I See Fire | Wattys 2021/22 Shortlist | ✔

Chapter Twenty-Five

Jem and Emma were both keen students. Chal seemed willing to keep this up for as long as they cared to, so I spent the rest of the afternoon in an accelerating spiral of boredom. I tested my revenge theory in every way I could, then in sheer desperation took to prodding each of the objects again, willing one to jump out at me so I could get this over with. Then I prodded everything around me: the stone walls, the rug, the plants, Jem's abandoned tea mug. I had no more luck than I did with the grass whisk.

If Chal could just put her effort into a second seal rather than this, wouldn't that get this over with so much faster? I could understand her motivation to train me if she thought I might try to activate my new powers without guidance, but I had no will to activate them at all. And even if they could activate themselves with the right calling, shouldn't a seal take care of that? I tried to remember what Chal had said on that topic when she first saw our tattoos, but the distraction of finding out I had magic muddled everything.

I finally abandoned the items in front of me and just watched Jem and Emma instead. The least I could do was learn what their magical mysteries were about. "Chal?"

She finished her exchange with Jem and came back to me.

"Where does magic come from?" I said. "Not the grounding... like, where does it come from in the first place?"

The goddess's eyes twinkled. "That's a question with a lot of answers."

Maybe if she saw me being a keen student about something, I could fend off the question of my own magic a little longer.

Chal reached out to touch a plant, which sparked beneath her fingertip. "Magic is everywhere. It's like a second kind of water, only one we can't touch; it cycles through the world, always gathered and dispersed again, always remembering what it last experienced. It's in life force, it's in belief, it's in the elements, it's in the earth. Most of us can only gather certain types—we have to match its wavelength, you could say. It's why we all end up with different powers. And we can only gather it in select ways. For us, that's our link to the beings we create. To humans. For a snake or a tree or a butterfly or the wind or the water, that channel is different. For some gods, it is too."

"Is Cihua...?"

"Yes, she's one of those. She's a goddess of powerful magic transactions: conception and childbirth. She can move magic back and forth between people, between people and gods, or between gods. It's how she helped Quet bring his people back. She can also gather nearly any wavelength that another god could, from that god themself, or from the world at large, given enough time."

Okay, that was actually interesting. It also finally explained what Emma might be able to do. She wasn't Cihua, but with a bit of the same power, she could probably gather at least one other wavelength for her own use. The spellcasting earth magic, whatever it was from.

"Is that why she's so powerful?"

"Partly. She has a limit on what she can keep for herself, though it's very high." Also like Emma. "But if she gives away what she can't keep, she can pick who the recipient is. That's what makes her the most dangerous—and how she kept Coyol alive. She parasitized us until the Tlachinolli hit, then monopolized the flow that came with all the deaths it caused. All of that went to Coyol."

I'd disliked Cihua before, but this was something else. I pictured a giant leech, sucking dry anything it touched. "Could she kill you?"

Chal's nose crinkled in a way that reminded me forcibly of Emma. It took more work every day to ignore the fact that Emma and these gods were technically siblings. "Any god could. They'd just need a weapon and good reflexes. Cihua could hold us down until the leeching beat whatever sources we had, and we faded out. Or she and Coyol and Toto can just keep cutting off all the magic sources and achieve the same thing, like they've done thus far. Fading Isn't death, but until she either restores our sources or ends this world and makes a new one, faded gods won't reincarnate."

If the turkey-and-disease god hadn't invented Fuego himself, I would have laughed at the nickname the siblings gave him. None of them seemed to take him too seriously. I doubted he was strong without Cihua to back him.

I knew I was getting close to something sensitive, but I wasn't quite prepared for the question that left my mouth then. "Do you reincarnate if she actually kills you?"

Chal's expression glazed. Her hands twisted together until her knuckles paled. "No. When a god kills another god, it's over."

My fingers closed a little too tightly on the kindling I'd been picking at, and it spiked me. I set it down with the rest of the items. So that's what was at stake if the Centzon Huītznāuhtin found this house and completed their mission. "So... if Emma has some of Cihua's magic, is that how she got her other type? And how she gave some to Jem?"

"Most likely. Do they spend a lot of time together?"

I nodded. Jem and Emma had often spent entire afternoons finding and identifying plants back in Grillo Negro. Plants Emma somehow knew, but had never learned.

"Yours is just from the Tlachinolli," said Chal. "From when Itztia sealed it inside you. It's a frightening strain of magic, and could be as powerful as any of ours. You'll have to be careful with it."

I let the kindling slip to the floor as my visions of turkey incineration withered. Why did she want me to learn to use it, then? Couldn't we just seal it and be done? If this was going to take so much work, I was okay with never uncovering whatever magic I had. I could go find another village, or a town, even, and never think about magic again. I could send my parents a message to let them know where I was. I wasn't sure how yet, but I'd figure it out. Maybe I could send Grifo. I didn't want to be close to my family myself, just in case I was still contagious. Even after a second seal.

"Adriana? Is everything okay?"

I ran my hands down my face and let my shoulders slump. "It's fine. I'm just tired."

Chal caught my hand, and I jumped so violently, I sent detritus skidding. She held my uncurled fingers, exposing their shiny pads. "What was this?"

"I burned myself on a pan," I lied.

Chal's eyes fixed on me. "It's a magic-burn. This is from Fuego, Adriana."

Shit.

"What did you touch?" said the goddess. The intensity of her manner was accelerating my heartbeat in a way I didn't like at all. Jem and Emma were staring at us.

Emma glared. "You said you were going to tell her."

"What was this?" repeated Chal, and I could tell it took an effort to force the calm into her voice.

"Something in my bag."

"Get her bag," said Chal to Emma. The little traitor complied. Chal emptied my belongings onto the carpet and plucked the drawstring pouch from among them. She pried it open and upended it.

I closed my eyes as my Grillo Negro pendant landed with a thunk, deafening in the suddenly silent room.

"What?" Emma sounded confused. "You don't wear it? Why—"

Chal scooped the pendant from the carpet. "You're running away," she said.

I swallowed hard. If I lied again and she was reading something in the pendant, she would expose me. If I told the truth, I would lose my last chance to hide. So I stayed silent. I flinched when Chal spoke again.

"Adriana, there are negative groundings, too. Coyol has one. So does Cihua. You can't center your life on running away."