I See Fire | Wattys 2021/22 Shortlist | ✔

Chapter Twenty-Seven

It was remarkable how long a bed could stay comfy when what lay outside it was less appealing than the gross feeling of chronic immobility. Only Jem seemed determined not to let me stew in my own juices, and brought me food when the others ate. I relented at lunchtime, but when he came by again at supper, I feigned sleep until he left again. That night had me writhing in nightmares for the third or fourth time. They snuck up on me more often now, which I took as a sign of my own mind telling me to leave. It was probably a sign that I should get help, too, but I chose to ignore that part.

Jem was dogged. He brought me breakfast again the next day, this time leaving it beside me when I pretended to not be awake. When he was gone, I sat up and picked over the bowl, trying to settle the nauseating feeling left over from watching Fuego burn things all night again. One of the dreams had been about facing down the turkey. It would have been immensely gratifying had my magic not gone out of control midway through, slipping my grasp and making for Grillo Negro. I woke up—blessedly—before it reached the first tents.

Footsteps shuffled outside the door. With the bowl in my lap, I couldn't make my usual dive for the covers before Emma slipped in.

"Oh good, you're awake," she said, shutting the door and leaning against it. "Chal wants you to come with us."

I gave her a leery look. "Come where?"

"Outside. Xochi needs to find something for your seal, Xipe says he's out of tea, I want to keep looking for my calling, and Chal says you need to get out and get some air."

"Thanks, mom," I grumbled. Being in a functional household was incredibly reassuring sometimes, but there were other times I wished the god siblings did not remind me quite so much of my own family.

"And she said it's not optional," said Emma, quashing the protest I was mulling over. She glanced over her shoulder at the door, then lowered her voice. "If it makes you feel better, she kicked Tezcat out this morning, too. He and Quet went to go look for villages."

Knowing I wasn't alone in getting this treatment did make me feel better. I wasn't the only one who had spent the last day holed up in my room, but from the looks of it, the gods were used to dealing with that. "Fine." I set my bowl aside and dragged myself out from under the covers. "Out, then. I want to change."

Emma obliged. I winced and took my time stretching, finished my breakfast, then swapped my unwashed clothing for the clean set sitting beside my mattress. I hadn't put those there. The neatness of their folding pinned their presence on Jem.

When I finally emerged, I followed Xochi's voice and Emma's laughter to the couch room. There I found Xochi and Xipe head to head over an upended goblet on the small table. Xochi's butterfly perched on the vessel like a mediator failing at its job. Emma rolled on a nearby couch in tears of mirth, hugging her stomach.

Xochi was sitting on an unopened crate, surrounded by an array of orange, red, grey, black, and polychrome pottery from two other boxes. "That's not atole, that's alcohol," she said, stabbing her finger at a design on the pottery vessel between them. "Some drunk bastard went and carved their happy day on a new piece of earthenware, and their kid went and fired it. I don't care if they were legal drunken age; you have a pulque cup in your cacáhuatl collection."

Xipe had lost the argument, whatever it was. He put up his hands in surrender.

"Trust me, I know these things," said Xochi. She finally noticed me standing in the doorway, and grinned. "Hi Adriana! We're going through Xipe's pottery collection that he hasn't unpacked since we moved in here. Want to join?"

"We were not going through it," grumbled the golden god, though he was clearly enjoying this almost as much as his sister. "I was, and you chose to insert yourself into the process."