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She exhaled dramatically. “I mapped this when I was flying, and things always look so different when you’re in the air.”

I was about to ask if we should fly the rest of the way, when she glanced over her shoulder, then up to the canopy of trees. “This is right.” We continued walking the tight path that began a sharp incline, and I thought how easy it would be to get lost here.

Fuego sank into the soft earth as I walked. “How am I supposed to find a centipede in the jungle, and which jungle?”

“Maybe it’s not literal,” Brooks said.

Brooks seemed different since she’d

come back from her dad’s. Don’t get me wrong—she was still feisty and guarded, but she seemed more patient or more grown-up or more something I couldn’t put my finger on.

“What do you mean, ‘not literal’?” I asked.

“What if the centipede is a symbol, like an emblem on a ring, or a picture on a T-shirt or something?”

Brooks had a point. The Fire Keeper was a poet and songwriter, after all. His words could have a million meanings, which only added to my frustration. “Why do you think he sent me the message?” I was thinking out loud. “I mean, why not send it to Hurakan?”

“He likes you more?”

“I’m serious. Hurakan said this mess was for the gods to worry about.”

“But the Fire Keeper said that Zotz and Ixkik’ are way ahead of the gods,” Brooks said. “So maybe he thinks you should handle it.”

“Handle it?” I said, frustrated. “This isn’t some chore like taking out the trash.”

“It kinda is.” Brooks patted me on the shoulder. “Relax. Hurakan and Ah-Puch will be back tonight. I’m sure they discovered all sorts of stuff at their meeting, and by the time they get here, I bet they’re only two steps behind.”

Was that supposed to make me feel better? “How about zero steps behind?” My gut twisted into a triple-knotted rope. I wanted to share Brooks’s confidence, but the fire in my blood doesn’t lie, and at that moment, it was hissing right below my bones.

And in all of the craziness of the last day, I had nearly forgotten one important thing the bat god had said. “Zotz called you a water nawal.” I glanced at Brooks. She kept her gaze on her swiftly moving feet, acting as if I hadn’t asked the question. “He said he hadn’t seen one in over a century. What did he mean?”

We came to an enormous clearing.

Before us stood a bright red temple with multilevel platforms, massive steps that led to a pillared building on top, and corbeled roofing. The exterior walls were decorated with huge sculptures (probs of the gods) and glyph carvings. The temple had a single doorway on the bottom level and butted up against a lush hill blooming with red and yellow flowers.

Rosie sat at the foot of the stairs, licking her front paw like she had been waiting all day.

“Well?” I tried again.

Brooks continued to walk, and just when I thought she was going to clam up, or tell me to mind my own business, she said, “That’s why I can blend in…. You know, camouflage myself.”

“I don’t get it,” I said. “What exactly is a water nawal?”

Brooks stopped and turned to me. “It’s just a shape-shifter that can blend in. I found out when I went to see my dad.”

“What did he tell you?” Brooks didn’t exactly have a great relationship with her dad. She’d only gone to see him because he was sick.

“He told me that when I was born, I wasn’t breathing. It was only when they put me in water that I took a breath. I guess water nawals can always breathe in water, except I can’t. Not anymore.”

“Why?”

Her face fell. “My dad didn’t want the gods to know about me, so he kept me away from water, made me afraid of it. He said he knew the day would come when my water nawal spirit would reveal itself and I’d learn the truth, but he wanted to put it off as long as he could.” She shrugged. “It’s no big deal.”

“That he didn’t tell you, or that you’re a super-cool water-breathing shape-shifter chameleon?”

“I told you, I can’t breathe in water, Zane. My dad stole that when he kept me away from it for so long.”

How could he just control her future like that? It seemed wrong, even though it was meant to protect her. “I’m really sorry.”


Tags: J.C. Cervantes, Jennifer Cervantes The Storm Runner Fantasy