I See Fire | Wattys 2021/22 Shortlist | ✔

Chapter Eleven

The revelation upturned everything I saw and only made it weirder when the golden god jumped up the moment we entered the room. He offered Emma his chair, though there were plenty to go around. "Sit, sit," he mumbled, then hastened towards a different doorway, whispering about refreshments.

The dark god rolled his eyes, his chair tipped back on two of its legs. "We're in Tlalocan, Xipe. You don't have to make it."

Xipe froze mid-step and returned sheepishly to the table. At a snap of his fingers, food appeared across it: sweet maize cakes and a frothy, rich-smelling drink that shimmered into pottery mugs for each of us. He waited for Jem, Emma and I to seat ourselves, then picked a different chair. I sent Jem my most surreptitious pleading look, but he didn't have any more idea what was going on than I did. We sank back in our chairs, both as tense as trap cords. Gods were two-faced. We had no idea if this friendliness was genuine, or how long it would last.

Xolotl made for a spot two seats down from me, but swayed and had to grip the chair-back.

The dark god's eyes sharpened. "Did they get you, too?"

"Help him," said the goddess.

The dark god had already darted around the table. He took Xolotl's arm and guided him down so he was sitting against the wall. "Shirt off."

Xolotl complied. Peppered across his chest and shoulders were nicks in his skin, angry red and bleeding slightly. He'd been hurt, too? Protecting us?

"I knew it," said the dark god. "Chimalli, come."

Not one but all three dogs were already on hand. Xolotl closed his eyes as they licked the wounds gently.

"Sometimes I wonder whether you and Quet are even related," grumbled the dark god, "and then this happens. You can look after yourself." In contrast to the statement, he had a hand on Xolotl's chest. The other god's breathing eased. Where the dogs had licked, the red around the nicks was fading. Gods' dogs.

"Good?" said the dark god at last. Xolotl nodded. "Alright. Go to bed."

Xolotl pulled on his shirt again, then got up shakily and excused himself with a tired nod. He vanished down a hallway off the entrance we had come through.

"Alright, business," said the beautiful goddess as the dark god returned to his seat beside her. "You two come from a village, yes?"

So this was what they wanted. I clenched my jaw, but Jem and I were alone in our wariness.

"We all do," said Emma, who had not been included in "you two." Her face was thunderous.

Emma, no!

"We'll pretend that for now. Did the Tlachinolli get you?"

My brain translated the foreign word to fire, then to Fuego, before I realized that all the gods spoke in a language that wasn't Spanish. And I could understand it. Nahuatl, my mind volunteered. The language of the Mexica. The Aztecas. My head spun slowly.

And then Jem decided to start talking, too. Maybe he guessed—correctly—that Emma was going to start spitting like a snake if she continued as our spokesperson.

"No, they're still safe," he said. "Or they were, the last time we saw them."

"When was that?"

"Twelve days ago?"

My hand found my knife handle as all three gods sat up in alarm. The dark one dropped his knee from the table's edge and let all his chair's legs hit the ground again. Emma's hand found mine and gripped it.