'In the reception room, I suppose.' After Teomitl had left, Neutemoc had been silent, not even venturing a word on the way back. And I… I couldn't afford to think of Teomitl, not now. I couldn't think of how I'd almost lost the Emperor's brother, because I hadn't been suspicious enough of who Ceyaxochitl was sending to me.
'How was your day?' I asked Mihmatini, to clear my thoughts.
She shrugged. 'I took care of the house, and of the children. They weren't very happy at being kept inside. But how else can I protect them? A good thing most of them are in calmecac. Can you imagine my keeping control over five shrieking children?'
I shook my head. 'Three is enough.' Mazatl and Necalli were both in the courtyard, helping, with the intent seriousness of children, to water the flowers.
Ollin had fallen asleep. Mihmatini laid him in his cradle, humming a lullaby. She'd make a good mother. If only Neutemoc would start seeking a husband for her. Unlikely, given his present state of mind.
'The wards?' I asked. For, after all, it was the only reason Neutemoc endured my presence.
Mihmatini smiled, bitterly. 'Come and see them,' she said.
The last light of the afternoon, golden, already fading towards evening, illuminated the buildings around the courtyard, throwing into sharp relief the painted frescoes of pyramid temples and starconstellations. The buildings should have blazed with the presence of magic; but almost nothing shone.
I ran a hand on the adobe: the magic pulsed weakly under my fingertips like the heartbeat of a dying man.
'They came back?' I asked. 'The creatures?'
Mihmatini stood a few paces from the wall, her arms crossed over her chest. 'I suppose so. The wards kept fading every time I looked, and that's not normal.'
I suppressed the curse that came to my lips. 'You should have–'
'Called for you? You can't spend your time guarding us,' Mihmatini said. 'You have to stop whoever is doing this, not exhaust yourself fighting pointless battles.' She'd inherited Father's pragmatism, although not Father's bleak moods, for which I was eternally thankful. 'Speaking of which, any progress?'
'No,' I said. The only thing I was sure of was that Chalchiutlicue was involved, somehow. It couldn't be directly: for She couldn't act in the Fifth World without an agent. But I still didn't see why the Jade Skirt would want to kill Eleuia or Neutemoc.
'Mm,' Mihmatini said. 'I'll rebuild the wards again.'
I sent to my temple for hummingbirds, birds sacred to Huitzilpochtli. It was with their blood that my sister rebuilt the wards, layer after layer. When she was finished, the house shone in my priest-senses like a small sun; and night was upon us.
'You should stay here tonight,' Mihmatini said.
'I don't think Neutemoc would appreciate it.'
'Neutemoc is going to appreciate waking up tomorrow morning, and finding his children and servants safe,' Mihmatini snapped. 'Honestly, you two are worse than calmecac students.'
'It's not that simple,' I started, unwilling to involve her in our quarrels.
Mihmatini snorted. 'It's always simple, Acatl. You're the only ones who can't see that.'
Neutemoc, forced by Mihmatini, accepted that I stand guard, but in the courtyard, nowhere near him.
I took an ornate reed mat from one of the spare rooms, and laid it under the shadow of the pine tree. Then I sat in the darkness, and watched Metzli the moon climb into the sky. The air was hot, humid; the rainy season wasn't far away.
Behind me, the house was silent, a far cry from the joyous place I remembered, the place of riches and warmth I'd envied Neutemoc so much. Once, I would have felt glad of my brother's downfall, but that was when both our parents had still been alive. Now… I didn't know what to think. He had ruined his own marriage – leading, ultimately, to Huei's impending death, and the destruction of the haven they'd both created for my nephews and nieces – and that I found hardest to forgive.
The wards Mihmatini had traced shone brightly in the night. But, as the moon rose higher and higher and the dampness of the night worked its way into my bones, I became aware of a scratching noise behind the walls: like claws, scrabbling at the adobe.
I rose, and laid my hand flat on the wall of the nearest building. Under my palm was the deep, familiar pulse of magic; but it was erratic, rising and fading to the rhythm of those scratching claws. And each time it faded, it rose a little weaker than before.
Mihmatini had been right: whatever was on the other side of that wall was depleting our wards.
I withdrew my hand, and unsheathed one of my obsidian knives. I knelt in the dirt of the courtyard and opened my veins, saying a prayer to Quetzalcoatl:
A darkness deeper than night swept across the courtyard, extinguishing the moon and the stars in the sky. The buildings around me slowly receded into indistinct shadows, leaving only my pulsing blood, shining on the ground.
The walls, too, became shadows interlaced with the network of our wards. Through those, I could see the creatures. They were, without a doubt, the same shapeless things that had attacked us on the previous day. This time, though, there weren't three, but at least ten of them.
Eyeless, mindless, they swarmed around Neutemoc's house, scooping up the essence of our wards with their claws. They made a small, huffing noise as they did so: something that could have been breathing, were it not obvious that they had no lungs.
In my time as a priest, I had seen many things – Haunting Mothers returned from their graves, beasts of shadows tearing out hearts, gods smiling as we shed our blood – but nothing, nothing was quite so eerie as these creatures' mindless insistence. I had no doubt that, in time, they'd whittle down our wards to nothing.
What were those things?
I knelt again and cut open my veins once more, to draw another quincunx, this time for an invocation to Mixcoatl, God of the Hunt:
