Gods of Jade and Shadow - Silvia Moreno-Garcia Page 0,76

not a god, but he commands magic. I expect treachery from him and we must be alert; we will be unable to afford any distractions. We shall venture forth tomorrow night. Now, refrain from overexertion. Rest. Do not be afraid, fear will blind you.”

“It is easy to be unafraid if you are immortal,” she said. “Not if you are human.”

“Fear is generous and does not exclusively lodge in the hearts of mortals.”

“And what do gods fear?” she asked.

She’d asked the wrong question. Hun-Kamé had a rigid preciseness about him at all times; in that instant he seemed to become a wooden statue, even the dark eye growing hard. He would not answer, she realized, just as she had not spoken about the road of Xibalba or the blood. Some things are simply not said.

“I’m better now,” she said, picking an innocuous comment to distract them both. “We could fetch ourselves supper.”

“I can ask them to bring us food. What would you fancy?”

“I don’t know. We should phone the front desk.”

Casiopea turned her head; noticing the lavender rose by the phone, her fingers reached for the long stem, the delicate petals.

“My rose.”

“The witch gave it to you, so I thought I’d bring it with us,” he said. “You paid for it, after all.”

“But you didn’t put it in water. It is beginning to wilt,” she replied.

And again, the wrong thing to say, she realized, the reminder of death, putrefaction, the slim limits of existence, like a mantle over her shoulders. She sagged back against the pillows, tossing the rose onto the side table where she’d found it and pressing her hands against her temples, seized with a sudden burst of pain.

“Casiopea?”

“My head is throbbing. My mother used to tell me ‘Everything will look better in the morning,’ ” she said. “Only it didn’t look any better, and I’m afraid it won’t look better tomorrow. It’s much worse…the ache. The ache in my hand and now in my head.”

“That is why I said to rest,” he told her.

“Rest, rest…It’s so annoying. You look…you look quite well. Amazing,” she said.

It was true. He did appear quite sleek and stylish. She remembered reading an ad that said most men look well in a navy double-breasted jacket. Of course he was magnificent; the wide lapels and slightly fitted waist only served to emphasize his strong shoulders and granted him a comfortable swagger. No doubt she looked half dead—which she was, very likely—and silly and panicky, unable to quench the anxiety in the pit of her stomach. Stupid, stupid dream. And she was stupid, too, for making such a fuss. She bit her lip.

“You shouldn’t look that good,” she muttered accusingly.

“I’m not feeling entirely well, either, if you must know.”

“Why, what’s wrong?” she asked.

He shrugged. She felt like pinching his arm. He couldn’t sit there, looking pensive, saying nothing. Her head was going to burst if he did.

“You have to tell me,” she said.

His back was tense, his brow furrowed, and when he spoke it was he who sounded as if he’d just woken from a strange dream. The words were stilted, which was unlike him. When he talked, he did it well. He carved each sentence with a graceful assurance. Each word was a jewel.

“It’s hard to say. Sometimes…when we are talking, it’s as if…I forget,” he mumbled.

“What do you forget?”

Such quiet. The quiet between stars. She thought she could almost hear her blood moving through her veins and her heart was loud as a drum, and when she touched the covers the rustle was like dragging a piece of furniture across the floor.

“Will you say something?” she asked again. “You’re making me nervous. As if I wasn’t nervous already.”

“I forget everything. My brother, my palace, my name,” he said hastily. “Everything.”

That wasn’t exactly the answer she was expecting, and the weight of it was tremendous, this single word, like a stone.

“That sounds awful,” she replied.

“It’s not awful. That’s the problem. There’s a second when I think it would be fine to forget myself, it would be the easiest thing in the world. But if you forget yourself once you’ll do it twice, and thrice, and soon—”

He stopped talking. His face, it was brittle. She’d come to associate him with a steadfast harshness, the strength of obsidian.

“What if my name wasn’t mine?” he asked. “What if my name was an entirely different one?”

Vaguely she recalled he’d mentioned a secret name when they were in Veracruz, but he had not been pleased when he