I came to with a snap, sharply aware of how close I'd come to yielding. The smell of churned mud – and a faint, faint one of rotten flesh – filled my nostrils.
Don't listen, Oyohuaca had said. They don't sing. Not unless they truly want you.
The ahuizotls, like any magical creatures, would be drawn to power: to my own magic, embedded within the obsidian knives in my belt.
Focus. I needed to focus. I closed my eyes and thought of the Wind of Knives, of the dry emptiness of Mictlan, and how it would fill my skin and bones.
The song receded, fading to an insinuating whisper.
I opened my eyes. We were in one of the last canals in the district of Moyotlan. Beyond the houses on the right lay the open expanse of Lake Texcoco. There was no place to hide. Water wouldn't stop the Wind of Knives. Where in the Fifth World had Huei gone?
"Turn right," I told Oyohuaca.
We squeezed through a small canal between darkened houses, and emerged from the maze of Tenochtitlan's waterways onto open water. On the left was the Tlacopan causeway, its broad stone path snaking into the distance; on the right were more Floating Gardens: rows of fields bearing the crops that fed the city.
"And now?" Oyohuaca asked.
The Wind of Knives wasn't far away. No, not far at all. On the nearby bank was the familiar glimmer of obsidian. He wasn't moving. Was He waiting for something? I couldn't see Huei anywhere.
I pointed to the bank. "Leave me here," I said.
The slave Oyohuaca didn't look reassured. In fact, as soon as I'd managed to disembark, she rowed away from the bank, and waited in the midst of the water, away from us.
The Wind of Knives didn't move. Mud squelched over my sandalled feet as I climbed the muddy rise – as cold, I imagined, as the touch of the ahuizotl would have been on my skin.
"Acatl," the Wind of Knives said when I came near him.
I tensed, one hand closing on the hilt of an obsidian knife.
He did not move. He watched something below, in the Floating Gardens: a flickering light on one of the islands. "No need," He said.
"You–" I started.
"She is out of my reach."
"I don't understand–"
"It is a simple thing," He said, without irony.
"You are justice," I said, slowly, not yet daring to believe that Huei was safe. "You cannot be swayed, or set aside."
"Not by you," the Wind of Knives said. "But there are higher powers than I. Goodbye, Acatl. We shall meet again." He was fading even as He spoke, the obsidian shards receding into the darkness until shadows extinguished their polished reflections.
"Wait!" I said. "You haven't told me–" He hadn't told me anything. But He was gone, or perhaps would not answer to me.
I could summon him again, but I didn't have any of the proper offerings at hand. It would take time: more time than walking down the rise, towards the light that He had been watching.
I signalled to the boat again. After a while, the slave Oyohuaca rowed back. No doubt she had ascertained that the Wind of Knives was truly gone before she would approach again. She was a cautious girl.
"Can you row me to that Floating Garden?" I asked.
Oyohuaca spoke as I painstakingly climbed into the boat. "It's not a Floating Garden," she said.
But… "Then what is it?"
"A temple," Oyohuaca said, picking up her oars again. "To Chalchiutlicue, Our Lady of Lakes and Streams. It's where they host the sacrifices for Her festivals."
The flickering light turned out to be a torch, held by a priestess who kept watch over the temple complex.
It was a simple affair: a long building of adobe, firmly set onto a terrace of stone. Part of it appeared to be a calmecac for hosting the priestesses and the students; and another part of it – the part that hummed with a coiled power I could feel – had to be the shrine to the goddess.
There are higher powers than I, the Wind of Knives had said. It must have taken quick thinking on Huei's part to see that here, under the gaze of the goddess, was a place the Wind couldn't enter, and to reach it in time.
The priestess of Chalchiutlicue raised the torch when I approached. Her severe gaze swept up and down, taking in the whole of who I was. For the second time that night, I found myself wishing I had dressed better. Neutemoc's slaves and Mihmatini had done their best, but maguey-soaked bandages were nothing like the full regalia of a High Priest.
"Yes?" the priestess asked.
"I'm looking for my brother's wife," I said.
Her face shut, as if a veil had been drawn across it. "At this time of the night, the temple is closed to visitors."
"I don't think you understand," I said, slowly, although I suspected she did. "She isn't a student. She came here, about half an hour ago at most."
Her eyes didn't move. "No one came."
A lie. But I wouldn't disconcert her that easily.
"I am Acatl, High Priest for the Dead, and I speak for my temple and my clergy. Do you think it wise to stand against me?" I closed my good hand on the strongest obsidian knife, letting the emptiness of Mictlan well up to fill me.
Her face remained expressionless, though she had to see the power coursing to me. "I will talk to the Fire Priest. Wait here."
I did so. A breeze had risen over the lake, cold on my exposed skin. The mist would not dissipate. Was it just my fancy, or was something swimming in the water, near the bottom of the rise?
Two lights surfaced, briefly: yellow eyes, I realised with a shock. They were watching me with undisguised malice. The ahuizotl. It hadn't been there while Teomitl and I were on the lake, although Teomitl's warding magic might have kept it away. But it was the first time a water-beast had ever swum after me. Why wouldn't it go away?
I was wounded, smelling of blood, and reeking of the underworld magic I had been consorting with all night. To any magical creature, I would be a beacon.
But there was still something about it that made me uneasy. The ahuizotls belonged to Chalchiutlicue, and surely it was more than a coincidence that Huei had summoned them, and then found refuge in a temple to the goddess?
"Acatl-tzin," someone said.
Startled, I turned around. The priestess had come back with a man: a priest of far higher rank, judging by his diadem of heron feathers and the drops of melted rubber that darkened his face.
"I am Eliztac, Fire Priest of this modest temple. I'm told that you seek someone." He exuded the same coiled power as the walls of his temple: a rippling light that seemed to be an extension of the starlight over the lake.
"My brother's wife, Huei," I said, giving him a brief description. Although, by the gleam in his eyes, he had no need of it.
"I see," Eliztac said, but ventured no comment.
"Understand this," I said, exasperated by yet another delay – by the knowledge that Huei was alive, so close to me – and yet out of my reach. "I know she came here, and I know she hasn't left. We can talk all night, or you can save some time and admit to having seen her."
Eliztac pursed his lips, thoughtfully.
"She has transgressed against Mictlan," I added, for good measure.
His gaze was disturbingly shrewd. "But is no longer, I think, your rightful prey."
"Why would you prevent me from entering?" I asked. I tightened my grip on the obsidian knife. The emptiness rising in my chest was almost comforting, a shield against all I couldn't face.
He sighed. "You're right. It's late. Let's not dance around each other like warriors on the gladiator stone. The person you want did come here – but you cannot see her."
"I still don't see–"
Eliztac raised a hand. "She has given herself to the goddess."
There could only be one meaning for this. But I still had to ask, to be sure. I might have misunderstood. "As a sacrifice?"
Eliztac nodded. "She is Chalchiutlicue's now. She's removed herself from the Fifth World. Neither you nor anyone else has a claim on her."
"When?" I asked plainly.
"When the proper stars are aligned and the proper omens have happened," Eliztac said. "It will take time. One, two years? Only the goddess knows."
One, two years. Huei still had time. But, as she learnt the dance, and the proper rituals for the sacrifice, she would never forget what was to come: the knowledge of her death would mingle with every moment she spent in the temple.
The Southern Hummingbird cut her down! How could she…? But, of course, once she had summoned the beast of shadows, she wouldn't have had a choice, not any more.
"I have to speak to her," I said.
Eliztac shook his head, forcefully. The heron feathers swayed to and fro, like white flags in the darkness. "She no longer belongs in this world."
"There are some things I need to know…"
"She fled from you," Eliztac said. "What makes you think she would talk to you?"
I said, "She's still family." In spite of everything, she was still the gangly girl my brother had brought home, all those years ago: the one who'd smile and shake her head whenever Neutemoc and I tried to make her take sides. The one who would die, drowned by the priests in order to bring the Jade Skirt's favour to the Empire.
Eliztac looked away from me, for a moment. "If you were her husband, it would be a different matter. But as it is, I can't allow it."
"Please," I said.
But he shook his head. "Forget her, Acatl-tzin. The goddess will take her as Her own, and lead her into the Blessed Land of the Drowned."
It was, I supposed, preferable to what would happen to Huei if the Wind of Knives took her. Lord Death dealt harshly with those who sought to use His powers.
I could have begged and pleaded with Eliztac, but it would only have demeaned me. He had made his decision, and I would gain nothing by attempting to make him go back on it.
Entering the temple without his permission was tantamount to suicide: in my present state, I didn't have the power to hide myself from Chalchiutlicue's magic, and I didn't want to know the fate the temple reserved to trespassers.
"Thank you," I said, and walked back to Oyohuaca's boat.
The ahuizotl watched me from the water, a dark, lean shape whispering its seducing song. It followed us all the way home.
Neutemoc's house was bathed in the grey light before dawn; and the slaves were already getting up to grind the maize flour. I found my sister, Mihmatini, in the reception room, playing patolli with one of the slaves. She was sitting on a reed mat, listlessly throwing the white bean dice on the board and picking them up again, but clearly making no effort to focus on the moves of her pebbles.
Mihmatini looked up when I entered. "Acatl!" Her gaze moved beyond me, focusing on Oyohuaca, who was waiting respectfully by the entrance.
"You didn't find her then," she said. Her disappointment was palpable.
I wondered what I could tell her. But if I started lying to my own sister, I had fallen very low indeed. "She's in Chalchiutlicue's temple."
Mihmatini frowned. She gestured for the slave to get out. He picked up the patolli board, dice and pebbles as he exited. "And you can't arrest her?" she asked.
I saw the instant the inescapable conclusion dawned in her mind. Her face, for a bare moment, froze into an expressionless mask. "Acatl," she whispered. "Please tell me she didn't–"
I couldn't lie to her. "I'm sorry. It was the only way she'd be safe."
"Safe for a month or so, until they drown her?"
I sat on the mat where her patolli partner had been, facing her. "The priests said a year or two. But yes. They'll drown her in the lake." I tried to tell it as simply, as emotionlessly as I could, but I couldn't quite hide the turmoil inside me. In just a handful of days, my comfortable world had shattered. But I, at least, was alive: not in a cage like Neutemoc, not awaiting death like Huei. "They won't let me see her," I said.
Mihmatini closed her eyes and bent her head backwards, in a gesture eerily reminiscent of Father when I'd displeased him. "I don't understand why she summoned the beast," she said.
"Do you think I do?"
She snorted. "You're the investigator."
"A poor kind of investigator," I said. "It seems I can't even get hold of my suspects."
Mihmatini said nothing for a while. Her eyes were on the empty place between both our mats, and her thoughts obviously further away. Finally, she said, "What about Neutemoc?"
What about him indeed. I'd been pondering the matter on the way home, and had some ideas, but nothing definite. "The judges will hear him today. Huei would have proved his innocence," I said.
"Chalchiutlicue's temple won't even let Imperial Investigators in?" Mihmatini asked. But she knew, as I did, that the investigators could drag the priests and priestesses out and do with them as they pleased, but that someone destined for sacrifice had already removed themselves from the flow of our lives.
I asked her, carefully, "Will you bear witness for me?"
"For Neutemoc?" she asked.
"He's in an Imperial Audience, and I need evidence to get him freed."
"I'm his sister," she pointed out. "They won't believe me."
"The slaves will support you," I said.
"A slave's testimony–"
"Is receivable before the courts, unless the rules have changed." Any man could become a slave; any one could fall so low they had no choice but to sell their freedom.
Mihmatini puffed her cheeks, thoughtfully. "But the rules have changed, haven't they? No one gets so quickly moved to an Imperial Audience."
"There are complications," I admitted. "Political matters."
Mihmatini snorted. "Politics. That alone makes me glad I'm a woman."