I See Fire | Wattys 2021/22 Shortlist | ✔

Chapter Fifty-Eight

I slept for most of the next two days. Emma insisted on camping out beside me, so my mother and father moved the tent to a quieter spot, then surrendered it to us and stayed with family for a while. Jem joined us whenever we were both awake, and sometimes when I wasn't. I woke up to find missed meals beside me more often than not. Being home only highlighted the fact that there was no Grifo here to steal them. With the fight now over, I worried about him fiercely.

The gods were also given their own tent, cobbled together from donations by most of the village. Jem brought me updates when he visited: news from an outside world that felt a hundred miles away. A couple of the gods were awake already. One was still in critical condition—no points for guessing who—but the doctors in the village were optimistic. Jem was among them. In truth, I think he was more worried about me.

I woke up on the third morning feeling like crap. I was more alert than I had been yet, but my stomach turned sideways when I pushed myself up. A juvenile headache squeezed the back of my skull and made my vision fuzzy as I blinked in the light.

Sunlight?

I managed to get to my feet without throwing up, and tottered out of the tent. I had to shield my eyes. The sky was as grey as always, but it was daytime for the first time in days. Who was the new sun god? One of the siblings here could not have stepped up so soon; they were barely recovering. Emma must have set Cihua to the task after all.

I let my eyes adjust, then lowered my hand to find the broad, low gods' tent only a stone's throw away. I approached it cautiously. Was I allowed here? Would any of them be up? I reached the end that faced the village and peeked around it. Quet was sitting cross-legged on the ground by the entrance flap, cradling a tea mug. He startled when I moved again, and his distant look broke into a smile. "You're up. Did you sleep well?"

"I should be asking you that."

"Too bad. I beat you to it."

I couldn't stifle a laugh. My stomach didn't appreciate it. Quet reached over and dragged a couple of sticks off a patch of ground for me, and I sat. I had to put my head down as my headache protested the motion. "I think I slept okay, but I don't feel great." That was fast becoming an understatement, but the god beside me looked worse. I could not, in good conscience, complain of sickness in front of someone who'd nearly been killed three days before, after seeing his siblings shot first. "How are the others?"

I don't think he meant to sigh. There was a long silence before he answered. "Most of us should be okay."

"No fading?"

"Not while we're here."

"How long are you staying?" I lifted my head, crossed my arms over my knees, and rested my chin on them. Gods, I'd forgotten how bright sunlight was.

"Until most of us are recovered. And until Tlalocan rebuilds itself. Tlaloc checked, and the house shook down in the earthquakes, but Ōmeteōtl knows, there are enough spells in those walls to last another century or two. It should put itself back together in a few weeks."

That was cool. I tried not to feel deflated at the rest of the news, but the prospect of parting ways with the gods in a few weeks hit me harder than I was expecting. I felt like I'd already known them forever—but at the same time, like we'd only just met. "And you'll be okay there? That far from the village?"

"Should be by then." He smiled again and lifted his mug, which I realized was not steaming despite the chilly late-winter air.

Matzin? Where had they gotten matzin?

Quet chuckled at my look. "Tlaloc stormed off to Mictlan as soon as he was up, and came back with enough to last us. I don't think I've ever seen him so angry. He claimed it was because of the curse, but I think he's realized he likes his 'annoying siblings' a lot more than he thought he did." He swirled the mug and took a sip. "Don't tell him I said that."