Brooks’s voice sounded small. “Ixtab let me see her a few months ago.”
I opened my mouth to say something but closed it again, thinking Brooks wasn’t finished.
She rolled her eyes. “Go ahead.”
“You went to Xib’alb’a?”
“No—we met at a gateway nearby,” she said.
“Wait a second,” I said. “Quinn’s alive in the underworld?”
She nodded. “Ixtab needs her alive… for her powers.”
It gave me hope for Rosie. Maybe she was still alive, too. Then I remembered what Ms. Cab had said: She’ll be changed.
Brooks continued, “So I made a deal with Ixtab.”
I was getting pretty sick of that word, deal. It was only four stupid letters strung together, but they had thorns that knew how to draw blood.
With a shaky sigh, Brooks said, “Quinn overheard a bunch of demon lords talking one day. They knew about the prophecy, but Ixtab didn’t, so I thought…”
The sky slanted, or maybe it was the boat sinking into a swell, but my stomach shot up to my throat. I moved our stuff and sat down on the bench. “You thought you could use it to save your sister.” I recalled what Ms. Cab had said about no one knowing who’d told Ixtab. About how I couldn’t trust a nawal.
Brooks sat down next to me and pulled the blanket around her s
houlders. “I told Ixtab I’d bring Ah-Puch back if she let my sister go and broke Quinn’s tie to Bird. She just laughed and said I didn’t have the strength, that I had never lived up to my family name. Not like Quinn.”
I almost didn’t want to ask, but I had to know. “And if you didn’t bring Ah-Puch back…?”
“I’d lose access to Quinn forever.” Brooks’s eyes flitted in my direction and back to the sea. Her whole body trembled. “And if he got free, then I would have to join Ixtab.”
I felt sick. Empty. Worthless. A strange heat ran through my veins. I would never have let Ah-Puch out if I’d known Brooks had promised herself to the underworld!
No. If I hadn’t done it, Brooks might be dead.
Or was that the same thing?
“That’s why Ixtab’s goons came for you,” I said.
“It gets worse.”
“I don’t think I can take more right now,” I said, trying to understand what Brooks had done. She’d lied to me. Tricked me.
But she’d done it to save her only family. I would’ve done it, too. I was sure of it. Still, that didn’t stop the burning sensation under my skin….
“You don’t get it,” Brooks muttered. “The Prophecy of Fire… You had a choice…”
I didn’t think I’d heard her right. “What? What do you mean?”
“I told you the magic would call to you. That part was true.”
I definitely didn’t want to hear any more. Maybe I didn’t need to know the truth. Because guess what? Sometimes the truth stinks!
I stood up and looked around the boat, anywhere except at Brooks’s accusing face. “Where’s Jazz? You think he needs any help?”
“There was a way out.”
I stepped away from Brooks. A cold gust swept across the boat.