kept a black box with two green jade lines running down its sides. Xtabay opened the box and offered it to Hun-Kamé, kneeling down before him, in what Casiopea thought was a clear display of mockery.
“For the Lord Hun-Kamé,” Xtabay said, as she threw the lid of the box open, “from his humble servant.”
Cushioned in black velvet rested the finger. Just like the ear, it was well preserved, as if it had been cut off a few minutes ago. Hun-Kamé pressed the digit against his hand, and it fused with his flesh. Then he motioned for Xtabay to stand up. She did.
“Who has the next piece of this puzzle?” he asked.
“You think I know?”
“My brother wishes to crown you, Xtabay. I think he would have told you.”
“You cannot make me speak the answer.”
“I have undone your spell,” Hun-Kamé said.
“No, not you, you vain and naïve lord, the girl. Did you lose one eye or go entirely blind?” Xtabay said, mocking him. “You did nothing.”
True, he had not. It had been Casiopea’s voice that quenched the spell, an act of will, though her essence mixed with that of a god, and thus it was partly his magic that had given her the ability to perform the task. Partly, but not wholly.
“Then give me the answer,” Casiopea said, feeling tired, the beginning of a headache drumming inside her skull. She wanted this matter over. She pressed forward to stand inches before the woman.
“You undo one spell and you think you can command me?” the woman said, scoffing.
“I’m suspecting that’s the way it works. And if it’s not the way, then I’ll start smashing all your plants and flowers to bits until you are nicer to me. I think you wouldn’t like that,” Casiopea said.
“You would not dare.”
“I would very much dare,” Casiopea said.
“She is a savage,” the woman told Hun-Kamé.
“The Lady Tun has a very distinctive personality, but I would not go as far as that,” Hun-Kamé said. “And she makes a fine point: do you want us to smash a few things around your home? Burn these flowers and plants?”
“Of course not, my lord,” Xtabay said, lowering her head and clutching her injured hand. “There is an uay in El Paso, the Uay Chivo. He serves Vucub-Kamé.”
Hun-Kamé turned as if to leave, motioning for Casiopea to walk with him, but Xtabay spoke again, her hard eyes watching them intently. She looked as beautiful as she had when they had entered the room and yet she was also diminished.
“You should let it be, Hun-Kamé,” the woman said, and she sounded empty now. “Forget about the throne and disappear. Vucub-Kamé will kill you.”
“Gods may not die.”
“Yes,” Xtabay said with a nod. “Gods may not. Look at your reflection in a mirror.”
Hun-Kamé grabbed Casiopea’s hand and pulled her out of the room. When they reached the elevator he dragged the metal door closed with a loud clang.
Downstairs, as he opened one of the double glass doors, Hun-Kamé glanced at his reflection. He saw nothing in the dim outline of his face to cause alarm.
Had he been holding a hand mirror he might have spotted the telltale detail that Xtabay had noticed. His eye, so dark it was like flint, reflected nothing, since it was not human. But the eye had now changed. The pupil, like a black mirror, caught reflections. The street, the cars going down the boulevards, and his young companion. She was rendered in most vivid colors.
Yes, the unweaving of the spell had been partly caused by the god’s immortal essence that lay inside Casiopea, giving her the ability to crumple Xtabay’s magic with the power of the Underworld. But the other part, the other reason Xtabay’s spell had failed—and which Casiopea and Hun-Kamé didn’t grasp—was a simpler truth: his vision was already too clouded by Casiopea. When she’d spoken and he’d turned his head, his pupil reflected her and washed away the rest of the room.
Such incidents are not uncommon between young mortals who believe they exist on a deserted island where no one else may step foot.
Hun-Kamé? He was not young, born centuries and centuries before.
And yet he was, upon stepping out of that building in the Condesa, a man of Casiopea’s age, his wisdom washing off his skin. Of course Casiopea could not notice this, as she had not noticed how he had no age when they met. He became young and that was that, as if someone had stripped off the dark, coarse bark from a