished the third steak, it looked at us with a satisfied expression. At least, I assumed it was a satisfied expression. I thought its belly was looking a little fatter, and fates knew I was always satisfied when my belly was full.
I pointed to the pile of ruins on the other side, then looked at the jaguar. “Can you lead us there?”
The cat just stared, yellow gaze impassive.
“Can you take us across? There will be more steak.” I felt crazy for assuming the cat understood, but I’d always had an affinity for animals, and I had to try. Maybe I’d get dumb lucky.
The cat stood, then stalked over to the left about ten feet. Right near the dusty footprint.
“It understands!” Was I getting better at communicating with animals? I swore I could feel a connection with the big cat.
“I can’t believe this might work,” Nix said.
“Let’s try.”
We hopped back across the stones to the shore, then followed the jaguar across the path that he took. My heart was lodged in my throat the whole time, but eventually, we made it to the other shore.
“Oh, fates,” Nix said when she stepped onto solid ground. “I can’t believe that worked.”
“Me neither.”
The jaguar turned to us expectantly.
“But you’d better conjure another steak and pay up.”
“No kidding.” Nix did her thing and tossed a steak the jaguar’s way.
He leapt up and caught it in the air, then found himself a spot on a stone ledge and lounged with his prize in the sun, completely ignoring us.
My shoulders relaxed as I turned to face the temple. It was nothing but white rubble stacked in piles, destroyed long ago by the blast of decayed magic. There were a few short walls still standing, but not many. Flowers bloomed among the ruins, some kind of bright pink jungle blossom that I couldn’t identify.
“Shame it was destroyed.” Nix bent and picked up a hunk of stone that was carved like a monkey’s face.
“Not for long.” It was part of our new plan for our shop, Ancient Magic. To date, we only collected and sold magic from artifacts that were extremely decayed and about to blow.
But with my new power, why not try to collect magic from artifacts that had already self-destructed? All I had to do was bring the artifact back from the past. The bonus was that we could restore the temple to its former glory if we removed the destructive magic from the original artifact. With the magic gone, the artifact wouldn’t blow up and destroy the whole site. We’d bring back a piece of history. In a place as remote as this, no one would know who had done it.
Of course we wouldn’t bring the people back, since that was bound to be trouble. I wasn’t even sure what would happen if I tried to bring people back—it probably violated some kind of natural law.
“Let’s go.” I set off, weaving through the piles of rubble. “We need to find that giant monkey.”
According to the ancient treatise I’d read, this place was known as The City of the Monkey God, and a massive monkey statue had once held a place of honor in the temple. I’d bet my luckiest necklace that the monkey was the decayed artifact that had blown this place to bits after it had been abandoned.
“It’s pretty,” Nix said as we climbed over rubble covered in flowers.
Birds chirped in the distance, an ever-present jungle soundtrack. At one point, a monkey darted out and poked me.
“Haven’t seen people ever, I’d guess,” Nix said.
“Yeah.” I focused on my dragon sense, letting it tug me through the destroyed temple. It was a faint feeling, but strong enough to follow. A few minutes later, I stopped. “I think we’re here.”
“Yeah?” Nix looked around. “Looks the same as everything else.”
It did. Just piles of stone scattered here and there. “It was a doozy of an enchantment if it caused this much damage when it finally went boom.”
Nix stepped back. “I’ll just let you do your thing.”
“Thanks.”
The size of the place sent a niggling sense of doubt through me. Could I really bring back something this huge? And to the right time? The doubt was familiar, but I quashed it. I now had control of my magic. I could do this. It might not feel familiar to trust myself, but I was going to make it feel familiar.
Practice, practice, practice.
I sucked in a deep breath and closed my eyes, envisioning this place as it might have once been. I didn’t have a lot to go on. There had been no illustrations in my book, just a brief mention by a historian that an ancient culture had lived in a city deep in the Honduran jungle. They’d died out or abandoned the place around the turn of the first millennium. Sometime later, the magic in the monkey statue had decayed fully and exploded.
Magic thrummed beneath my skin, coalescing to form an orb of light in my mind. I used it to feel the history in this place and bring it back.
Sweat broke out on my skin as I pushed my magic, giving it everything. Though I had control of it now, it was still like a muscle, and I hadn’t worked out. Exhaustion trembled through my limbs as I worked, keeping ahold of my magic and molding it to my will.
“Whoa.” Nix’s quiet exclamation made me open my eyes.
The familiar blue glow spread out from me, reaching across the floor. Piles of rubble disassembled and rolled upward, forming walls. Stone animal heads that had broken off long ago returned to their rightful bodies. The place rebuilt itself, piece by piece, creating a massive room that was fit to worship any god.
My heart leapt. I’d done it!
In the center, a huge stone statue grew.
“The monkey,” Nix said.
I grinned as I let my magic flow, feeding the statue and bringing it back to life. The final result was over twenty feet tall, expertly carved and brimming with magic. In front of it, the air shimmered, roughly human shaped.
“Del!” Nix pointed to it.
Shoot. I pulled back on my magic, careful not to go too far. Last thing I wanted to do was bring back any living beings. The shimmer in the air faded, leaving just us and the monkey. Light streamed in from gaps in the wall near the ceiling, shedding light on the massive space.
Nix walked in a circle around the monkey. “This thing is bigger than I expected.”
“No kidding.”
“We’re going to have to change the procedure. Put the magic in something smaller.”
“Yeah. I’m not interested in trying to haul a replica of this guy out of here.” Normally, Nix took the magic from the original artifact and put it into an identical replica she’d conjured. This was not normal.