least I was in the shade, and they had even given me a few maize flatbreads.
The ground under my feet was slightly warm, impregnated with a magic I wasn't quite sure where to place, faint and distant, like the echo of something vast.
The first thing I tried after they'd drawn the entrance-curtain closed was to cast a spell. The remnants of that were still on the ground, my blood a duller shade than the earth, stubbornly refusing to quicken. It was as if something were blocking me – perhaps the other high priests? I hadn't imagined they had that much power.
With nothing much to do, I sat against the wall furthest from the entrance, watching the quincunx I'd drawn on the ground recede further into the shadows as the blood sank into the earth.
Everything seemed to grow fainter as time passed. Emptiness crawled across my limbs – a terrible sensation of dislocation like a maize stalk uprooted from the field. I tried moving my fingers, and it was as if my body no longer knew how to answer.
The flatbreads. Was that the same poison that had killed Ceyaxochitl? But no, I was a paranoid fool. Manatzpa had admitted to that, the only thing he had turned out to be responsible for, in the long string of magical offences that had brought me here.
But still…
Still, I felt as if I was rising in and out of consciousness – sleeping a restless sleep, waking up gasping and no longer quite sure of where I was, as if whatever they had put in here was eating at me, gnawing at my spirit little by little.
With faltering hands, I reached for my obsidian knife, hoping for the comfort of Lord Death's power arcing through me, the aching, stretched emptiness that was my province, but they had taken that away from me, too.
The Duality curse me, I needed to focus. I couldn't let it end like this, not with the star-demons the gods knew where, not with Teomitl still vulnerable against the intrigues of his brother. I needed to–
My hand fell back on the ground, limp, and somehow I couldn't muster the strength to lift it again. Shadows flickered at the edge of my vision, like the smoke of the She-Snake's ritual, slowly spreading to cover the world.
I needed to get up, I needed to…
Just one moment. A moment's rest, that was all that I needed, a moment with my eyes closed, thinking of nothing but the bare walls, a moment here on the earth, warmed up by its touch. I needed…
The entrance-curtain was drawn aside with a jarring sound. I knew that sound, I thought, but it seemed too far away to be recovered, too much of a struggle to retrieve; like lifting my hands, like clenching my fingers. Like…
Footsteps echoed on the beaten earth, and a dark silhouette came to stand over me, its features moving in and out of focus in the shadows.
'Well, aren't you a sight. Pathetic, Acatl.'
Acamapichtli? I'd expected Quenami with more accusations, or promises of what punishments Tizoc-tzin would push for; but why Acamapichtli? He hadn't even been in the palace recently. He was in disgrace, according to the She-Snake. Why?
Dimly, as if from a great distance, I saw him bend over me. Something glinted in the darkness, coming to rest by my side and gradually, as the fog across my vision lifted, I made out its shape – a polished jaguar fang, carved with images of seashells and frogs, shimmering with the blue-green magic of Tlaloc the Storm Lord. A slim piece of paper wrapped around it, steeped in a dark, pulsing colour I knew all too well – fresh blood.
Acamapichtli had withdrawn, was once more towering above me. 'I inscribed this with the blood of a human sacrifice before coming here. It won't last. But at least we'll have a more coherent conversation.'
I struggled to bring my mind back from the boundaries of the Fifth World, where it seemed to have fled. 'I don't understand–'
'You're a fool,' Acamapichtli said. 'That's all there is to say.' He did not move, watching me pull myself into a more upright position. Saliva had run down my chin, staining my cloak and I tasted blood in my mouth. I must have bitten my tongue as I sank into oblivion.
'Tlaloc,' I said. My thoughts seemed to be a hundred scattered shards, the pieces of a broken mirror. 'Lord Death. I–' I had been stretched out, as thin as though I was deprived of sustenance – dying, perhaps? If they left me longer in here, I would come out a drooling idiot. 'What is this place?'
'Finally.' In the dim light, I guessed more than saw his smile, as predatory as that of his god. 'No longer the Fifth World, Acatl.'
A god's world. A land where both my magic, which came from Lord Death, and that of Acamapichtli, which came from the Storm Lord, were uninvited guests. 'The Southern Hummingbird,' I said. 'This is land consecrated to Him.'
'Not quite. It's His land, Acatl, a portal into a small part of His heartland. Whatever you've done, they want to make sure you remain silent, badly enough to spend so much power on your prison.'
The heartland. The seven caves. Aztlan, the White Place where we had all come from, the centre of Huitzilpochtli's power. 'I have done nothing,' I said, still struggling to reorder my thoughts. 'Yet.' Too late, I remembered the snatches I'd heard in Tizoc-tzin's rooms, about removing the opposition. I should have thought a little more on who they'd consider against them.
Acamapichtli smiled again. 'That's why they want you in here.'
'And I suppose…' I paused, gathering my thoughts. 'I suppose you're with them?' I could see no other reason for him to be back at Court so soon.
'Don't be a fool.' He snorted.
'You came back…'
He shrugged, a thoughtless, arrogant gesture. 'I needed some time to make myself forgotten, but it seems
