“No, not Ixik, you nitwit!” the axolotl said.

  The creature looked just like the others Gwil knew—pink, semi-translucent flesh, short thick limbs, a wavering, fin-like tail, and a wide, dopey face stuck smiling. There was one difference, though: this axolotl had four arms.

  Gwil found the creature two rooms down from the kitchen, trapped in a glass box.

  The inside of this shrine or whatever was filling with smoke, and the fire was in full bloom in the kitchen, where there was plenty of wood. The flames were flirting with the threshold of the next room.

  “I’m Gwil. This fire will kill!”

  The axolotl stared at Gwil with its unblinking, beady eyes. It sat slumped in the corner of the box. A layer of damp, dark soil covered the floor of the creature’s prison. Clumps of watergrass sprouted throughout, and a puddle filled the corner opposite where the axolotl sat.

  “I’m Luca,” it said. “Don’t belong here, do ya?”

  Gwil drew his fist back and smashed through the glass. Nirva exploded at the impact. The glass did not so much shatter as splinter into dust. It crumbled like falling snow.

  Luca jumped up onto its hind legs and waddled out. “Butterfly child! You are wild! Thank you, thank you, I foresee a grand view!”

  “Sure thing,” Gwil said. “But we should be hurrying. This place is burning.” He knelt to pick up the axolotl so that they could escape the shrine, but Luca scurried out of the way.

  “Your brain is thin if you think I’ll commit that sin. Fire is bad for my skin! On top of that, free my friend from that trap.” The axolotl pointed to the other side of the room with its stumpy arm.

  “Ooh!” Gwil yelled. He ran up to another glass tank that stood opposite Luca’s, this one full of water. From within, eighteen eyes stared at him.

  A speckled purple octopus, spliced-up like crazy. Each of its eight tentacles was a snake, with eyes and mouths, and maybe even their own minds, based on the way the octopus was being yanked back and forth.

  This tank had a lid, so Gwil popped it open instead of smashing the glass. The chance at freedom spurred cooperation in the snakes. Gwil reached into the tank, and several snakes eagerly coiled around his arm, their suction cups squelching.

  He lifted the snaketopus out of the water, and the bizarre creature schloop-schlurped its way onto Gwil’s back, situating its main body on top of his shoulder. A couple snakes slapped Gwil in the face as they probed all around him, their tongues flickering. Gwil had to push them out of his way as if he were wading through tall grasses.

  Luca stood wringing both pairs of hands, staring into the burgeoning wall of flames.

  “What’s the deal?” Gwil asked. “Anything else to steal?” He squinted against the smoke, looking down through the rest of the Warden’s abode. The next room was a library, and past that… another kitchen?

  The axolotl shook its big dumb head and then clung to Gwil’s leg as a ceiling beam collapsed, spitting sparks.

  Gwil went to a bare stretch of wall and used Mir while touching it with his hand. Too thick.

  “You’ll have to deal with the hot,” Gwil told Luca, as he took the creature in his arms. “Can’t punch through rock.”

  Anger warped Luca’s face into something monstrous. “Choke on a garrote,” Luca sang. “I’ll turn you into a prokaryote.”

  A flatulent sound reverberated beside Gwil’s ear, and when he felt something warm and wet, he feared the worst.

  Sludgy black ink was gushing out of the snaketopus’s underside. Some sprayed Gwil, but Luca was being fully showered.

  The axolotl sputtered, its big mouth flapping. “What is this, a shart? Ahhh! Smart, friend, smart!”

  Luca began slathering its entire body with ink. “Acceptable. Head for the vestibule.”

  Gwil flared his Nirva and ran into the flames, hunching to shield Luca and the snaketopus with his body.

  He spotted the jar of peanut butter on the ground—it had landed on the ashy cushion that was the burnt jaguar rug. Gwil scooped it up and skipped out the door.

  Challe was laying face down on the ground. Gwil’s hands were full—she was so lucky to have four!—so he shoved her along with his foot and rolled her away from the shrine. The fire raged inside, but it didn’t seem like it would do much damage to the stone exterior.

  “Thank the Goddess you’re alive!” Challe said. “I need you to execute me. Please!”

  “It’s just a house,” Gwil said.

  Luca climbed out of Gwil’s arms and began cleaning himself off, splattering the ground with ink. Gwil tried to put the snaketopus down too, but the thing clung on tight via three coiled snakes.

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  “Stop that, long rat,” he said to the one that was coiled around his neck. The offending snake untwisted itself.

  A glob landed on the back of Challe’s head, and she looked up at the axolotl. Her eyes, and the jadestones embedded in her flesh, began to shine.

  Moving unnaturally, she went on her knees and bowed her head. “P-Progenitor? How? No, no, no. No!”

  Gwil exchanged a confused look with one of the snakes.

  “Wow babe, it’s Challe’Jade,” Luca said, dancing with his four arms. “First Sacrifice. That’s nice.” He patted Challe on the head. “I have a date with escape. Give Yuma a booma from old Luca. Ta-ta.”

  With that, the axolotl went down on all fours and scurried toward the edge of the platform. The creature leapt across the gap and clung to the cavern wall that surrounded the temple. It crawled up the rocky face and disappeared into a fissure.

  Gwil laughed.

  Challe crumpled into the fetal position, and the rumbling thunder sounded as if to accompany her movements. Gwil sighed. He was getting tired of her freaking out about everything. He probably shouldn’t have brought her to the temple, but he hadn’t expected it to get burnt down.

  “Hey!” Gwil said. He knelt beside her. “You need to get it together, lady. What happened to defending your people from demons? I thought you’re supposed to be a goddess. What are you crying for?”

  “I’ve ruined everything, you fool!” she shrieked, her face smushed against the stone platform. “Please, just kill me. I will never forgive myself for this.”

  “For what?” Gwil asked.

  “I called lightning down from the sky. It must have destroyed the cavern. Our sanctuary is going to be annihilated by the Gracestorm.”

  Gwil batted a couple snakes out of his way and looked up at the cavern ceiling. He shook his head and then rolled Challe onto her back and pointed upward. “Look. You didn’t. That lightning didn’t come from the sky, Challe—it came from you!”

  Challe knuckled her eyes and smacked her cheeks, regarding the intact cavern with awe.

  “See? Everything is fine. Just calm down. Here, I brought you this.” He held out the jar of peanut butter.

  A beleaguered smile formed on her teary, mucous-smeared face. Her laughter sounded like hiccups. She tried to take the jar, but the scalding heat had melded it to Gwil’s skin.

  “Ha!” He peeled it off, leaving his palm skinless and bloody. He scraped some charred flesh off the jar and handed it to her again.

  Gwil showed Challe his hand as new skin grew out of the wound. “Being Hallowed is cool, trust me.”

  Challe took the jar and hugged it to her chest.

  Smoke still poured out of the shrine, but the blazing light inside was dwindling, indicating that the fire was dying out.

  Gwil shrugged. At least the whole temple wasn’t going to burn down. He didn’t know if Challe could handle that. He sat down next to her, unpeeled the snaketopus from his shoulder, and set it down on the ground.

  It looked like the creature wanted to walk around, but it was stuck in place, because it was pulling itself in eight different directions.

  “What was that creature?” Challe said. “A blasphemous abomination.”

  “Challe!” Gwil hissed. “I know it doesn’t look like it has ears, but it’s sitting right here.”

  “The Progenitor,” she whispered.

  “I’ve never heard that word before.”

  “The Progenitor,” she said. “The…” She shook her head and cringed. “Pink, frog-like creature.”

  “Oh! The axolotl. Hey, you talked to it without rhyming! How?”

  Challe shook her head. “Where did you find it?”

  “Your asshole master had it locked in a box like a prisoner,” Gwil said, nodding toward the shrine. “Even though axolotls are probably smarter than humans.”

  “What? Liar!” Her face twisted, and Gwil thought it looked more like fury than the usual despair.

  “Yuh-huh,” he said. “Saddest thing I’ve ever seen. Poor thing was in a little box with some grass and a puddle, sitting like a beggar.”

  “You swear? You swear on your life?” Challe shoved Gwil over onto his back and then loomed over him. “Swear to me, demon!”

  “I swear, I swear,” Gwil said, moving out from under her.

  “That’s impossible. The Progenitor died. It must be an experiment or something. The Warden trying to create a miracle.”

  “That progenitor is free now, thanks to you,” Gwil said. “But the axolotls are just funny little guys. Why’re you so worked up about it?”

  Challe clamped all four of her hands over her mouth. Gwil worried she was going to vomit. But when she took her hands away, her teeth were bared, and she was shaking with anger.

  “The Progenitor is a creature of myth. From the dawn of Malikau. Luca imbued the surviving populace with the potential to handle Vesselhood.

  “Our scriptures say that the Progenitor died as the first Vessel was born. The loss of Luca’s gift has caused… so many deaths.”

  “Yeah, Luca. That was its name.”

  Challe leapt to her feet and stared down at Gwil with crackling eyes. “I must see Warden Tezca. Help me find him.”

  Gwil grinned at her. “Sure. Where the hell could he be?”

  ***

  Tezca the Elder Warden could not believe his eyes, nor his misfortune. He pinched a fold of his fat neck and jiggled his jowls while regarding the burnt mound that had been the Oubliette.

  Bad. Bad, bad, bad. Very bad. He needed to measure his ingredients with precision, or else his own corpse would resemble this charred husk.

  Tezca needed to be the master cakesmith, delicate and painstakingly vigilant, if he hoped to escape King Yuma’s ire.

  He tapped his pudgy cheek in thought. Yuma had visited six months ago. With some luck, Tezca had another six before the King returned for an inspection.

  But a doughmaster would plan for the unexpected.

  Call it three months. Three months to fake his own death, secure a method of transportation that could carry all his servants and goods, and find a luxurious place to settle down.

  Tezca smiled, and the slight movement of his lips caused his cheeks to wobble. Yes. Cooking was about innovation and improvisation, and cooking was everything. This could be an opportunity. A true chocolatier would never waste such a chance.

  He could get out from under the oppressive thumb of King Yuma, that lanky dickweed. Tezca was a king himself, of sorts. Why should he be treated as an underling? Hells, the poor little Malikauans practically thought Tezca a god.

  He had allowed himself to wallow in comfort for too long. Far too long. He laughed jovially. “Bah! Five hundred years of this!”

  “Self,” Legs called. “It’s gone.”

  Tezca had prepared himself for that news—the loss of the Erithist Spike—but it still hurt. That was a lot of money, circling the drain. The Elder Warden laughed again. No matter. If the Spike was gone, it’d be a bigger problem for Yuma, or whoever the King answered to.

  That thought granted Tezca clarity, and he made a promise to himself.

  If, when his Jaguars captured and killed the intruders, they reclaimed the Spike, he had to force himself to leave it behind, despite its tremendous value.

  In all likelihood, it wouldn’t matter. One of the intruders would’ve taken the Spike and fled back the way they came, securing the treasure while the others entered Malikau.

  Good, something to distract Yuma and keep him off my trail.

  But if Tezca did get a chance at the Spike… No, he could not allow his greed to get the better of him. To steal the Spike would be a grave mistake. They’d hunt him to the very ends of the World.