Riq was free now, but in too awkward of a position to do much. Dak could see him attempting to get into a sitting position, but the horse’s jouncing movement slammed him back onto his stomach. Dak kept struggling, avoiding the man’s punches and elbows, weaving and ducking his head in all directions. Squeezing as tightly as possible with his arms lassoed around the soldier’s chest, Dak picked up his flailing feet and settled their soles against the side of the horse. Then he jerked backward with his arms and kicked out with his feet.

  It worked.

  He and the soldier tumbled off of the horse and slammed into the ground.

  Riq scrambled, twisting this way and that until he could finally get in a position to throw himself into the seat of the now-empty saddle. Filled with dread at what might’ve happened or would happen to Dak, he grabbed the reins and pulled back, too much too fast. The horse reared up on its back legs, kicking its front ones, and Riq toppled off as well, landing with a graceless thump onto the ground.

  But then he was on his feet. Running. He saw Dak and the soldier who’d kidnapped him each struggling to gain the upper hand. Even as he looked, Riq saw the man climb on top, pinning Dak down with his legs.

  “No!” Riq shouted, running harder.

  The soldier pulled a dagger out of some hidden pocket, lifted it toward the sky, ready to drive it down and end Dak’s life. Riq was too far away. His throat almost ripped from the scream that burst out of his lungs. The man’s arms swung with a mighty force toward Dak’s chest.

  There was a blur of movement, a flash of brown, an inhuman squeal of rage.

  Like magic, from nowhere, Sera and her horse jumped out of the nearby fray, leaping through the air. The animal’s front hooves crashed into the soldier on top of Dak, throwing him violently off and sending the dagger in a flying spin until it landed with a thud in a patch of flattened grass. The soldier lay still to the side of Dak, dazed or dead, Riq didn’t care.

  He picked up his friend, finding strength from somewhere deep, and threw him onto the horse behind Sera. Then he himself used a stirrup to join them, leaping onto the horse’s back, reaching forward to squeeze both Sera and Dak in one big hug.

  “Go!” he yelled, and they went.

  30

  The King’s Right-Hand Man

  DAK REALIZED now that he knew almost nothing about war and its horrors. But there was one thing he’d come to understand, and it was hard-won wisdom: Rarely were there true winners in a battle — what with the lives lost, injuries sustained, and loved ones devastated. But he had a feeling that the armies of Alexander would cross the world and do good things in the long run, despite the losses and heartache. And, at least for one day, they’d taken a successful step and driven back the armies of Persia and their surprise invasion.

  Now he sat with his friends around a fire, its smoke floating up like a stream of ghosts to disappear out of a hole in the top of King Philip’s tent. The former hegemon, now dead. Alexander was king now, and he sat on a stool, staring at the flames, probably brooding about how much his life had changed in such a short time. He’d never wept for his father, but his face had shown it all, especially when he’d ridden back into camp atop his majestic horse, Bucephalus.

  As for Dak and his friends, they’d ridden fast and hard, finally finding a break in the battle — enough to get outside the main sea of soldiers and take the long way back to camp, where they’d finally been treated with the respect and care they deserved. Dak was exhausted, sapped of energy, and aching from a million cuts and bruises. Riq and Sera were no better by the looks of it. They’d hardly said a word since returning.

  But they’d won. As far as they could tell, they’d won.

  The Great Breaks had all been fixed.

  Dak was nervous about going back to the future. A small part of him dreaded it, worried that they’d pop into a nightmare of a world, on the brink of collapse and destruction. But most of him — all the good parts — knew they’d succeeded. How he could be so sure, he had no clue. But, deep down, he just knew it.

  Aristotle looked the worst out of all of them. The man stood up, his robes and hair filthy, his face marked with a dozen small wounds.

  “We must return to Corinth,” he said. “Olympias and Pausanius have been taken there, ready to be judged for their crimes against our former king. We have a long journey ourselves.” He raised a hand to stop Sera before she could even get the words out. “No, my child. My days using the Infinity Ring are over, I’m afraid. We’ll be traveling the old-fashioned way.”

  Dak liked the sound of that. He liked it a lot. A trip through Greece? Seeing the sights? His spirits lifted a thousand times. Plus, what was the rush getting back to their own day? They had all the time in the world. He snickered at his brilliant thought, something he’d been waiting a long time to think.

  “What do you think about your parents disappearing?” Alexander suddenly asked — the man rarely spoke, and when he did, he made you want to jump through hoops to give him a good answer. “Troubling, is it not?”

  Actually, it wasn’t. Sera had warned him that it would happen, which had given him an opportunity to say good-bye to his mom and dad before they’d ghosted out. Because they had been cut loose in the time stream without the Ring, it was the Great Breaks that had kept them stuck in the past, warping from one Break to another until only the Prime Break remained. And with that now fixed, the fabric of reality was able to heal itself. That meant anomalies like Dak’s parents were being sent back where they belonged.

  At least, that’s what Sera had said. Dak was too tired to doubt any of it.

  “I’m not worried,” he told Alexander, not wanting to start a discussion about the intricacies of time travel. “My mom and dad have always had their own way of doing things. We’ll . . . see them soon enough.”

  The new king nodded, surely thinking about how he’d just lost his own parents. But he was too focused on the huge task ahead of him to let anything daunt him for long. “I admire your spirit, boy. I liked you from the instant I saw you climb the statue of Plato. May the gods bless you all.” He stood up as if to leave — even though it was his own tent now — but Riq didn’t let him go.

  “Wait,” he said. “Alex — I mean, King . . . Lord hegemon . . .” He looked at Dak in desperation, not knowing how to address him.

  “Just call him Alexander,” Dak replied, loving every second of it.

  “Speak your mind,” the king ordered. “I’m weary and need to rest for the battles to come.”

  Riq straightened, his chest puffing out. “I’d like to join your army. Fight by your side.”

  Dak and Sera were on him in an instant, throwing out questions left and right. The world suddenly felt surreal and unstable again, as if the Breaks hadn’t been corrected after all. What could he possibly be talking about?

  “You guys, stop,” Riq said quietly. But something in his face silenced Dak completely, and he knew there’d be no changing his friend’s mind. Riq wasn’t going back with them. “Both of you knew this was coming. My future was altered, and I can’t go back.” He lowered his voice. “But I can have a future here, and I can make a difference. These people need my help. I think their intentions are good, but they obviously have a lot to learn about civility and treating other cultures with respect. I can do them a lot of good.”

  “But . . .” Dak started, and didn’t finish. His heart hurt. Sera’s face had melted into the saddest frown he’d ever seen. “But,” he repeated.

  “Trust me, okay?” Riq replied, reaching out to squeeze both Dak’s and Sera’s shoulders. “This is what I have to do.”

  “What about Kisa?” Sera asked. “You could go and be with her and the Maya.”

  Riq shook his head. “No. She has her own destiny. Mine is here. To help Alexander change the world. And hey, what’s the big deal? You have a time-travel device. You can come visit me anytime you want. Duh.” He smiled, then turned his gaze to the king. “Will you have me, hegemon?”

  Alexander, tired and worn out as he might be, looked every bit a king as he walked over and stood in front of Riq. “I’d be honored to have you by my side. I really would. And there you’ll be, always, to the four corners of the earth. But I’m giving you a new name, a . . . Greek name. You are a builder, a maker, and so I name you after Hephaestus, god of fire. From this day forward you’ll be known as Hephaestion. Be back here at dawn to plan our next move.” And with that, Alexander left, leaving his own tent to Riq and the others for their good-byes.

  Dak felt no shame as he hugged his two best friends in the world and bawled his eyes out.

  31

  Dinosaurs

  SERA LOOKED up, way up, and saw something that she surely never imagined she would: the long, long neck of an Apatosaurus. Its gigantic mouth munched and munched as it tore the leaves off of a tree.

  She wasn’t dreaming. This was real. And it had all been Aristotle’s idea.

  “Cool,” Dak whispered, staring above with his mouth hanging open like the cargo door of a giant airplane. “Cool.”

  Olympias — mother of Alexander the Third, wearer of amethysts, plotter of murders — sat upon a stone, her hands and feet bound by a material that the great philosopher said would dissolve within a few hours. Right next to her, Pausanius himself sat, tied up and brooding like a punished child. He was an ugly guy, and Sera was anxious to warp back to the time of Greece so she wouldn’t have see his traitorous face anymore.

  “How could you do this to us?” Olympias asked, as calm, cool, and collected as Sera had ever seen her. “How will you go throughout the rest of your lives, living with the guilt of leaving us here to be eaten by these monsters?”

  “Oh, stop your complaining,” Dak answered, finally pulling his gaze from the enormous beast that towered above them. “This region is dominated by herbivores, and there’s plenty of food and fresh water for you guys to live long happy years together. You deserve each other. Just be glad that Aristotle didn’t let them throw you in the dark dungeons, like the hegemon ordered. This is paradise.”

  Sera did feel a little guilty, but Dak made a great point. Alexander had felt so utterly betrayed by his own mother that he’d wanted the harshest of punishments. Olympias and Pausanius were actually getting off easy. Way easy. Most civilizations would’ve put them to death. In fact, Alexander intended to tell everyone that Pausanius, at least, had been killed. The new hegemon couldn’t afford to look weak.

  “Whatever helps you sleep at night,” Pausanius grumbled. “Just please explain why I saw doubles of you two while we were . . . journeying here.”

  Sera almost laughed. She’d inputted a wrong number when calculating the warp back to prehistoric times, and they’d appeared just as their doubles were leaving the stables to go back and stop Tilda from killing Alexander the first time. Thinking about it confused even her, so she couldn’t imagine what Olympias and her partner in crime thought about it.

  “It’ll give you something to ponder for the rest of your life,” Dak answered. “With the dinosaurs. I’m kind of jealous, to be honest. Seems like a cool place. And don’t worry, T. rexes don’t come around these parts.”

  “T. rexes?” Olympias asked, looking baffled.

  “Never mind.”

  “Come on,” Sera said, stepping beside Dak and holding out the Infinity Ring. “Let’s go say our final bye-bye to Aristotle.” They had two more trips to make. Back to Greece, then back to the modern day, where hopefully everything was hunky-dory. Then maybe they could spend a few months healing from the toll all that time traveling took on their bodies.

  Dak reached out and put his hand on the cool metal of the Ring, then he gave one last glance at the banished prisoners. “I hope you guys learned your lesson. And don’t be mad at us. It was Aristotle’s idea, and we just do what we’re told. He’s the boss of the Hystorians, you know.”

  Sera loved the expression of confusion that swept over the face of Olympias. She pushed the button and quantum physics took them back to Greece, far in the future and long ago, depending on how you looked at it. She just never knew how to think of such things anymore.

  “I don’t really know what to say,” Aristotle said as they sat on the balcony in the place they’d had their first deep discussion. Dak thought it seemed like thousands of years ago, which, in a way, was true. “We’ve been through so much in such a relatively short period of time. It’s hard to say good-bye to friends. Friendship is a single soul living in two bodies. Or, in our case, four. At least I’ll get to see Riq — I mean, Hephaestion — again, once the wars are over.”

  Dak nodded, not sure what to say himself. He was itching to get back to the modern day and make sure his parents were okay. And that the world wasn’t, you know, about to blow up into tiny pieces. Sera did the talking for them.

  “So, how are things going to work now?” she asked. “I know that talking about this stuff can drive you nuts, but since we corrected all the Breaks . . . then that means you don’t need to start the Hystorians. But if you never start the Hystorians, how will we know to go back and . . . Oh, never mind.”

  Dak was glad she stopped. His head was starting to hurt.

  Aristotle chuckled, a great sound coming out of the great man. He looked a million times better than he had right after the fighting.

  “Not to worry, Sera. I suspect these things are simpler than we make them out to be. Most people will have no memory of the former time line, though for you two they will remain linear recollections. In fact, including your Remnants, you will have memories of three distinct time lines, in whole or in part. ”

  Now Dak’s head really hurt. “Boulders in the river of time. That’s what I always say when I don’t have a clue what anyone’s talking about.”

  That earned another couple of laughs, especially from Sera.

  After a few moments, Aristotle grew serious. “Still, we know now that history is a special thing. And that it can be changed — but with dire consequences. I’m still going to form the Hystorians, and create a society that will last throughout the ages.” He paused, scratching that grand beard of his. Then he held up a finger in true philosopher form.

  “But this time things will be a little different,” the old man said. “Instead of putting our focus on changing history, we will now do everything in our power to protect it. That’s what we’ll do, my friends. We will protect history until our last, dying breaths.”

  Dak wanted to high-five the guy, right there on the spot. But instead he hugged him.

  Then came the good-byes, along with more tears.

  32

  The Final Remnant

  TO THE future they went.

  They warped to the Hystorian headquarters first. But . . . it wasn’t there. Instead, all they saw was a big field, lined with rows of corn.

  So they zapped themselves nearby to Sera’s house next. Half of her was terrified to discover what awaited her in this new world, and the other half could hardly stand the wait. Dak had to break into a run to keep up with her as they made their way through the neighborhood.

  “Things sure seem . . . normal,” Dak said, slightly out of breath.

  “Yeah. They do. And it’s weird about the Hystorians being gone.” But everything around them seemed brighter, the people happier, the colors and edges sharper. So far they hadn’t seen one sign of destruction or oppression.

  “I bet they still exist in some way,” Dak responded. “Maybe they’re a lot smaller now, without the SQ to fight. I don’t know. But it sure looks like we re-created a pretty good planet, if I do say so myself.”

  Sera slapped him on the back. “Say it all you want. By jove, I think we’ve done it.”

  Dak whacked her on the shoulder, though not as hard. “You know, funny that you say that. The phrase ‘by jove’ originated in . . .” He trailed off, his face showing that he’d just been kidding. Although she honestly missed his constant spewing of historical facts. She hoped he relearned everything quickly so he could get back to it.

  And then they were there. Her house. Where her uncle had raised her but she’d felt a thousand Remnants that her parents would arrive at any second.

  “They’re alive,” Dak said, standing by her just as he’d always done. “I know it.”

  She nodded, then let instinct take over. The next few minutes were like a dream, as if the Remnants of her past were slowly unfolding to her like a storybook.

  The front door was locked.

  They rang the doorbell. No one answered.

  They went around the back.

  Through the yard.

  Down the little dusty lane.

  A long, beautiful, dreamy walk.

  To the barn. That barn way behind the house.

  And the doors opened.

  And out they came.

  Her mom.

  Her dad.

  Smiling.

  Talking.

  Laughing.

  When they saw her, she bolted into a run, crossing the grassy distance faster than any horse ever could. They were shocked at her excitement when she hugged them fiercely, kissed them, laughed, and cried.

  “My goodness,” her mom said, pulling back and looking delightedly at her daughter. “What in the world has come over you?”

  “I just missed you is all,” Sera said. “I just missed you so much.”

  The day had been a total blur for Dak.

  Everything had changed, yet in some ways, it all felt the same, too. There was something perfect about it, and he felt happier than he had in a long time.

  After the incredible reunion between Sera and her parents — he was man enough to admit it, he’d gotten a bit choked up — they’d walked over to Dak’s house, where his own mom and dad were busy in the lab, working on twenty projects at once. It was a huge relief when he saw them alive and well. But what really made him happy was that they were doing what they loved — solving the world’s problems, one by one.