52. Divide and Conquer

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The door of the Great Temple, through which Lo and I jumped out, turns out to be locked. Someone, fearing an invasion, locked everything from the inside both with a bolt and a spell, so we have to go looking for another entrance.

Silently walking in front of Yaling and me, Lo now goes down Tik'al street with firm steps, as if awakened after a fight with the guards. Fae clutches faer found dagger tighter. Fae looks warily and sharply around.

"I can't feel the aura." Yaling glances to me as we turn the temple's corner, and I realize that Lo is leading us to the workshop where I once fought with Valto. Yaling still tries not to talk to Lo, either neglecting or fearing my mentor, and my mentor is happy not to chat. "And you, Eli?"

"It's silver." The fingers of my right hand are barely twisting in sign language, stiff and used to fists after the fight. "It was mixed into the cafeteria food, and you probably ate it. I'm sorry about what happened." I exhale.

"Because you're really the rebel's brother?" Yaling asks. An angry light flashes in her tired eyes. "Maricela was right, it was your doing, wasn't it?"

I'm not answering.

"Can you stop them?" She presses. "Don't want to? Do you want to take Ixchel's throne? Oh, Maricela was right, while the Empress is wandering through the world of auric spirits, you are planning to enslave us, as in the past. History always repeats itself, and you are just as cruel plainbloods as the legendary Ixchel says--"

"Maricela is the Empress of Ixchel!" I'm tired of listening to this legendary song. "And no one will let her into the world of auric spirits, she--"

"Shut up," Loretto suddenly hisses over faer shoulder. Fae turns around, and says with quick gestures, "We are not alone here."

Mentor is right, somewhere around the bend of the alley, framed by coconut plum bushes, a shadow looms. A colorless, weak-willed, devoid of magical powers shadow, I realize, concentrating. How easy it turns out to explore the world with the help of magic, when you already know how to catch this minty feeling. It's really as easy as breathing.

One of the shadows seems familiar to me. It's flexible like a vine, and although sullen, it's is exalted, cheerful like bubbles in a sweet soda. Like Kofi.

Just as I'm thinking about my stepbrother, Lo drags me into the bushes. Taking a step, fae presses faer bare chest against mine, wraps faer arm around my waist as if in a dance, and drags me into the thicket.

I begin to retort, I want to explain that I need to go out and talk to my brother...but Tayen claps faer hand over my mouth, and then, as I calm down, fae lets go of me and puts faer index finger to my lips.

"Your brother is with friends," Mentor says in a barely audible voice. "There are three of them, Eli, and they are armed. And you're in the company of shamans who came to exterminate."

Sniffing the sweet air, I suck in my cheeks in frustration. Lo is right. If Kofi recognizes Tom in the shaman next to me, it won't be good.

"Can you repeat the trick of using my aura?" Lo adds. "They have talismans on them. But not as skillfully made as the spells on Maricela's pawns. So if we join forces, we can outwit them."

"Do you want to put my brother in ice?"

"No, it's an illusion. Hide us."

Hide us, okay. This is not violence. I close my eyes. It gets worse without adrenaline in my blood, but in the end I still feel Loretto's aura--not the ferocity of the indigo color, but now the brilliance, shimmering like chameleon scales, like a rainbow in my thoughts. I let this brilliance cover me with a second intangible skin and spread over us.

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