It was remarkable how long a bed could stay comfy when what lay outside it was less appealing than the gross feeling of chronic immobility. Only Jem seemed determined not to let me stew in my own juices, and brought me food when the others ate. I relented at lunchtime, but when he came by again at supper, I feigned sleep until he left again. That night had me writhing in nightmares for the third or fourth time. They snuck up on me more often now, which I took as a sign of my own mind telling me to leave. It was probably a sign that I should get help, too, but I chose to ignore that part.

Jem was dogged. He brought me breakfast again the next day, this time leaving it beside me when I pretended to not be awake. When he was gone, I sat up and picked over the bowl, trying to settle the nauseating feeling left over from watching Fuego burn things all night again. One of the dreams had been about facing down the turkey. It would have been immensely gratifying had my magic not gone out of control midway through, slipping my grasp and making for Grillo Negro. I woke up—blessedly—before it reached the first tents.

Footsteps shuffled outside the door. With the bowl in my lap, I couldn't make my usual dive for the covers before Emma slipped in.

"Oh good, you're awake," she said, shutting the door and leaning against it. "Chal wants you to come with us."

I gave her a leery look. "Come where?"

"Outside. Xochi needs to find something for your seal, Xipe says he's out of tea, I want to keep looking for my calling, and Chal says you need to get out and get some air."

"Thanks, mom," I grumbled. Being in a functional household was incredibly reassuring sometimes, but there were other times I wished the god siblings did not remind me quite so much of my own family.

"And she said it's not optional," said Emma, quashing the protest I was mulling over. She glanced over her shoulder at the door, then lowered her voice. "If it makes you feel better, she kicked Tezcat out this morning, too. He and Quet went to go look for villages."

Knowing I wasn't alone in getting this treatment did make me feel better. I wasn't the only one who had spent the last day holed up in my room, but from the looks of it, the gods were used to dealing with that. "Fine." I set my bowl aside and dragged myself out from under the covers. "Out, then. I want to change."

Emma obliged. I winced and took my time stretching, finished my breakfast, then swapped my unwashed clothing for the clean set sitting beside my mattress. I hadn't put those there. The neatness of their folding pinned their presence on Jem.

When I finally emerged, I followed Xochi's voice and Emma's laughter to the couch room. There I found Xochi and Xipe head to head over an upended goblet on the small table. Xochi's butterfly perched on the vessel like a mediator failing at its job. Emma rolled on a nearby couch in tears of mirth, hugging her stomach.

Xochi was sitting on an unopened crate, surrounded by an array of orange, red, grey, black, and polychrome pottery from two other boxes. "That's not atole, that's alcohol," she said, stabbing her finger at a design on the pottery vessel between them. "Some drunk bastard went and carved their happy day on a new piece of earthenware, and their kid went and fired it. I don't care if they were legal drunken age; you have a pulque cup in your cacáhuatl collection."

Xipe had lost the argument, whatever it was. He put up his hands in surrender.

"Trust me, I know these things," said Xochi. She finally noticed me standing in the doorway, and grinned. "Hi Adriana! We're going through Xipe's pottery collection that he hasn't unpacked since we moved in here. Want to join?"

"We were not going through it," grumbled the golden god, though he was clearly enjoying this almost as much as his sister. "I was, and you chose to insert yourself into the process."

"Because you store Cholulan and San Bartolo Coyotepec pots together, and it gives me aneurysms. At least give the Zapotecs their own shelf." Xochi plucked the goblet off the table and added it to a row of similar ones by Tlaloc's armchair. Xipe made a surreptitious attempt to teleport the crate to his side of the room. Xochi darted back and sat on it again. "No! We are not opening this one until you can prove to me that you know how to tell a pitcher from a funeral urn!"

"I do know! Just because I choose to appreciate cultures and time periods together does not make me a neophyte when it comes to my own kitchenware."

"And what would Tlaloc say if he found out he was drinking cacáhuatl from a pulque cup?"

They both looked at each other.

"Actually, that would be hilarious," said Xochi. "You know what? Keep it with the cacáhuatl ones. I want to see this happen."

Xipe clapped both hands over his face and fell back on the floor with a groan.

"Oh, stop being dramatic," said Xochi. "I've been a huge help to you here already. Admit it."

I cleared my throat slightly. "So... I heard we were going outside?"

"We sure are." Xochi clapped her hands. "Off your butt, Xipe Totec; look, you even get a break. Let's go for a walk, and we can come back to the rest after."

"Shouldn't we clean up a bit?" said Emma, wiping her eyes. "I thought Tlaloc didn't like it when we left things on the floor."

"Tlaloc can go pot plants until we get back. He'll survive. Up!"

She threw out both hands, and one of the bowls from the floor appeared obediently on the couch's edge over Xipe's face. It filled halfway with water, then began to tip under its own weight.

"I'm coming." The golden god snatched the bowl and righted it the moment before the first drops fell. He slung the water at Xochi, but it disappeared mid-air.

"Aw, I wanted to stop it," said Emma, disappointed. The few droplets Xochi had missed fluttered to the carpet as snowflakes.

"This is two against one," said Xipe.

"Looks fair to me," said Xochi, then hollered through the kitchen, "Xol? We're ready!"

I was entirely unsurprised that Xolotl had camped out elsewhere while his siblings waited for me to show up. He threw the untidy floor a telling glance when he arrived, but didn't comment. Gold fire ringed us and dropped us outside before I could ask if Jem was coming.

"He's talking to Chal," said Emma, like she'd read my mind. Was I that obvious? "He wanted to stay behind."

I stuffed my hands into the pockets of my snowpants, which had replaced my indoor clothing on our way out. They were probably talking about magic, with Jem asking for more plants to learn about, or activities to try. When he wanted something, he certainly knew how to commit.

The weather outside in Tlalocan was calm. It was cold, but not too cold, and the air moved just enough to stay fresh without biting. It was deathly quiet. Clusters and banks of withered plants slept beneath a thin layer of snow under the skeletal branches of fruit trees, some with desiccated fruit still frozen to their branches. Even beneath the heavy shroud of Fuego-induced winter, the garden had a peaceful feel.

Xolotl sent his dogs off into the maze of plants. Grifo, who had come along without me noticing, fell into step at my side. He was alert but relaxed, his ears perked and his head tipped to one side like he was listening for coywolves. Emma scratched his ears.

Breaking the silence seemed a misstep, somehow, so I contented myself with watching my dog and the cloud-heavy sky for signs of danger as Xipe and Xochi exchanged a nod and set out into the garden, leaving the grey stone safety of the house behind.

Time itself seemed to bend in the endless quiet of snow, grey, and once-lush vegetation as we walked. Tlalocan was a mix of tamed and wild space that I found oddly soothing. We waded through once-meadows between neat, linear flowerbeds, or followed flagstone paths that meandered among wild thickets of bushes and trees. The landscape phased between forest, field, and ordered garden in a haphazard patchwork that blended like a quilt the longer we walked. Comforting and familiar, but just irregular enough to stay interesting.

At one point, we passed a rock outcrop like a miniature mountain, complete with tufts of montane plants. Some even looked alive, if dormant for the winter. We skirted ponds and wetlands, all frozen, and what looked like replicas of the Mexica's floating gardens. Every kind of landscape was here, all within a short walk of one another. Gathering plants for food or utility must have been easier than breathing when this whole place was green.

Xipe was certainly availing himself of the frozen bounty, and plucked dried leaves from plants and bushes that he identified on our way by. At one point, Xolotl pointed him to a tangle of vegetation huddled at the base of a rock. We had to stop to let the two of them fill a small bag with the winter-dried leaves. A minty smell wafted over me. This was the tea Xolotl had made for us on our first day at the gods' house. That felt like eons ago.

Xochi seemed keen to keep moving, and eventually pulled her brothers from their task. Xolotl's dogs returned as we rounded the edge of a small lake. The gods slowed. They seemed more alert than they had been when we'd left the house, and Xipe stopped gathering. All three walked more softly. Emma and I copied them.