“How about a mini monkey?” she asked.
“Perfect.” I stepped back and pulled out my cellphone, then began to snap pictures of the monkey statue and the surrounding temple, keeping my ears perked for the sound of approaching footsteps. I’d brought this place back to a period when it should be abandoned—approximately 100 years after the last recorded habitation—but you just never knew.
Near the monkey, Nix set to work. This was her specialty. When we’d set up our shop, she had learned how to magically forge the artifacts Cass and I found so that we could put the originals back in their resting places. It kept our consciences clean and us on the right side of the law. Normally, she’d do it at the shop, but she’d been ready to get out from behind the desk.
Her magic swelled around her, the scent of flowers delicate on the air. She knelt and pressed her right hand to the monkey’s leg, then hovered her other hand over the ground. When she closed her eyes, the hum of magic grew.
Her left hand glowed. Beneath it, a small monkey statue began to materialize. A moment later, it appeared fully—a perfect replica.
“Now for the next step,” she murmured.
She bit her lip in concentration as magic flowed from the large monkey statue to Nix’s hand in the form of blue smoke. It hovered around her palm. Once she had gathered it all, she let it sit for a moment. She’d told me once that she infused it with a bit of her own magic to stabilize it a bit. Once the magic stopped shimmering and looked like simple blue smoke, she moved her hand to hover over the miniature replica and pushed it into the stone. Once it had disappeared into the replica, she picked it up and stood.
“Done!” She displayed the monkey. “The magic won’t last forever, but it’s stable enough that we should be able sell it and the buyer will have time to use it.”
“Good enough for me.” I spun in a circle, checking out the now intact temple. “And this place can now rest safe.”
With the dangerous magic now removed from the giant monkey statue, we’d changed a tiny bit of history. The magic would never blow up the monkey statue or the temple. We’d brought this place back from the dead.
“For a while at least.”
“Yeah.” Time would always win. This place would break down naturally as all ancient places did, but not anytime soon now that the monkey’s magic had been taken out of the equation.
Nix tucked the monkey into the pocket of her cargo pants and approached me. “You know, this wasn’t so hard. I don’t know why you and Cass always come back all bloodied and stuff.”
I groaned. “Jinx us, why don’t you?”
She laughed, the sound echoing in the massive chamber.
I knocked on my head for good measure and turned for the exit. We didn’t have any transportation charms, and like most magical cities, this one was protected against people just transporting in via magic. So the only way out was the same way we’d come in.
We hurried across the temple. The air in the temple was cool and the light dim. Stepping out into the sweltering brightness of the mid-day jungle was a shock to the senses. I blinked against the light, then gasped.
The courtyard all around us had returned from the past, just like the temple, and it was spectacular. I hadn’t realized my magic had traveled this far. The ground was paved in white limestone. Statues of animals and humans lined the walkway toward the moat.
“Nice,” Nix said.
Magic prickled on the air, and it wasn’t ours.
“Yeah.” My heart pounded. “You might want to conjure a weapon. I don’t know what kind of protective enchantments I brought back.”
“Oh, hell.” Her magic swelled slightly, and a moment later, a bow appeared in her hand. A quiver full of arrows materialized at her back. “You can’t just send this place back in time and get rid of whatever protective enchantments might try to get us?”
I shook my head. “Not now that we’ve taken the magic from the statue. We changed history. The temple compound was technically never destroyed because we took the magic that decayed and exploded.”
I eyed the statues warily as I stepped out of the temple.
The stone beneath my feet shot into the air, carrying me up with it. I stifled a scream. The statues weren’t the problem. The ground was.
“Jump!” Nix yelled.
I was at least eight feet in the air and rising. I leapt off, not wanting to find out how high this thing would take me. I stumbled when I hit the ground, going to my knees. Before I could rise, the stone I crouched on lifted into the air, taking me with it. I scrambled off. Every stone I walked on tried to carry me off, so I sprinted for it, leaping from stone to stone as they rose into the air.
“Come on!” I cried.
I could hear Nix behind me as we sprinted across the shifting ground. My breath heaved as I raced, my lungs burning. We’d made it halfway to the moat by the time the ground stopped moving. I skidded to a halt, panting.
“Oh, fates.” I panted, leaning over to prop my elbows on my knees.
Nix did the same.
Somewhere nearby, stone scraped against stone. I shot up in time to see a monkey statue come to life, rising up on two feet. It was easily ten feet tall.
“Now these things want to party?” I returned my sword to the ether, since it would do a fat lot of good against stone, and adopted my Phantom form.
The monkey clambered toward me, too fast for a thousand-pound statue, as far as I was concerned. I called upon my new ice power, letting the chill flow through me. When it had filled my limbs, making them heavy and cold, I threw out my hands and directed an icy blast at the ground in front of the monkey’s feet. Ice formed in front of him. When his massive foot hit the gleaming stuff, he slipped, crashing to his back.
“Nice!” Nix said.
Behind the monkey, a jaguar statue and a huge stone snake came to life. Their heads turned toward us, then they charged.
“Oh, hell,” I muttered. They were all enchanted, not just the monkey. “I don’t have enough power to defeat them all. We gotta run for it.”
“Yep!” Nix spun and sprinted toward the moat.
I followed, turning occasionally to shoot ice at the statues’ feet. They slipped and fell, but more kept coming. Another stone monkey darted out from my left side, swiping a massive paw through my Phantom form.
I shot ice at his feet and he slipped, crashing to the ground. When we reached the moat, we raced for the special stones.
“Which ones?!” Nix cried.
“To your left.”
She spotted the right one and leapt across. I followed, praying they still worked. My heart stayed lodged in my throat the entire time, but we made it to the other shore safely. When I turned to look back at the temple compound, all looked normal and quiet. The statues had returned to their proper places. My ice glittered in places, but that would melt soon.
“Whew.” Nix panted. “The spell died.”