“Last time I was among the gathered, it did not go well.” He remembered the desperate prayers, the reaching hands, the overwhelming need.
“A misunderstanding. It would not happen again.”
“In time,” he assured him, knowing he had no intention of walking among the mob again. “But there is something I must do first. Were you able to find it?”
“Yes, I think so. There are local records, and some of the elders remember.”
“Take me there,” he whispered, his voice hoarse with unexpected emotion.
“There is the problem that you will be recognized. Word of your appearance has spread, and it may not be safe for you to walk the streets of Odo without a Shield.”
“Then I will not walk. Go, and I will follow. When you enter, I will know that is the place and meet you there.”
A rustling of robes as Maaka bowed. And then he was striding away.
With the merest flicker of thought, Serapio broke into a flock.
* * *
He followed from high above as Maaka crossed the bridge and climbed the narrow, well-worn steps that brought him back to the main thoroughfare that cut through Odo. In the distance, he could see the road ended at the Great House, but Maaka did not take him there. Instead, he passed through a copse of cedar, turned north, and came out on a hill overlooking the canyon. There was a long, dark stone wall here, and he walked the length of it before coming to a gate and ducking inside. Serapio transformed in the shade of the cedars and followed on foot, calling a crow to help him see.
They were in a courtyard. In the middle was the roof of a round house, the chamber itself sunk into the ground below them. To the right of the round house was a garden, fallow now but big enough to feed a half dozen families, and beside it benches, tables, and an outdoor oven marked the communal kitchen. Around the edges of the courtyard were two-and three-story adobe homes. They were quiet, their inhabitants sleeping or otherwise occupied. A lone dog came trotting up to them and sniffed Maaka’s robes. The Odohaa bent to scratch its ear.
“This was your family compound,” Maaka explained. “Your mother’s family was of notable means, weavers and artisans and distant cousins to the family who now rule the Great House.”
“Who lives here now?”
“Another family, unrelated. After the Night of Knives, entire families were lost, with no one to claim their houses. It is not so unusual to find homes once abandoned now lived in by others.”
“Not abandoned,” Serapio corrected.
“No,” Maaka agreed, voice solemn. “Not abandoned.”
“If they were a notable family, why did my mother’s people not live in the Great House? She spoke of visiting the aviary there, of having an uncle who was a crow rider.”
“Who can say? Maybe a disagreement that led to a falling out? Perhaps even their devotion to the crow god caused the rift.”
“They must have been one of the first houses to fall, being so close to the bridge.” He stepped farther into the courtyard, his crow vision taking it in. He imagined what it must have been like on the Night of Knives. If they had had any warning or if the knocks on the door had come as a surprise. He could almost hear the screams reverberating off the walls, see the bodies falling, sense the cries for help to a god in whom they had placed their faith but who refused their pleas.
Just as he refused Serapio now. Except, of course, when he needed him to kill the Sun Priest.
“You are right, of course,” Maaka agreed. “Most in the Great House survived, but the smaller houses and the outliers like your family, they had no defense for an enemy like the Watchers, who were meant to protect them, not slaughter them.”
“No wonder my mother taught me as she did.”
“What did she teach you?”
That everyone is my enemy, he thought. Even you, Maaka.
When he did not answer, Maaka continued. “I tried to ask discreetly if any of the elders remembered a girl named Saaya, but no one here did. That is why I think these inhabitants are new and your family is scattered.”
“Or dead.”
They stood a moment, then Maaka said, “This way, Odo Sedoh.”
Serapio released his crow and followed. They stopped in front of a door. Maaka knocked. They heard sound within, an infant crying and quickly hushed, and then the door opened. Maaka whispered words of greeting, and a woman answered, her Tovan accent thick.
“Welcome, Odo Sedoh,” she said, and Maaka touched his arm to motion him forward. They crossed the threshold into the place where his mother had been a child. It smelled earthy and sweet, the scent of mother’s milk. There was the sound of children from another room and then the approach of running feet.