The wind blew to me the smell of corn, and rotting leaves. Looking up, I saw a woman in the doorway.

She wore a cloak as dark as night, the hood thrown back to reveal a face that had nothing human. Her face had skin, but it was sallow, stretched so thin over bones that I could see the skull beneath it. Her hands had long, slender fingers tapering a point, like claws. And the eyes... the eyes were the worse. Because they were still human, filled with a hunger so intense I recoiled.

She was not the sorcerer I had been expecting. She was not even a human.

She was a Haunting Mother.

That was not possible. Haunting Mothers, those who had died in childbirth, hated children. They did not play games or cast slow spells. They merely slaughtered those children they could reach.

"Priest," the Haunting Mother whispered. "Let me pass."

"No," I said. "I stand against you, Mother. You can't kill him."

She prowled around the edges of my wards, trying to see the weaknesses in them. "Fool," she hissed. "I'm not here to kill him. Let me pass."

"Then what do you want with him?" I asked.

Her mouth stretched in a sickening smile, a bitter, angry expression that had nothing of joy. "I'll take him with me."

"He's not yours," I whispered.

She threw back her head, and laughed. "Of course he's mine."

A soft patter of feet made me turn around: the child Chimalli had risen from his reed mat, and was going towards the doorway, a wide smile of joy on his face. Bile rose in my throat; I watched as he walked along the edge of the wards, desperately trying to find a way beyond them. But the wards still held.

I turned my attention to the more pressing danger: the Haunting Mother. "You can have no child," I said.

"Not any more," she hissed, lunging at me, claws extended to tear my heart out. My wards shook, but did not yield. "He's mine, priest. Do you think I'd say this lightly?"

"You are dead," I said. "Nothing is yours any more."

"I gave my life to bring him into the world," the Haunting Mother said. "I bled on the reed mat, and bled, until there was no blood left, but he lived. I won. Let me have him."

My heart missed a beat. "He's Xoco's child, and Yaotl's."

She laughed again. "Yaotl's, yes. But Xoco's barren. How they thought they could dupe me, begetting a child on me, and thinking to take him as their own."

I rose, came closer to her, until I could see her eyes. "What were you, when you were alive?" I whispered.

"I was a slave in this house," she said. She made no move towards me now, but I was not fooled. The inhuman hunger still filled her eyes. "Chimalli's mine."

"He's not yours, Nenetl," a voice said.

I turned, and saw Xoco in the doorway. Her face was ice.

"Did you think death would stop me?" the Mother asked.

Xoco's eyes were expressionless. "I'd hoped so. But it seems sluts like you can't have the grace to die."

"You killed me. Don't you think I knew what the potion was, that you fed me? Don't you think I wouldn't understand that?" she hissed, and lunged, not at Chimalli, but at Xoco. I had guessed this, and had started running; I took her full weight on myself. Her hands carved grooves into the skin of my arms, and a searing pain filled my body.

"You shouldn't be here," I said, still trying to comprehend what had happened. "You were poisoned. You didn't die in childbirth."

"Fool," she said. I could not see anything but her gaze: blue, bloodshot eyes still filled with that intense hunger, the one she had kept her returning to Chimalli, night after night. "Her poison didn't kill me. But it was enough a enough to weaken me during the birth. And so she won."

"You have no place here," I repeated.

"Let me pass."

I held on, grimly, feeling my muscles on the verge of yieldling. Pain sang within me, demanding to be acknowledged, but I did not give in. "He's your child, but that doesn't mean you can take him into death."

"She killed me," the Mother hissed.

"I know," I said, still trying to come to terms with the enormity of what Xoco had done. "But do you truly think Chimalli can go where you are?"

"He's my child," she whispered. She was folding back on herself, almost sobbing. "They told him lies, that he was the son of a great warrior and of a noble lady. That both his parents were still alive. And he believes them. He'll grow up believing them. He knows nothing of me."