Mind you, the protective spell had not helped him much. The Obsidian Butterfly Itzpapalotl had sheared through it as though it barely existed and taken his soul with Her as easily as a man might take a basket of herbs.

The priest's name at the top of the paper was the same one Xahuia had given me. His title was given as Fire Priest, the secondin-command of the Wind Tower.

I turned the paper over thoughtfully. Ten Flower. Seven days ago. And the spell had not come cheap, either. Even for a man as rich as Manatzpa, the price was a fortune. Even before Echichilli's death Manatzpa had already been looking for protection, as if he had already known that something was going to happen. How had he known?

What in the Fifth World was this secret that star-demons killed for?

Behind us, the bells tinkled: one of the slaves, wearing the elegant collar of the palace servants around his neck. "Master, there is someone who wishes to see you."

"Us?" Teomitl stepped in.

The slave shook his head. "He asked for the High Priest for the Dead."

Someone I didn't know, then, not any of the players still remaining, who would have summoned me instead of coming here. But why me?

The youth who strode into the courtyard was a sight. It was not that he was richly dressed, with an elaborately embroidered cotton tunic, a plume of heron feathers at his belt and another set of feathers bending from the back of his head towards his neck. Rather, it was the state of the regalia a the feathers were torn, their white tarnished with blood, and dark splotches stained the tunic all around the collar line. He held his macuahitl sword a little too casually, as if daring an invisible watcher to attack him, and the shards shone a sickly grey-green in the sunlight.

Behind him were two Jaguar Knights in full regalia, the costume made of a jaguar's pelt and the helmet shaped like the jaguar's face, their heads protruding from between the jaws of the animal. They looked a little better, though their hands shook and their skin was the colour of muddy milk.

The youth looked at me. His eyes were an uncanny colour, a shade between grey and green. His gaze was piercing, not hostile, but stripping me of all pretences, like a spear breaking the skin and burying itself in my heart. "Acatl-tzin," he said thoughtfully. "High Priest for the Dead in Tenochtitlan. I have come to you for an accounting."

"An accounting?" Teomitl shifted, to stand between me and the youth. His hand had gone to the hilt of his macuahitl sword; and the planes of his face had started to harden.

The youth bowed, slightly ironically. "I am Nezahual, Revered Speaker of Texcoco. Where is my sister, Acatl-tzin?" His voice was harsh.

He couldn't be. I looked again, but he stood alone in the courtyard, with only two Jaguar Knights as an escort, casual and undisturbed, his dignity no less than it would have been had he sat in his own audience room. "Revered Speakera"

"There is no point in dissembling. I know you were the one who ordered the arrest." Nezahual-tzin's face was harsh, unforgiving.

Teomitl shifted. "This is the High Priest for the Dead, one of the three who keep the balance of the Fifth World. You will show him respect."

Nezahual-tzin's gaze scoured him. A smile creased the corners of his broad lips. "A pup with a bite, I see." Sunlight fell over him in swathes, highlighting the blood on his clothes and on the obsidian studs of his macuahitl sword, and became a white, searing light strong enough to blind.

I remembered what Xahuia had said, that her brother was favoured by Quetzalcoatl, god of Creation and Wisdom. I had taken it as a grand boast, but quite obviously Nezahual-tzin had been brushed by the Feathered Serpent Himself. He might not have been an agent, the sole repository of the god's power, but he still had enough magic to make trouble if he wished to.

"Your god won't protect you." Teomitl's voice was scornful.

"Neither will your goddess, when it comes to this," Nezahualtzin said.

I'd never thought I'd see two young men fight like cockerels, an unseemly spectacle, witnesses or not. "Enough."

The light dimmed. Nezahual-tzin still stood as straight as a spear, waiting for my answer. "Your sister engaged in sorcery," I said, carefully.

"So does most of the Imperial Family."

"Not that kind of sorcery. The sorcerer in her service was named Nettoni."

Nezahual-tzin's eyes narrowed. "Mirror" could only refer to one god a Tezcatlipoca, the Smoking Mirror and eternal enemy of his own patron god Quetzalcoatl. "You lie."

"Ask around the palace," I said as casually as I could. I already had enough enemies without adding this cocksure boy to the list. "He was well-known."

Nezahual-tzin was silent for a while, pondering, giving me enough time to consider what would happen if he held me responsible. Enough unpleasant things to make me regret Tizoc-tzin's threats of dismissal.

Then he turned to the two Jaguar Knights who had escorted him inside. "Is this true?" he asked, bluntly.

The Jaguar Knights looked at each other. "Yes."

"I see." The light around him contracted as if someone had enclosed it in a fist. "Where is she, Acatl-tzin?"

It wasn't quite the same tone, though he still didn't look happy. Not that I could blame him, though I doubted it was affection that prompted his question. To lose her would be a fatal admission of weakness to the Texcocans.

I, on the other hand, didn't care much about losing face. "I don't know. Nettoni sacrificed himself to let her and her son escape. Presumably they found refuge somewhere in the city." And resumably she was still weaving her webs of intrigue. She was a determined woman.

"I see." He said nothing for a while. "Then my men and I will join the search for her. Let it not be said that a Texcocan can escape justice."

Teomitl stiffened in shock. "She'sa"

"A political tool," I cut in.

Nezahual-tzin smiled, without much joy. "You still have much to learn, pup."

"Pup?"

"Teomitl," I said, warningly.

"He's the one picking the quarrel."

"No, he's the one provoking you. You don't have to answer."

I glared at Nezahual-tzin, daring him to counter with some mocking remark about how to keep my pup on a leash. But his face was serious again, and he was watching me with a gleam in his eyes I didn't care much for, like a snake making up its mind about a rodent. "Don't let me detain you," I said. "You must have plenty of rituals to attend, and respects to pay."

Nezahual-tzin smiled, that same thin, unamused smile I had seen on the face of the She-Snake. "No doubt." But he did not move, still considering me in that unnerving way of his.

"You owe respect to my brother," Teomitl cut in.

Nezahual-tzin's gaze moved, slightly. "The living one, or the dead one?"

"You know which one." Teomitl's face was flushed.

"The dead one." He turned to me, slightly bending his head, looking for all the world like a snake or a bird. "Apologies, Acatl-tzin. I knew him well in life, and I don't think he would begrudge me a little delay."

Of course, Axayacatl had been the one to save Nezahual-tzin, to cast down the over-ambitious brothers and bring the young Revered Speaker to Tenochtitlan. Which also meant he would know Tizoctzin and the She-Snake, and it did not look as though he was eager to see either. "The Dead can wait," I said, bowing my head in return. "But not on a caprice."

Nezahual-tzin shifted slightly, the obsidian shards of his macuahitl sword glinting in the sunlight. "Paying my respects is all I've come to do, after all. I'm Revered Speaker of Texcoco, and will not play a part in whatever squabbles Tizoc and the She-Snake have. But you don't look like a man likely to be caught in their games."

I wasn't sure whether to be embarrassed by his accuracy, or annoyed at the distant, unconcerned way he considered us all. Teomitl had no such scruples. "You look like a man too cowardly to be caught in anything, Nezahual-tzin."

Nezahual-tzin's lips curved around the word "pup", but he did not say it aloud, and luckily Teomitl didn't see it. "I've learnt to see where the priorities are " His gaze narrowed again, becoming infinitely distant, as if he held all the knowledge of the world. "For instance, you must have been wondering for a while where all the blood on us comes from."

Teomitl snorted. "What I've been wondering for a while is how you enticed the Jaguar Knights to follow you."

"Enticed? Hardly." Nezahual-tzin did not turn around. "But you're right, they're not my men."

I looked at the Knights again. My mistake, I should have known that Texcoco had no Jaguar House. Teomitl was obviously more knowledgeable about warrior orders than me, "Then...?" I asked. If he wanted to toy with us, fine. He was the Feathered Serpent's favoured indeed, enigmatic, taking advantage of the only thing he had, which was knowledge.

Nezahual-tzin made a gesture a satisfaction, annoyance? "Three star-demons. In the Jaguar House."

In daylight. Outside the palace wards. I scrabbled for words that seemed to have fled. "Did they kill anyone?"

I'd expected him to be triumphant at the shock he'd caused, to revel in our ignorance; but he looked serious again, like a commander on the eve of battle. "No. There are worse places where they could have appeared than a House of trained warriors."

It could have been worse. Much, much worse. The marketplace, the Houses of Joy...

I took a deep breath, hoping to close the hollow in my stomach. It didn't work. "So far, they've only appeared within the palace wards." It could mean the sorcerer was outside the wards, like, say, Xahuia, but then why had the Obsidian Butterfly, Itzpapalotl, been able to appear inside the palace and carry off Manatzpa's soul? No, the most likely explanation was that the Southern Hummingbird's protection was diminishing, and that the star-demons had grown stronger in the Fifth World.

Nezahual-tzin exhaled, in what was almost a hiss. "And one at a time?"

He was quick, the Revered Speaker of Texcoco, lithe and smooth like the snake that symbolised his protector. "Yes," I said.

It was getting worse. The boundaries between the worlds were slowly and irretrievably caving in. "I don't suppose you had a councilman or someone important inside the House at the time?"

"Besides myself?" Nezahual-tzin asked.

"They didn't attack you, did they?"

He shook his head, quick and annoyed. "Not any more than any of the other Knights. And the answer is no. Even the Jaguar Commander was absent."

No, not worse. Disastrous.

Teomitl was looking from Nezahual-tzin to me, back and forth, with growing determination on his features. "Then my brother has to be told. A new Revered Speaker must be chosen."

His naivete was heartbreaking. "Teomitl, it's not that simple..." The problem wasn't only Tizoc-tzin. We would have to convince the She-Snake, as well as every single remaining member of the council. Tizoc-tzin wasn't popular enough to force the delayed vote.

"I don't see what's complicated. The Fifth World stands in jeopardy. Any personal interests must be set aside."

"If only." Nezahual-tzin's voice was sad, much older than his years.

Besides, even if a vote could be forced, it would take at least a day to set up, and further time to prepare the rituals of accession, time we no longer had. Star-demons on the loose, outside the palace, meant a greater threat than ever before. They had come not because they had been summoned, not because they had someone to kill, but of their own volition; for their own amusement.

Which meant the path to the Fifth World was wide enough to let them pass; and that we would see many more of them before the sun set.

"It's not a matter of days," I said. "Or even of hours. We have to do something, and we have to do it now."

"I imagine you know what?" Nezahual-tzin asked.

"Of course he knows," Teomitl snapped.

How I wished I did. Doing something. Doing... I racked my brains for an answer. My protector Lord Death had made it abundantly clear that He would not interfere in the affairs of humans. The Fifth Sun and the Southern Hummingbird had already demonstrated how weak they were. I held neither the favour of Tlaloc the Storm Lord, nor or his wife Chalchiuhtlicue, Jade Skirt, and I did not trust those two more than I had to. The Smoking Mirror, god of Fate and War, was to become the Sixth Sun, and could not be relied on, not to mention that he had tried to topple the Fifth Sun more times than I could count. Among the powerful gods, it left only the Feathered Serpent, to whom I did not have any particular ties. Perhaps Nezahual-tzin, who stood under the shadow of Quetzalcoatl, the Feathered Serpent...

On the other hand, I didn't see why I'd trust the boy just yet, with something that important. And yet...

I closed my eyes. The Duality was the source and arbiter of all the gods; our protector, the keeper of the souls that would be reborn under the Sixth Sun. Ceyaxochitl had been Their agent, and no new one would be invested for a while, not until the rituals for her succession could be completed; but it didn't mean They had withdrawn from us. Their wards around the palace, flimsy as they were, were probably our last possible defence.

But there had to be a way...

I was a priest for the Dead, and I did not know much of Duality lore.