“More blood,” he said breathlessly. “Maybe that’s the only way to open it back up—”

Another arrow whizzed past his face. The feathers on the fletching slashed across his cheek, and a moment later, he heard the snap of rock as the arrow stuck fast in the broken rock wall. The hairs on the back of his neck raised and a shrill hum lingered in the air.

Zofia grabbed his hand. “Move!”

Enrique sprinted across the ground. Up ahead, Zofia fumbled at her necklace. Enrique dove forward, shoving her out of the way. Zofia fell to the ground, rolling onto her side just as an arrowhead stabbed into the dirt.

“Stop!” screamed Eva. “We just want to leave!”

In front of them, the old man moved out of the shadows and into the light. His eyes were milky with blindness. Deep gouges framed his sockets, and the raised scars looked purple and furious. This man had been made blind.

“We don’t mean any harm,” said Enrique, holding out his hands. “We were just following a lead from somewhere else—”

“Do not lie to me,” said the old man. “I’ve been waiting for you since you took my sister. You are not welcome in this sacred place. You think to use us. You think to play at God, but the worthy choose not to wield their touch.”

Zofia inhaled sharply, her hand frozen at her necklace.

“You speak Polish?”

“He’s speaking Russian,” said Eva, confused.

Enrique shook himself. To him, the man spoke his milk tongue of Tagalog, the language so familiar to him, he almost couldn’t recognize that his language was out of place here. The man froze, and the statues of the muses paused midstep. He swiveled toward Zofia’s direction, his eyes glassy.

“Girls,” said the man, his voice breaking. “Have they taken you too?”

He raised his head, his unseeing eyes fixed somewhere above Enrique’s head. “How many girls must you take before you realize that no matter how much blood you offer, you will never be able to see? If you cannot see, then you do not know where to use the instrument of the divine. And without that”—the old man laughed—“the will of God is safe.” The man pointed at his gouged-out eyes. “You cannot use me either. I made sure of it.”

Then he turned to Zofia and Eva. “I will save you, children. I will not let them take you.”

He flicked his ancient wrists. The statue to the left of Enrique lurched forward, casting a cold shadow across them. Enrique flinched back, but the statue never struck. Instead, it loomed behind them, its arms spread wide to block their way back to the Sleeping Palace. Dread iced over his veins.

“There’s been a misunderstanding—” he tried to say.

The old man flicked his wrist again. The eight remaining statues lifted their stone arms, and the three of them took off down the courtyard. Far ahead, cut off by the gauze of silken curtains, Enrique glimpsed the waters of a lake. He could make out the colorful tents and crowds flocking through a local bazaar.

“Help us!” he yelled.

No one glanced in their direction. It was as if they couldn’t see them. Enrique looked right and left, but solid brick walls flanked them. That made no sense. Where did the old man come from, then?

“It’s a dead end,” said Enrique.

He looked over his shoulder, then immediately regretted that choice. The muse statues moved quickly, their stone tunics slicing through the dirt. “They’re both Tezcats,” said Zofia, holding up one of her pendants. She touched a spot on the brick wall, and her hand disappeared up to her elbow. “This way!”

Zofia barreled through the wall, Eva and Enrique following after her. Enrique braced himself, turning his face to the side, but all that met him was a rush of cool air as they fell through the portal and onto the rich, silk rugs of a carpet merchant. His chin banged onto the rug, and he winced as his teeth caught his tongue and hot, coppery warmth flooded his mouth.

Through the silk flap of the merchant’s kiosk, Enrique glimpsed the curvature of the road he’d seen from the courtyard. The reflection of the bottle-green lake bounced off polished mirrors in the bazaar. That road must run through the whole of the bazaar, including the courtyard. All they had to do was follow the road, and they would arrive back at the portal to the Sleeping Palace.

Enrique turned his head. There, a merchant sat cross-legged amongst his wares, staring at them in shock. Above, delicate Turkish lanterns swayed gently, casting jewel-stained light all around them.

“This … this is a lovely rug?” said Enrique, patting the silk beneath him.

“Ne yapiyorsun burada?!” demanded the carpet merchant.

The merchant leapt to his feet, a sharp stick in his hand. Enrique clambered backwards, his arms flung out to block Eva and Zofia when the walls of the shop began to tremble and shake. A lantern broke loose, shattering glass across the silk, and the smell of wax and incense stamped the air.

“We need to—” started Eva, but a crashing sound drowned out her words as a stone hand the size of an armchair pummeled through the ceiling.

The man shrieked as the three of them darted out the entrance and into the mass of people. There, a different chaos enveloped them. In the bazaar, pyramids of cinnamon and nutmeg, golden saffron and matted heaps of hemp lined the outside of spice shops. Peddlers shook jars of star-shaped anise and dangled garlands of glossy red peppers. In the air, the sounds of the muezzin calling the faithful to prayer suffused the bazaar.

It was a moment of shining perfection—

Until the carpet merchant ran screaming out of his shop.

One of the muse statues tore straight through the tent. The crowd panicked, overturning piles of spices and salt as they ran.

“This way!” said Enrique. “It’s a circle—we can run back to the Tezcat!”

“Or we could hide,” said Eva, wincing as she gripped her leg.

Too late, Enrique remembered the slight limp in her gait. But then the muse statue’s head swiveled to them.

“Afraid not!” said Enrique.

The three of them dove into the streets, nearly tripping over tea-glass stands and knots of old men smoking their water pipes. The tops of tents flashed overhead. Behind them, Enrique could hear the groaning stone steps of the muse statues. He glanced back—there were only four. Their arms stretched out, blank eyes fixed on nothing. Around them, the bazaar had descended into chaos as storefronts started to break. Footfalls rang in his ears, but he kept his eyes on the patches he could see of the road. They just had to make it to the other side, he said to himself over and over.

A collapsed shop front loomed before them. Zofia threw one of her pendants at the pile of debris and wood, and it crackled, hissing into a wall of flames that would—hopefully—slow down the statues. The road curved once more, and Enrique’s heart nearly sagged with relief. It couldn’t be long now until they arrived back at the courtyard—

A soft cry pulled Enrique’s attention. He turned to see Eva struggling. A fractured beam had caught her dress, yanking it to the thigh. Under normal circumstances, Enrique would’ve immediately looked away, but the sight of Eva’s leg stopped him. Thick, raised scars mottled her skin. The muscles of her thigh looked shrunken.

“Don’t look at me,” she snarled. “Just go! Leave!”