green that came from Eleuia's room and exited the courtyard in a wide, loping arc.
I rose carefully and followed it. A minute resistance, like the crossing of a veil, slowed me down as I crossed my quincunx, but it was swiftly gone.
The nahual's trail traversed a handful of other courtyards. For the most part, they were deserted, though a few had girls making offerings of blood on the beaten earth. The trail grew fainter and fainter with every passing step, and that was not normal. Whoever had summoned the nahual had taken the precaution of covering their tracks.
In the last courtyard, the trail made a straight line upwards, the beginning of a leap over the outer wall of the calmecac; but halfway through, it completely faded. It seemed Priestess Eleuia wasn't within those walls any more, which only confirmed the results of Ceyaxochitl's search.
I stared at that wall for a while, but I couldn't find anything more than what I'd already seen.
The Southern Hummingbird curse me.
I hadn't actually expected to find the nahual – but at least to find something, anything that might prove Neutemoc innocent. Here I had nothing, not even a trail. Something about that wall was bothering me, though. But the more I sought to identify the problem, the more it eluded me.
I was about to turn away and leave, when a swish of cloth made me stop.
In the doorway of one of the rooms opening on the courtyard stood a young girl, no more than six or seven, barely of age to be educated in the calmecac. Her face was as pale as a fawn's hide. Her eyes, two pools of darkness in the dim light, turned, unwaveringly, towards me. She wasn't offering blood, or incense: she simply watched me.
'You should be in bed,' I said, slowly. I'd never been at ease with young children, having none of my own.
She shook her head.
'Are you supposed to be awake?'
She watched me for a while, and then she said, tentatively, as if afraid I'd berate her, 'Can't sleep.'
I sighed. 'I suppose all the noise we made in the calmecac woke you up?'
Again, she shook her head. 'I don't need sleep,' she said. 'Not a lot.'
Comprehension dawned. 'Oh.' I'd heard of sicknesses like hers, though they were unusual. 'You've been awake all night?'
She shrugged. 'Most of it. It's not so bad. It's calm, at night.'
'Except tonight,' I said, ruefully. I pointed at the room behind her. 'This is where you sleep?'
'Yes,' she said.
'Did you hear anything unusual?' I asked. 'I mean, before we came.'
She watched me, as unmoving as a deer before it flees. There was something in the liquid pools of her eyes: fear, worry?
'I won't tell anyone you were awake,' I said, forcing a smile I knew was unconvincing. 'It will be our secret.'
'The priestesses don't like it,' she said. 'They say I'm a disobedient girl.'
An intelligent thing to say to a six-year-old with sleeping troubles. 'For not sleeping? You can't help it.'
She clutched the doorjamb as if for comfort. 'Someone screamed,' she said. 'And a huge thing crossed the courtyard. I heard its breath.'
'But you didn't see it?'
'No,' she said. 'It sounded scary.'
I wished she'd been outside, close enough to see it. And then I realised that if she had indeed been outside, she would have died. What had I been thinking of? 'It
She didn't look impressed. I had to admit I probably didn't look very impressive. I'd never been as tall or as muscular as Neutemoc – no, I couldn't afford to think of Neutemoc now. I needed to focus on understanding the crime if I wanted to help him.
'Chicactic will protect me,' the girl said, proudly.
The name meant 'strong', but I couldn't see to whom it would refer, in a house of women and young girls. 'Your brother?' I asked.
She shook her head, closed her eyes, and frowned; and the ghostly shape of a jaguar coalesced into existence at her feet.
A nahual. A small, insubstantial one: it batted at me with its paws, as the jaguar's children will do, but its swipes went right through me, leaving only a faint coldness in my legs. For a brief, wild moment, I entertained the idea that this nahual could have carried off Eleuia, but I dismissed it as ridiculous. This animal was young, ghostly. With the Hunt-God's sight still upon me I could see the magic wrapped around the girl, and it wasn't the same one as in Eleuia's room. It was weaker, and not angry, simply tremendously self-focused.
'You're very strong,' I said, and my admiration wasn't feigned. It was impressive. Most people born on a Jaguar day would never even get this close to materialising their protective spirit. Only the Duality knew what this child was going to become as she grew older. 'I'm sure the priestesses are proud of you.'
She made a grimace. She didn't look as though she thought much of the priestesses. 'They tell me not to summon him.' The jaguar had come back to her, rubbing itself against her legs, purring contentedly. Impressive indeed. 'They don't like boastful people.'
'They're surprised, that's all,' I said. 'Most people can't do that.'
'No,' she said. And then, with more shrewdness I would have guessed for a child of her years, 'They're afraid. They think I'll take their place when I'm older.'
I'd hoped this calmecac was different from the others: a true place of retreat, and not a battlefield for those who would rise in the hierarchy. But it was everywhere the same. And, judging by the enmities surrounding Eleuia,
