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But he still couldn’t see it clearly.

Normal thought couldn’t catch it, except as a glimmer, out of the corner of the mind’s eye. But the drug broke down normal thought, normal perceptions, tore down the walls.

The walls of the temple were crumbling, tumbling, opening to reveal whatever was inside.

And again he felt that longing, that clutching. The Blue wanted him, him. The trip was a trap.

He laughed shortly. Achtli started, breaking into a sweat.

* * *

The warriors were dressed in their finest. Their hair was coiffed backward and up into the warrior’s ponytail; their faces were ornamented with jewellery and paint, their cloaks were richly woven. They walked in sandalled feet until they came to the house of Ce Xochitl, the judge.

There were six of them, some of Tenochtitlan’s finest. They had nothing to do that day, and there’d be plenty of time to see the gory spectacle at the temple precinct; it was going to take days to slaughter that lot of prisoners, days.

So they went to the house of Ce Xochitl, the judge, where they found the white‐skinned warrior maiden and one of the judge’s whelps, leaning on their swords in the dusty street.

‘Skirt and blouse,’ called out one of the warriors. The woman watched them coolly, as though they were no one, peasants.

Oh, and she was a sight to see: no make‐up and jewellery for this woman, but foreign clothes, sandalled feet, a warrior’s shield and sword. Did she think she was Coyolxauhqui, the fighting woman who had been brought low by their god?

‘Hey, skirt and blouse,’ the warrior said again, ‘why stand there in the dust with that little boy?’ Iccauhtli bristled. ‘Little boy with a big lock of hair on the back of the head. Were you too frightened to drag a captive down?’

The woman didn’t move, didn’t even seem to be listening to them. ‘She’s got skin like an axolotl,’ one of them joked. ‘Pale white axolotl. Hey, little axolotl! Don’t stand there. Come with us, and we’ll give you cactus wine and mushrooms. You can dance for us.’

Iccauhtli looked from the warriors to Ace. Against half a dozen experienced fighters, he wouldn’t last a minute. But she – at that moment, watching her stare down the warriors as though they were children, he believed she could kill them all with a blow of her sword.

‘Come with us, skirt and blouse.’

‘I’ll come with you,’ she said. Her voice silenced them, and they waited, clutching their weapons.

And she screamed, ‘All the way to hell!’

* * *

Inside the house, Achtli was leaning against the plastered wall, yawning uncontrollably. Tears kept rolling out of his eyes. He could hear every sound – his own cheek scraping against the plaster, distant drums, the scuffling of feet and shouts outside the house. He heard his brother cry out, heard a scream of rage.

He heard the ragged breathing of the Ticitl. From time to time he remembered the little man, opened his eyes to chart his progress through the Blue shadows.

The Doctor lay on his side on the reed mat, curled up like a child, hands pressed against the cold floor. His eyes were open, and he was seeing, seeing…

The queue moved slowly, shuffling forward like people at a bus stop. The priests flanked the first of the victims, a Huaxtec taken in the rebellion, the scars still livid on his legs and arms. Together they walked to the top of the stairs, carried forward by destiny as much as anything, by the weight of the queue of twenty thousand pressing at their backs.

The Huaxtec’s breath was taken away by the view of Tenochtitlan, spread out among the waters of the lake like a great flower of humanity. He saw the crowds looking up at him, their faces an anonymous blur of expectation. He saw the line of sacrifices stretching into the distance, a skinny finger pointing at the temple. Pointing at him.

Five priests took him and bent him backwards over the killing stone, holding his wrists and ankles, pulling his body into a taut arch. The emperor himself stood over him, holding the fat stone knife. They