Yaotl glanced at the adobe walls, and finally shrugged. "Warded against what?" he asked.

"Against things that might be trying to kill us," I said.

Neutemoc was standing to the side, glowing with Mihmatini's protection, brooding like a jaguar over lost cubs. He wasn't talking to me, and he was avoiding Mihmatini, too. But then, we both were, after the verbal flaying she'd given us on the way there.

Yaotl looked again at the walls. "Protection. It's irregulara" he started.

"You care about irregularities now?"

He smiled. "Possibly. However, you come at a good time. Mistress Ceyaxochitl wanted to see you. I suppose we'll count all the others as your retinue."

"Ha," Neutemoc said.

"The sense of humour runs in your family, I see," Yaotl said, as Neutemoc's slaves all gathered in the first courtyard of the Duality House. Neutemoc found himself an isolated place, from which he could glare at me in peace.

"No," I said, "I can't say I ever had much of one." I gathered my priest-senses, and felt the solidity of the Duality wards, woven into the very foundations of the walls by generation after generation of Guardians. This was a safe place, the safest haven magic could devise. The surest prison, also. I could well imagine how Neutemoc would chafe within those walls.

Mihmatini was laying Mazatl on the ground, wrapping a blanket around him with the help of an old slave woman. Then she settled down, and started rocking Ollin against her chest, singing a soft lullaby.

"Come," Yaotl said. "They can get settled without your help."

Ceyaxochitl was waiting for me within the Duality shrine: a vast, open space at the top of the central pyramid, with a limestone altar, a carved piece of stone, as flat as the surface of a still lake. There were no grooves to collect the blood, either on the altar or on the platform; for the Duality only took bloodless sacrifices such as fruit or flowers.

"I wasn't expecting you so early," she said. She was leaning on her cane as if rooted to the ground. Her face, like Mihmatini's, was wan and tired. Above her, heavy clouds were gathering: the rains were coming, and would start soon, thank the Duality.

"He's not alone, either," Yaotl said, with some satisfaction.

Ceyaxochitl raised an eyebrow. "Not alone?"

"He's brought a whole household."

"Your brother's?" Ceyaxochitl asked, quick to see the point. "I take it the creatures are still there."

"Yes, and it's getting worse. Your wards are down."

Ceyaxochitl tapped her cane on the floor, thoughtfully. "They shouldn't be. I'll have to look into this. When I have priests to spare."

"Hum," I said. "I'd rather you focused on these." I handed her a bundle of cloth, containing the bones of Eleuia's baby.

Ceyaxochitl held it in the palm of one hand, and carefully started unwrapping it with the fingers of her other hand. "What is this?"

"Bones," I said. "The bones of Eleuia's child."

"Mm," she said, poking at them with one finger. "Odd bones, you mean."

"Yes," I said. "But I'm not sure if it's relevant."

Ceyaxochitl looked at them for a while. "They feel wrong. But I'm not sure why. I need to think."

She was exhausted, it was obvious: this promise was likely all I was going to get. But I could not force her, in any case. "Why did you want to talk to me?" On the way there, I'd entertained the notion that she'd found a way to kill the creatures a even that she'd have found the sorcerer, and that both Neutemoc and I could go our separate ways. But it didn't look to be the case.

Ceyaxochitl's face was grave. "I have news, Acatl."

Bad news, judging from her solemn voice. "The Emperor?" I asked. Though, if Axayacatl-tzin died and there was political upheaval, Ichtaca would deal with the consequences of that.

Then I remembered, with a twinge of unease, the conversation we'd had. I didn't need further conflict between us.

Ceyaxochitl was shaking her head. "Yaotl?" she asked. "Can you make sure we're alone?"

Now she was frightening me.

Yaotl came to stand near the top of the only stairs leading to where we were, his hand resting on the hilt of his macuahitl sword. Ceyaxochitl moved towards the altar a on which, I suddenly noticed, lay a piece of maguey paper.

She took it in her free hand before I could read it. "I haven't been idle while you were away."

"I didn't think you would," I said, finally. "Why all the secrecy?"

Ceyaxochitl handed me the piece of paper without another word.

There wasn't much to see: it was just a drawing in red ink, and another in black ink, superimposed upon it. Together, both sets of lines formed a stylised figure: an animal, suggested by its claws and the shape of its maw.

"I don't understand," I said.

Ceyaxochitl sighed. "The red pattern is the one Yaotl took from Eleuia's cheek."

"And the black?" I asked, a hollow deepening in my stomach. Missing lines. If you added the black lines to the red, you had a complete pattern.

Ceyaxochitl raised a hand. "Promise me you're not going to do something foolish about it," she said.

She was really, really worrying me. Was the overall symbol some Imperial seal? "I can't promise that until you tell me," I said.

She was silent, for a while. "It was badly smudged," she said. "Barely recognisable. But Yaotl has a good memory."

"And?" I hated that she was toying with me, holding her answer at arm's length.

She turned, to lay one hand on the altar, as if drawing strength from the stone. "It's a ring," she said. "A ring of engraved turquoise."

My stomach twisted. Turquoise was an Imperial colour. "Who wears that ring?" Tizoc-tzin? Or a and my heart missed a beat a Teomitl?

"Only one man," Ceyaxochitl said. "Quiyahuayo, Commander of the Jaguar Brotherhood."

Commander Quiyahuayo. I'd met him, was my first, incredulous thought. He hadn't sounded like... Like a sorcerer. Like a ruthless man, ready to sacrifice Neutemoc for the Duality knew what aim. Was I such a fool as not to recognise a sorcerer?

"That's not possible," I said. "Someone made a copy..."

Ceyaxochitl shook her head. "That would be going to a lot of trouble for not much. We had so much trouble tracing that ring, I don't think it was meant to mislead us."

"I don't understand," I said, stupidly. But I did. The Jaguar Knights were privileged warriors, heavily connected to the Imperial Family a especially their Commander. Ceyaxochitl was telling me that Quiyahuayo might be behind the abduction of Eleuia; but that I would have to tread carefully.

I thought of the bruises on Eleuia's skin; of how no part of her had been left undamaged; of how Quiyahuayo had left Neutemoc to rot in his cage for days; of how he'd induced Huei to betray her husband and put her own life in danger; of how, because of him, she was now condemned to death. A cold anger crystallised in my chest.

I crumpled the paper between my fingers. "Thank you," I said, and walked out before she could stop me.

Yaotl joined me as I reached the outer courtyard of the Duality House. "You're about to do something foolish," he said, flatly. For once, he didn't sound amused or ironic.

"Do you have any other solutions?"

"Mistress Ceyaxochitl can appeal to the Imperial Courtsa"

"That's not a solution," I said. "That's just delaying things."

"Sometimes, it's the best thing," Yaotl said. "Quiyahuayo has more influence than you believe."

"No," I said. I wasn't there to dally in politics. I wasn't there to be thrown left and right by events out of my control. I wanted justice.

Yaotl started to say something, but then met my gaze. He sighed: an unusual, uncharacteristic gesture. "It's your choice," he said. "Don't say we failed to warn you this time."

I shook my head. If my destiny was to rush in, like a fool, then so be it.

I was almost all the way to the doors of the Jaguar House when I realised someone had followed me. Neutemoc.

"You're not safe here," I snapped.

He stood, some paces away from me, stubbornly unmoving. "I heard you. It's my Brotherhood, Acatl. My commander. I think I deserve an explanation."

He still shone, faintly, with Mihmatini's spell: a soft light, barely visible to my priest-senses, which spilled on the beaten earth under us. The rising wind whipped at his cloak, giving him the air of an uncanny monster.

I looked at the bulk of the Jaguar House, throwing its shadow over us a at the guards at the entrance. For company, I could do worse than Neutemoc: he might hate me, but he'd guard my back, if only because I was family and because his brotherhood had betrayed him.

"Very well," I said, finally. "Come on."

He walked some paces away, which suited me. I had no desire to start a long conversation. When we reached the Jaguar House, though, I saw the faces of the guards darken.

"You shouldn't be here," the first guard said to Neutemoc.

A faint, dangerous smile stretched Neutemoc's lips. He spread his hands, palms up, as if to show he had no weapon. "I'm still a Jaguar Knight," he said. "And I'm entitled to be here."

The second guard growled. "You haven't set a foot in here since your arrest, and now you come back."

"It's the coming back that matters," Neutemoc said. He was hiding his anger, his sense of betrayal, very well, but I saw it in the slight tremor of his hands. "I want to see the commander."

The first guard laughed, his fingers tightening around the shellgrip of his spear. "As if he'd see you at this hour?"

Neutemoc's voice was slow, deadly. "Ask him," he said.

The second guard looked at Neutemoc, clearly trying to decide whether he was jesting.

"Ask him," Neutemoc said, "about Priestess Eleuia."

I had been carefully folding the crumpled maguey paper into a small square. By the guards' blank faces, they'd obviously not been involved in Eleuia's abduction. Time to pass a discreet message to Commander Quiyahuayo, then. There was no reason to drag the guards into the shame of Eleuia's murder.

"Tell him we found this on her body," I said, handing my folded paper to the first guard.

He wasn't long gone. When he came back, his face was set in a frown. "He'll see you," he said.

The Jaguar House was almost deserted at this early hour: a few Knights were playing patolli in one of the courtyards, and all the unmarried Knights were in their dormitories a some, by the noises wafting through the entrance-curtains, still engaged with various courtesans.

Neutemoc didn't speak until we were a long way in. "I'd hate to be trapped here," he said.

I shrugged. "You shouldn't have come, then." The dice were all Quiyahuayo's in this House, anyway. At least, if I didn't come back, Ceyaxochitl and Yaotl would know who held me.

It was a meagre consolation, but it sustained me until we reached Quiyahuayo's room.

A delicate entrance curtain, adorned with images of the great Tezcatlipoca slaughtering the enemies of the Mexica, opened to reveal a wide room lit by two braziers. Lord Death and His wife faced each other in the frescoes on the walls. The god and His consort sat on Their thrones of linked bones, with the Wind of Knives a small, sharp shadow in the background. It was... wrong. They shouldn't have been there. It wasn't their place.

The only furniture was a reed mat, and four large wicker chests. One of the chests, I saw, held piles of folded codices, laid on top of each other. Even from this distance, I could tell what they were: books of prayers to Mictlantecuhtli, detailed indexes to the minor gods of the underworld, spells to summon them and bind them to one's will.