“Tezcatlipoca is banished.”
“She has the blood of every Sun before her. It’s her heritage — the little one should be the Sun and rule here.”
Fable shook her head in panic. She took a deep breath but didn’t feel any air in her body. Her head felt dizzy and her heart beat so hard in her chest she put her hands over it so it didn't get out. No! She didn't want to stay here! She wanted to leave and have a tahtli and be a family. Nantli wouldn't make them stay here, would she?
Nantli held her tummy like hers hurt, too. Fable’s colors had filled up so much of her that her eyes felt swimmy and everything changed colors. Red. Green. Yellow. Blue. Red again, because red was bossy and bad at sharing. Orange. Gold. Purple. Red.
She blinked, trying to clear her vision.
Now Fable could talk, but she didn’t want to. If she said anything, her magic would get out. The colors tasted mostly sweet, except red, which was spicy like a pepper and made her nose wrinkle with its sharp smell. Could they see her eyes change color? The adults knew she had magic, but if she said anything and they saw it, maybe they would try to make her stay. But she couldn’t leave yet. The mean men had hurt Tizoc.
Green was excited when she thought about helping Tizoc. It smelled and tasted like apples.
Norrix swept her into his arms. “You give me the nod and I'll get us out of here.”
She kept her words trapped and pointed toward Tizoc's house next to the palace. He was her first friend. She had to make sure he was okay before she left.
“The palace?” The man with the big eyes guessed.
Norrix was smarter. “The boy. Tizoc. You want to see him?”
She nodded.
Nantli shook her head. “The street —”
“We don't have to walk down the street.” Quetzalcoatl eyed Norrix. “Or worry about the daylight yet. Fable just needs to hold my hand and think of her friend. I'll take us there.”
The man was from the story about the Second Sun, who blew the monkeys away to save them. He was real!
When she touched his hand, her blue color went crazy. It smelled like flowers and tasted like blueberries.
Quetzalcoatl made winds come and spin all around him. The air picked up Norrix and Nantli and whirled them up the tunnel. Outside, darkness covered the ground, but the sun was coming back. People screamed and shouted, but the wind spun too fast to see them. The little hurricane carried them across the island all the way to the porch of Tizoc's house, where Soră had thrown snowballs at a mean man.
The winds blew away, leaving them on their feet. A woman flew out of the sky. She had sharp wings like Nantli’s and a skull face. She carried a big club that looked like a leg. When she saw Fable staring at it, she threw it over her shoulder into some bushes and shrugged.
“Don't need that old thing anymore.” The skull face disappeared, showing a pretty woman with happy eyes and wild black hair. “I had to meet my girls, officially.”
“Grandmother.” Quetzalcoatl hugged her.
Quetzalcoatl was like Fable's grandfather, and the woman was his grandmother? So she was Fable's grandmother too? Her family was so big now she couldn't keep track.
The woman hugged Quetzalcoatl back, then Nantli, and drew a finger across Fable's cheek where Norrix held her against his chest. His heart beat under her ear still felt safe, and she was glad he didn't put her down.
Red swelled up in Fable when the woman touched Fable's cheek. “Fierce little thing, aren't you?”
Fable scowled because she hated being called little, and because Red was trying to get out.
The door opened and Tizoc's mom watched all the people on her porch. The mean men had hurt her too. Red marks on her arms, one eye shut, and her lip had a cut.
This was Fable's fault. They got hurt because they protected her. She looked at the ground. The first time she made friends, and they were hurt. Maybe Tizoc's mom wouldn't like her anymore. But she ducked down, caught Fable's attention, and smiled. “None of this was your fault, Quetzalli.”
Fable didn't believe that.
Tizoc's mother let them in and showed them where Fable's friend lay in his bed. The mean men hurt him a lot. A bandage wrapped around his head. Some of his fingers were crooked. His face was swollen and bruised. His chest made funny sounds when he breathed.
“He hasn't woken up.” A man sat next to Tizoc. He'd been hurt too, but Fable hadn't seen him before.
Norrix sat on the bed so Fable could be close.
What could she do? Her Seeking magic made fast circles and led to the green magic. Fable walked to Tizoc and touched his hand, but nothing happened. Some of the magic building in her tried to get out. The green magic pushed hard, smelling like apples, but now it tasted minty like toothpaste and made her mouth feel cold.
Fable touched Tizoc's hand again. Make him feel better. The green magic swooshed out of her into him. Bruises and cuts vanished. Bones moved, the broken parts scraping while they lined up. His breathing even out and deepened.
She remembered all the scars on Tizoc's back and sent the magic to heal those, too. The green felt happy and filled the entire room. It combined with Seeking by itself and wound together to look for hurts on everyone.
It spread from him to his parents, healing all their injuries.
Red got angry and lashed out at Seeking and Green. The other colors were jealous, and all tried to grow big.
The adults would make her stay!
She lost the last bit of control. Something broke inside Fable. She tried to speak, but all the colors escaped, and this time, she couldn't stop them.
CHAPTER FIFTY FIVE
NORRIX
FABLE COLLAPSED AGAINST Norrix. Her little body shook uncontrollably in his arms, the trembling so extreme he thought bones would break. He’d seen shape shifters do this when things went bad, but she wasn’t a shifter, as far as he knew. Although, given her family tree, that might be possible for her.
Spinning, he laid her on the bed next to Tizoc and tried to keep her from hurting herself as she flailed.
Myth stared on in horror for a second, then wrapped her arms around her stomach. Her eyes rolled up in her head and she crumpled, saved from hitting the floor by Quetzalcoatl. Her convulsions began a moment later.
“What the fuck is happening?” They were in a room full of gods and goddesses. Why was no one doing anything? “Help them!”
Quetzalcoatl shook his head, dark eyes heavy with sorrow. “This isn’t a physical injury we can heal. It’s magic. Too much magic. Too many gods rejoining the world when Myth and Fable’s magics were just unbound. They don’t know how to process it, and they just used so much to free us and heal this boy.”
“I have to get them to Ashana.” Norrix pulled his room key from a pocket on his holster. If anyplace was prepared to treat a magical overdose, it was Ashana.
“You’ll kill the people in this house if you use that key here. The eclipse is over. Cover yourself, vampire.” Itzpapalotl raised one leg, and with a powerful kick, splintered the shutters covering the window.
Sunlight flooded the room as Norrix gathered Fable to his chest and flung his cloak over his body.
Quetzalcoatl partially shifted into his feathered serpent form, lifted Myth into his arms and flew out the window, while Itzpapalotl wrapped her arms and legs around Norrix’s back and flew into the sun.
Heat seared his skin through the thin material of his cloak. He would never take the magic enhanced clothing all the Ildum wore for granted again.
“How high?” Itzpapalotl called.
“Don't care.” Every second agony sliced through his bond to Myth was too long.
Fable thrashed in his arms, causing his cloak to flap. Sunlight found every opening and seared into his flesh. He bit back his screams.
In Quetzalcoatl’s arms, Myth shifted from her human form to strygoi, to something in between as her body writhed.
This was far enough. He gripped the key in his fist and turned it.
The click was the sweetest sound he’d ever heard. The gate opened practically on top of them and buffeted them backward. Quetzalcoatl muttered something and winds at their backs shoved them forward through the portal.
The burning mercifully stopped.
On the other side, Zax sprinted across the sky, steps of dark clouds forming under her feet. She seized Myth from Quetzalcoatl and shoved her into Norrix’s arms at the same time Fable ended up with Zax. She glanced over him to Itzpapalotl. “Let go.”
Before Norrix could protest, Zax shoved him with a hard push. He fell, clutching Myth to him like she was his lifeline.
“Express check in!” She smirked as she fell into a hole in the sky, taking Fable with her.
Clinging to Myth, Norrix tumbled into darkness, coming to a stop with a bounce on the bed in his room.
CHAPTER FIFTY SIX
FABLE
EVERYTHING HURT. WAS she dying? That wasn’t fair! She was free now. But her body shook so hard and it wouldn’t stop. Wouldn’t stop. Wouldn’t stop! So many magics in her growing and growing and there was no room!
The colors took all her breath. Squeezed her heart too hard. Drowned her brain. Made her tongue taste too many things. She shut her eyes tight and clenched her teeth so they didn’t get pushed out.
She couldn’t. She couldn’t. She couldn’t —
Flying. Falling. A thump.
Someone was carrying her, but not Norrix. He was gone. Where was Nantli?
“You did well to hold in all your magic before. You could have hurt someone in Aztlan. But you can’t hurt anyone here, and you can’t hurt us, no matter what. This world is empty. You can make whatever you want. So you need to let all that magic out, okay? Let it do whatever it wants.”
The woman sounded nice, and her voice made Fable believe her. But how was Fable supposed to do that? Now the magic just wanted to come in. It didn’t want to go out.
“You can point your finger, or imagine something, or scream. You can even stand on your head if you want to. Whatever feels right. Just get it out.”
Stories. Stories always felt right.
Fable thought of all the ones she learned at Tizoc’s house and the ones Nantli had told her.
Then it was too much and everything hurt and she felt sick and —
Fable screamed, surprising herself with how loud the sound was. But she couldn’t stop. Magic gushed from her in big waves, all the colors with their smells and tastes twisting together.
Her scream went on and on as stories flashed through her mind. When the magic came back, she screamed again and didn’t stop until her throat couldn’t make any more noise and there was no more magic in her.
But her body wasn’t shaking anymore. Her breath came in and went out. She didn’t feel sick. Was she dead? Was that why Nantli and Norrix weren’t with her anymore? Where was Soră?
“You can open your eyes now.”
That might be okay. Her eyes didn’t feel like they were going to pop out anymore. She blinked once really fast to make sure, then opened her eyes all the way.
A woman sat on the ground and held Fable in her lap. Her hair was two colors. Black and red, like the crazy magic that didn’t share. Her eyes were two colors too — gold like Norrix’s were sometimes, and green like a parrot. “I’m Zax. You did it. It’s all okay now.” Zax held out a glass of water to Fable. “With that big scream, I imagine your throat is sore. This will make you feel better. And your mom will be fine, too. Norrix is helping her like I helped you with your extra magic. They’ll come find us when they’re done. In the meantime, it’s up to us to have some fun. Do you want to see what your magic did?”
Fable drank the water. It did make her feel better. She turned her head to see what she had done. A big yellow moon hung in the black sky. Was it supposed to be daytime still? It didn’t matter. A thick tree trunk grew out of the ground right in front of her. It was so tall she couldn’t see the top, even when she tipped her head all the way back.
“I think that tree is going to go all the way to the moon.”
Now her eyes might pop out for a new reason. The baby monkey! Now it was real! His small tail curled in the air, getting higher. Fable sat up and smiled. I made him with my colors?
“Yup.” Zax rubbed Fable’s back. “And he’s not all.” A black cloud formed under them, and floated up high past the moon. Underneath them, more stories came to life.
Far away, in a different tree, noisy green parrots had a nest on every branch. Shiny rocks lay on the ground all around the tree. Every time one bird flew down to pick up a rock, another flew to the abandoned nest to steal the treasure there.
In a village, a boy wearing a red mask climbed up ropes around a square mat and jumped onto a mummy, knocking him flat.
A baby bird swam in a row with other babies that didn’t look like him, following their mother across a pond.
Through a window, a girl sat at a table blowing through a tube to make glass figures.
All Fable’s stories were here. Maybe it was okay the colors made her feel sick if they made stories come true. Her magics danced happily in her stomach.
When the cloud landed by the monkey’s tree, something not from her stories peeked around the big trunk. A little deer with fuzzy horns and a black nose.
“You are not supposed to be here. This isn’t the stables,” Zax said to the deer. “I can see why you are considered the troublemaker of the bunch.”
The little deer with brown fur came all the way out from the tree and took small steps on shiny black hooves until she stood in front of them and lowered her head.
Her fur looked so soft. She had a white spot on her head. Fable shrank back against Zax’s legs. What is she doing?
“She wants you to pet her. Some of our animal guests like the attention. If they come to you, it’s fine to touch them. They won’t hurt you.”
Fable laughed when a cold nose pushed into her hand. Her nose is cold like snow.
“Do you like snow?”
I don’t know. Soră tried to bring some for me, but she threw it at a mean man instead.
“I’ll see what we can do about finding some snow for you before you go home today. How are you feeling? Better now? All your magics will start coming back, but only a little at a time. Where did you feel them before?”
Fable pressed her hands over her tummy.
“That’s where they will go back to. Tell them to stay small and calm when you feel them coming back, and if they don’t listen, tell me. Will you do that?”
Already some of each magic tried to get back in. Small and calm. Small and calm. Some of the colors listened and made little circles in her stomach. Would that work with the red magic?
“It won’t be like before. Magic loves to have jobs and keep busy. When it doesn’t have anything to do, it just builds and builds. Your magic was blocked for a long time, and your relatives overshared a bit today, but since you used all that magic to make this world, it will refill slowly. And, we’ll have to take this little reindeer back to the stables, but first, I have two gifts for you.” Zax held up a shiny gold key on a black cord. She draped it over Fable’s neck.
As the necklace settled into place, it sank into Fable’s skin like a picture.
“That’s the key to the heart of your magic. This world that you made. No one can ever take it from you. If your magics ever get too big again, use that key no matter where you are, and it will bring you here.”
Zax set Fable on her feet and stood up, holding out a hand. “We have to go somewhere else for your other present. Are you ready?”
Fable nodded and slipped her hand into Zax’s. A hole opened in front of them, showing a new place on the other side. A long room with four tables and bookcases full of books. They walked through the doorway.
“This is the copy room.” Scrolls and books lined the tabletop,s and all had words appearing on them. “A copy of everything ever written comes here, then gets filed until we can put it in the appropriate library.
”
So many stories! Fable’s fingers twitched.
“It’s okay. You can touch any of the books you like in here, but I have a special one in mind for you.”
Something bumped Fable, and she turned around. It was the reindeer.
Zax pointed at her. “You’re definitely not supposed to be in the library. If Seshat finds you here, she’s going to kill me.”
The reindeer didn’t listen. She chewed on Fable’s sleeve.
“If you’re going to stay, you better not let Seshat see you chew on any of her books.” Zax led Fable along one of the rows, looking at all the titles. “Here it is.” She pulled a big rectangular book that had a wooden cover carved with swirls off the shelf and held it out to Fable. “This belonged to a brave woman named Storyteller.”
Fable gasped. She just met a woman named Storyteller. Her grandmother’s mother.
“I think she would like it if you had this. You can keep it this size, or...” Zax closed the book and turned it up and down instead of sideways. It shimmered and grew smaller. “Make it into a notepad and hang it on your necklace with your key if you don’t want to carry it.”
But Fable wanted to carry it. Her very own book! She turned it sideways and hugged it to her chest. That was the best present. All her colors spun happily.
Zax crouched in front of her. “Can you feel all your magics again?”
Fable put a hand on her tummy and nodded.
“Not so scary now, are they? I know you’re nervous, but you’ll need to practice. That way all the magics can learn what you want them to do. How about you show me what color magics you have. You can see all of them, right?”
Fable nodded.
“Well, as long as our friend here is going to follow us around, she may as well make herself useful. So think of your magics one at a time and touch the reindeer’s nose. It will change colors so I can see.” The side of the book opened to show a pen. “I’ll write what each one means in your book so you’ll always know.”
Myth's Legend: Norrix Page 32