Manatzpa was looking at me, his gaze thoughtful, as if trying to work out something. "Is anything wrong?" I asked.
His lips thinned to a pale brown line against the dark skin of his face, as if he were angry, or amused. "Nothing is wrong, Acatl-tzin. I just have many things to do, as I have no doubt you have."
I inclined my head, inhaling the sharp, spicy smell of the maize porridge. "I have no doubt the council will be in a panic after what happened last night."
Manatzpa's face did not move. "Two deaths in so little time. Yes, that would be cause for concern." He gestured again towards the bowls. "You've barely eaten anything, Acatl-tzin. Please."
His eyes were too eager, too hungry. That was when I knew for sure that there was something in that porridge, something he wanted me to consume. My lips itched again, as if blood had just returned to numb flesh. Was that what had happened with Ceyaxochitl? "I've already told you," I said, very carefully. "I feel like my stomach has been overturned." I pointed to the bandages on my chest. "That tends to cut the appetite." It was hardly a lie. In the past few moments, the feeling of emptiness had seemed to increase a hundredfold – not like the coming of a star-demon, but as if the existing hole in the centre of the Fifth World had spread – had become a maw, sucking me into its depths.
"I see." Manatzpa's lips curled up again. He didn't believe a word of it. "But you need it, believe me." His voice was flat, his eyes as dull as quarried stone. "If necessary, I'll force it down your throat."
My heart missed a beat; I tried to convince myself I'd misheard, but I knew I hadn't. "Manatzpa."
He knew. The sensation of emptiness was increasing in my chest. A hollow grew in my stomach, as if dozens of lumps of ice were forming there.
Manatzpa's face had changed; contempt and hatred filled the emptiness of his eyes, but he had it under control again in a heartbeat, becoming once again the harmless, round-faced man I'd first met. That was more frightening than anything I'd seen that night. "Let's not dance around each other like warriors at the gladiatorial sacrifice, Acatl-tzin. You know I can't possibly let you walk out of this room alive."
There was nothing here I could use; my weapons had been stripped from me, and none were in evidence. He had me backed against a wall, sitting between me and the only exit. Even if I hadn't been wounded…
The sensation of emptiness was becoming as crippling as the wounds. If I didn't act now, I never would.
I reached out in a heartbeat, the side of my hand catching the bowls of warm porridge and sending them flying into his face. Then I was up, ignoring the weakness that knifed through me, and running towards the exit with agility I hadn't known I possessed.
From behind me came curses, and the tread of heavier feet. He was wounded too, but I was drained. He would catch me…
I ran, pain beating like sacrificial drums in my chest. I swung the entrance-curtain out of the way in a jangle of bells, plunged into the courtyard and towards what I hoped was the exit.
I didn't look back, but I knew he was getting closer.
Another room; another set of entrance-curtains; another courtyard. I wasn't going the right way.
"Acatl-tzin. This is pointless," Manatzpa said behind me. His voice quivered, on the edge of breathlessness. "You cannot hope to get out."
I didn't bother to answer, just tried to run faster. But he caught the hem of my cloak, sending me sprawling to the ground. "You fool."
He stood over me in the courtyard under the red, swollen gaze of the Fifth Sun. Obsidian glinted in his hand; a knife. "This is going to be much harder to explain…"
The emptiness in my chest flared to life, a huge fist punching through the confines of the Fifth World. The air around us rippled, the sunlight dimmed, and a cold wind blew through the courtyard, prickling our skins like shards of obsidian.
"What?" Manatzpa asked, the knife pausing in its descent.
I didn't spare time to think. I pulled myself upwards again, and half-crawled, half-ran towards the entrance-curtain. There were voices, close by, indistinct murmurs that sounded like a lament for the dead.
I burst out of Manatzpa's rooms into the courtyard, and all but crashed into Teomitl.
"Acatl-tzin?"
He wasn't alone. A group of guards accompanied him and, just next to him, were a priest of Patecatl, and my sister Mihmatini, pale and wan and looking as though she wanted to tear me to shreds for deliberately splitting my wounds open again. "Acatl!"
I struggled to speak, the air in my lungs like searing fire.
The entrance-curtain tinkled again and Manatzpa staggered out, still holding the knife. It took him a moment to understand what he was looking at; but then his lips curled into a bitter smile, and he threw the knife away. "I see," he said. "It was good game. A pity I lost."
Teomitl looked from me to Manatzpa, but he had never been a man to hesitate for long. "Arrest him." He half-turned towards me. "And there had better be some explanations."
Explanations. Yes. I looked up, at Tonatiuh the Fifth Sun, Whose light was once more bright and welcoming. But I was not fooled. The hole in the Fifth World had widened again; and it could only mean one thing.
The Guardian of the Sacred Precinct – Ceyaxochitl, agent of the Duality in the Fifth World, my friend and mentor – was dead.
There were explanations; or, at any rate, all those I could offer Teomitl, given my current knowledge. He all but carried me to his room, where he insisted I lie down.
"You need rest," Teomitl said, fiercely. "You shouldn't over-exert yourself."
"As if he'd do it," Mihmatini said, from where she was sitting, in the furthest corner of Teomitl's room. "My brother is one of those men who can kill themselves quite effectively by sheer exertion."
Teomitl raised a hand. "Not now." He turned back to me, his face hardened into stone. "I want to know what happened."
He listened to my increasingly confused explanations, his face growing darker as I spoke. "The Guardian is dead?"
"I'm not sure. You could send to the Duality House." But I was sure, and the emptiness in my chest, the tightness in my eyes, weren't only because of the hole in the Fifth World. Ceyaxochitl had loomed large over my life, and, much as I wanted not to believe that she had gone, I had seen enough people deny Lord Death's grip on their lives, and pay the price for their blindness. Death should be accepted, and the living should move on.
I knew this. But still, I couldn't keep my voice from shaking, couldn't stop the prickling in my eyes.
"And Manatzpa is the summoner?"
"Yes," I said. "And the man who killed Ceyaxochitl." But it made no sense. Manatzpa's life had been as much in danger as ours and he had seemed genuinely angry at Echichilli's death. And, to cap it all, he had not been able to cast out the star-demon. "I'm not sure, actually. Some things just don't fit."
"I see." Teomitl's gaze was dark and thoughtful. "I'll ask Tizoc if I can interrogate him, then."
"He's in Tizoc-tzin's hands?" I asked. If he'd been in any hands but Teomitl's, I'd have expected the She-Snake's.
"Those were his guards." Teomitl sounded genuinely surprised. "Do you think I have my own?"