Chal caught us both after a leisurely meal, and beckoned us away to one of the many rooms along the house's single hallway. This one was a cozy nook with a bookshelf, a desk and wooden chair, and an armchair in the corner next to a tall, fern-like plant. Chal snapped her fingers, and a third chair joined us. She waved us to the other seating and took a seat herself, her ankles tucked neatly together.

"So, the three of you had a run-in with the Tlachinolli," she said.

Jem and I both nodded.

"Can I see?"

I held out my hands. The goddess pulled up her chair and took them carefully. She examined my tattoos, ran a finger over them, then touched one with a spark of magic. Her face slipped to a frown, with a trace of unease that set me on edge.

"You said Itztia did this?" she said.

"To both of us," said Jem.

Chal inspected his tattoos, too. Then she held one of our wrists in each hand and compared them. She murmured something that had Ōmeteōtl's name in it.

"What is it?" I asked. My throat was closing up in suppressed panic, and it took an effort just to keep the words from cracking.

"This is upper-tier spellcasting." She released us looking less than satisfied. "Yours are just a ward, Jem, though making a ward strong enough to hold off a magic like the Tlachinolli is hard enough. But yours..." Both their eyes turned to me. Chal bit her lip. "How do I say this. You should be dead right now." This was not making things better. "The Tlachinolli has fully integrated with your body, and the only reason it isn't burning you is the reverse ward in those tattoos. That permanent reverse ward, might I add."

"Is that harder to cast?"

"Tezcat and I are the only spellcasters here, and neither of us is at that level. I know two people who are, but one is Coyol and the other betrayed us and went to Coyol's side fifteen years ago. Either she left Itztia a gift for some purpose, or there's something else going on here."

I didn't like the sound of either of those options. By the look of it, neither did Chal.

"Is there anything you can... add to it? Or change?" I gripped both my wrists, hiding the tattoos. "Emma said I'm still contagious."

"You are, but we can fix that. We won't be able to remove the Tlachinolli, but when Tezcat's ready and we're both up to full strength, we can make sure it's sealed."

My shoulders slumped in relief. That was all I needed to hear right now. Minus the permanent-Fuego part, but I could live with that. "So I could go back to a village without killing everyone?"

"If you wanted to."

"You want us to stay," said Jem.

The words came out blunt. You didn't talk to a goddess like that, but the relief of seeing him as suspicious as I was washed over me like cool water. Jem's face was hard to read, but his jaw was set and his eyes were steely. His hands gripped his now-empty tea mug tightly enough to pale his knuckles.

Chal sat back with her hands on her knees. "You two were exposed to the Tlachinolli, and Adriana here is going to need to learn to manage it even after it's sealed the rest of the way. Magic can get dangerous if left unchecked. Especially a magic like that."

Did she just imply that I had magic now? I stared blankly at my tattoos. I'd never done anything magical. I couldn't even turn off the lights in Emma and I's room. And yet somehow, after my near-death experience and everything that had happened since then, this didn't surprise me as much as I thought it should. It just settled onto the already massive heap of worries pressing down on my shoulders. Why couldn't I just get it sealed and then ignore it for the rest of my life? Was there a risk of a Fuego relapse? I shuddered at the thought.

"And Jem, I do hope you will stay with her for that time. Not to mention that you have something in you, too. It would be good to figure out what that is in case it has something to do with the Tlachinolli. So we suspect it would be better for everyone if you both stayed here for a time."

This wasn't going at all the way I wanted it to. Every day we spent here was a day Coyol spent hunting other villages. Villages I wanted to find. The thought of succumbing to Fuego again, though, kept my mouth shut.

Jem's eyes could now have cut ice. "What do you mean, I have something in me, too?"

"We can sense you more strongly than we can most people. Only Cihua can pass magic between people, so I doubt you picked it up from Itztia, but it's possible you have more of the old blood in you. Either way, there's a reason Itztia is drawn to you."

"Or we were just the only ones in the village within eight years of her age," said Jem dryly. "And everyone in our village is related. I wouldn't have any more 'old blood' than anyone else."

That clearly didn't line up with what Chal had expected. She sat quietly for a minute, contemplating us. Jem released his stranglehold on his mug with difficulty, and the goddess's eyes snapped to it. A chill ran up my arms.

"You finished that, right?" said Chal.

Jem lifted the mug suspiciously. "Yes?"

"Tip it."

He did, and a thin trickle of water splattered to the floor.

We were statues in our shock, eyes fixed on the wet patch as the rug absorbed the water without a trace of a stain. It wasn't tea.

"Give me your hand again," said Chal. When she took it this time, she touched his palm with a different spark. Jem hissed as a glow darted around his tattoos.

"That's magic," said Chal. "You shouldn't have proper magic." She closed her eyes to steady herself, then opened them again. "You want to be a doctor, is that right?"

Jem nodded.

The goddess produced a twig tipped with five long, stiff leaves, ruffled at the edges like the prints of fingers on thin dough. "Do you know what this is?"

"Cochiztzapotl," said Jem automatically. "It's a sedative."

I stared at him. It took Jem a moment to realize he had just named and described a plant we had never seen, in a language we had started speaking a day ago.

Chal drew her hands down her face with what sounded like a curse word under her breath.

I finally spoke up. "You said Cihua could transfer magic between people." Did my voice sound that shaky to them, too? "If she interfered with you guys... bringing Emma, or making her, or whatever it was, could Emma have gotten some of her power by accident? And then used it without realizing, to give magic to us?"

"That's what I'm afraid of."

"Can you test to see if she has it?"

"No." Chal dropped her hands. "Cihua's magic steals any power that tries to work on it. She's a giver and a parasite. If Itztia has that same magic, it would just eat the spell we used to search for it."

"Emma's on our side, though. Would it be a bad thing if she has it?"

"It would be if she accidentally parasitized us."

"If she leaves, we leave." Jem's voice was flat.

I wanted to leave anyway. I didn't say so. Not yet, not here. Not now.

"We're not sending her away." Chal held up her hands. "Until we can confirm either way, nothing will change. And even if she does have some of Cihua's power, we would exhaust every option before sending any of you away."

Jem sat back with his arms crossed. "You haven't answered yet why you want us to stay. Are you going to make us fight?"

"Gods, no." I saw Chal's tired smile more often than her happy one. "And it's not in our power to make you do anything. I want Adriana to stay and learn to control the Tlachinolli's magic before it causes harm to her or others. I want you to stay and keep her company. And you two believe in us. Having you close by is the most we could possibly ask for."

Jem had a look that said he needed to think about this somewhere else. "Do you have anything else to ask us?"

"You can go."

He did. I was left alone with the goddess.

"So do you know what his magic is?" I said after a long silence had elapsed.

She nodded, head back in her hands. The twig still lay on the desk beside her.

"Does it have to do with plants?"

"Itztia is good with them, isn't she?"

"Yeah..."

"He's got earth magic," said Chal. "Same as hers. And I don't know where either of them got it."