❖ A hundred years after a disease burned the world down, Adriana is dragged into a war she didn't know existed. The Aztec gods are fighting for their lives, and they want her to help. ❖
Adriana is a fourth-generation member of Grillo Negro, a nomadi...
"She put these on me as soon as you shouted," he said. Calmly, like he was trying to calm me. "Then she went back for you. I wasn't fast enough to stop her."
I couldn't take my eyes off my wrists. This wasn't a dream.
"She doesn't know how she did it either, or what got into her," said Jem. "She was pretty shaken afterwards. She asked if I could watch you and went off alone." My head jerked up, and he added quickly, "With Grifo. Not alone alone. I wouldn't have let her do that."
Thank God. Or the Azteca gods, or whatever lived above. Hell, whatever lived down here. I would trust Jem normally, but right now I felt like a fried cricket with an alarm bell for a brain. I rested my head against the wall. "Jem, I saw a turkey."
I don't know how I expected him to respond. He just waited for me to keep talking.
"I turned around, and it was standing in the middle of the settlement. Then it turned to smoke."
"Like... it burned?" he said incredulously.
"No. Vanished. In a puff of smoke. That's when I screamed for you. Fuego hit me right after."
"Fuego was carried by a turkey."
"It had white eyes."
That same part of my brain sparked and died. Whatever thought passed through it evaporated before I could grab its tail end.
"That's... creepy. Are you sure it was a turkey?"
"No. But it sure looked like one."
I couldn't think about this right now. I was tired. The fever was fading, but for all the fire Emma had locked inside me, I couldn't get warm. I didn't want to lie down. Every touch of the ground brought memories of scorch marks and the grit of dirt between my fingers. Jem hesitated, then shifted me to the side and sat down beside me. I put my head on his shoulder and drifted off.
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The fever was gone the next day, and I felt normal enough to get up. A good night's sleep had done wonders for my mental stability, or maybe it just took waking up to solidify that this was not a dream. I found Emma outside, sitting against the wall of the house. Her eyes darted to me as I slid down beside her.
"Want to talk?"
Her hand tightened around her pendants, and she looked at her toes. She wiggled them.
I ran both hands through my hair. "Thank you, by the way. And sorry for yelling at you when you came back for me yesterday. I got scared."
She gave a single nod.
"Do you remember anything about it?"
Silence.
I pushed up one of my jacket sleeves to reveal the tattoo on my wrist. "What does this one mean?"
