The earth shuddered and groaned. Lightning flashed, illuminating the Lost City and the surrounding jungle. It was all shifting, breaking apart. The terraces rose and fell and then rose again, and the hills and mountains in the distance rolled like tsunami waves in a hurricane, crashing down, swallowing the jungle.
All the Coreys and Rubys and Matts circled one another, weaving in and out of each other. They spread around the city, shifting with the time storm as they surrounded Captain Vincent. The rain lashed against their faces. The earth shifted and groaned, and the wind blew in powerful gusts, enough to pick up Blossom and the Vermillion and send them careening into the raging jungle. But Matt and the rest remained steady. They moved with the storm. They were the storm.
Captain Vincent turned all around. He didn’t seem to comprehend what was happening. The ground split beneath him, and he stumbled and fell to his knees.
“You wanted immortality,” Matt said. “You wanted the powers of eternity, to rule the world, but you misunderstood the true key to unlock those powers. Eternity is not a power that can be held by just one person. Eternity is holding on to someone. Eternity is family. Eternity is friends. It’s connection. It’s sacrifice. It’s love. We will go on forever, because we have each other. You are the weak one. Because you’re alone, and no matter what you do, you can’t rip us apart. We refuse to let go.”
Matt clasped hands with Corey and Ruby on either side of him, and they clasped hands with those next to them, and on and on. All the Matts, Coreys, and Rubys held on to each other, forming one giant triangle around Captain Vincent.
Matt felt a buzz run through him like an electric current. It rushed through every part of his body, every vein and cell, and it continued to Corey and Ruby on either side of him, and on and on.
The three of them weren’t just supposed to fix the lock. They were the lock. And in order to fix the lock, they needed to break time. They had to make one giant glitch.
The earth began to spin. Matt trembled as the current grew stronger. They were all shaking. Matt wasn’t sure how much longer he could hold on. He felt as though bolts of lightning were flashing through his body. But he knew they must not let go. Not yet. He doubled down. He squeezed Corey’s and Ruby’s hands.
“Don’t let go!” he shouted. “Hold on!”
Corey and Ruby squeezed him back. They held on as though they were melded together. The current running between them grew stronger, hotter. It burned inside his very bones, but Matt held on. His grip was ironclad. The world would fall apart before he let go.
And it did. The whole universe seemed to crack and implode on itself.
The sky ripped open, and stars fell from the heavens. They shot toward the Lost City in hot-blue streaks. But they weren’t stars, Matt realized. They were time tapestries. They came tumbling through the air, falling in gauzy, iridescent streams, and when they hit the earth they flashed and formed into people.
First came their parents, the young Belamie Bonnaire and Matthew Hudson.
“Oh!” Belamie said. “What’s happening?”
More time tapestries fell from the sky. There was Uncle Chuck, and Gaga, and Haha, still wounded and bleeding, but still alive.
Jia appeared, and Marta carrying a wriggling Santiago. Brocco, Wiley, and Albert came too. A time tapestry touched down on the high terrace of the city, and the Eiffel Tower bloomed into being. On the opposite terrace appeared the giant Ferris wheel from the Chicago World’s Fair. Someone hopped out of one of the rotating carriages. It was Annie Oakley, rifle in arms. She ran toward them.
“I’m coming, Captain!” she shouted.
Another time tapestry fell and Queen Elizabeth I of England appeared, wearing a golden gown, her red hair blazing in fiery waves all around her. She looked younger than when Matt had seen her.
“Elizabeth!” Belamie shouted.
“I warned you that man was no good,” she said, pointing her scepter at Vincent.
“I know!” Belamie said. “You were right all along! I should have listened to you!”
Another time tapestry touched down and another woman appeared. She was bundled in furs, a spear in hand. It was Tui, come back from the Ice Age.
“Rubbana!” Tui shouted. “I’m sorry, Rubbana! I shouldn’t have betrayed you! I was wrong. So wrong.”
More and more time tapestries fell, almost, it seemed, as many as there were stars. The Brooklyn Bridge appeared in the jungle beyond, an army marching across with shields and swords and spears. Next to the bridge appeared the golden Padmanabhaswamy Temple from India, and next to it a castle that looked straight out of a fairy tale. There was the Metropolitan Museum of Art. Napoleon Bonaparte stood on its steps with his legion of soldiers.
“Le château est à moi!” he shouted.
And the Kangxi emperor appeared in his golden robes. He was holding on to a telescope.
“Father!” Jia called as she ran to him. He held his hand out to her.
The Louvre appeared next to the Met, and then a painting flowed out of one of the time tapestries. The Mona Lisa. A small man appeared. He wore a white coat and had a thin dark mustache. The Italian thief Vincenzo Peruggia! He grabbed the Mona Lisa and shouted, “Per l’Italia!”
A herd of woolly mammoths came charging through the city, followed by a roaring T. rex.
Last to come was a kitchen sink. It fell from the sky right before Captain Vincent in the midst of the human triangle with a resounding crack. The faucet was miraculously running. The sink filled up and
