Obsidian Puma (The Aztec Chronicles Book 1) by Zoe Saadia

perfectly, with Patli, street rodent that he was, sniffing around mysterious places, knowing the city’s pathways and alleys better than the locals. A glance at the brilliance of the outside light made her worried again. Father would be coming back from the inner rooms of this temple soon, and he would be mighty upset with her going out on her own, consulting no one, not waiting, even though he said nothing to that effect. No exact words demanding that she stick around or trail behind. Actually, when he had told her to run into the house and change to her very best clothes, even to put her sandals on – an unheard-of demand – he didn’t explain why she was required to do this, he who would sometimes talk to her at length, usually through this or that cozy evening, after an especially tiring day. He would tell her stories and she would listen, enthralled. But this time, he just told her to come along, and now here she was, stuck in the middle of the uncomfortably noble crowd, all cotton and jewelry, sticking out like a torch in midnight, stared at and with no way back into the relative privacy of the temple. They won’t let her in just like that, that much was obvious. “If you know where it is,” the boy was saying, tugging at her arm once again, unceremoniously at that, “maybe we could go there now, follow them, see this thing for ourselves.” “No, we can’t. Well, I can’t.” But as she said that, she knew that the temptation was great, difficult to battle. He claimed knowledge of a