Concurrently, Atotoxtli, the empress and wife of Moctezuma, is being prepared for the audience in her chambers. Her aunt is securing her braided hair with bone clips when she asks why the Spanish captain is called El Malinche. Atotoxtli concludes that the name reflects the fact that every exchange with him is directed in practice at his translator, Malinalli (also called Malintzin), known as La Malinche—the captain has simply been named after her. Satisfied, Atotoxtli takes her mantle and hurries out.

Cortés is tense waiting to be escorted before Moctezuma. He has dressed in his finest clothes, and Malinalli had done her best beforehand to restore his plumed cap, which was damaged in their travels. Because one of his captains, Caldera, has not returned, Cortés arranges his eight accompanying officers in two uneven rows.

When Tlilpotonqui and Tlacaelel arrive, both are richly dressed and barefoot. After a lengthy formal greeting—which Cortés impatiently cuts short while the translators quietly add courteous flourishes—Tlilpotonqui outlines the audience protocol. All attendees will sit in assigned places, cover their heads with linen cloths, and keep their eyes lowered. Moctezuma enters last; only after he is seated and calls for the captain may Cortés uncover himself and approach.

The final rule is that no one may be armed. Cortés protests that weapons are integral to his soldiers’ dress, but Tlilpotonqui makes clear the rule is not negotiable. When Cortés invokes 500 armed men and over 100 horses inside the palace, Tlilpotonqui responds—without looking at the captain—that the Spaniards remain in the city at Mexica discretion, and 4,000 Eagle Warriors stand ready to defend the emperor. Cortés concedes, dropping his sword belt dramatically to the floor; his men follow. At Tlacaelel’s prompting, Tlilpotonqui also demands the daggers hidden in boots and clothing, which are handed over.

The blue throne room is dim and nearly silent when the group enters. Tlilpotonqui notes that three of the four elderly councilors are already present alongside the royal family, all veiled. Moctezuma enters in high spirits, still mildly altered from hallucinogenic chocolate consumed at dinner.

He immediately orders Cortés and both translators to remove their veils and approach. Though informally dressed, Moctezuma is physically imposing—taller and more powerfully built than Cortés, despite being nearly two decades older. He introduces those assembled: Tlilpotonqui; his son, Tlacaelel, whom Moctezuma notes he is preparing to inherit his father’s position; the empress Atotoxtli; General Cuauhtemoc; and Tecuixpo, Moctezuma’s daughter and Cuauhtemoc’s wife. Both Cortés and Tlilpotonqui interpret the remark about Tlacaelel’s inheritance as an announcement of Tlilpotonqui’s imminent death, and is Tlilpotonqui is grateful his veil hides his now-pale face.

Moctezuma then signals Malinalli not to translate, allows Tlacaelel to unveil, and asks whether he has explained the song of the ant to his father. He instructs Tlilpotonqui to take a seat on the Council as the successor to the aging councilor He Who Looses the Rain—a demotion framed as advancement. Tlilpotonqui kneels, relieved to keep his life; Moctezuma deflects the gravity of the moment by remarking that he will need allies on the Council once he himself is dead.

Taking his throne, Moctezuma asks what the captain general has come to discuss. Drawing on a dream from that afternoon, Cortés answers: Jesus. He speaks about Christianity at increasing length and fluency, while Moctezuma listens with genuine engagement, drawing parallels between Christ and the Mexica gods Quetzalcoatl and Xipe, and between the Virgin Mary and Tonantzin. The story of Pentecost—the apostles suddenly speaking in languages they had never learned—holds Moctezuma most. He declares they must have been speaking Xleek, a language he says the Mexica also use for sacred occasions. Aguilar translates Xleek as Greek, and Cortés enthusiastically agrees that they were speaking Greek. Moctezuma proposes that he and Cortés communicate directly in this sacred language by sharing a hallucinogen he calls cactus-of-tongues.

He produces two honey-glazed slices. Aguilar tries to caution Cortés, but Malinalli tells the friar to let the captain experience the hallucinogen. When Moctezuma challenges his nerve, Cortés steps forward and eats his piece. The effects arrive quickly: Numbness spreads through his mouth, the room distorts, and Moctezuma appears to transform into a great eagle. In a thunderous voice, Moctezuma orders the hall cleared of everyone except Tlacaelel, who will serve as witness. He tells Cortés not to fear what he is seeing, and commands him to dream.

Lying on the floor, Cortés moves through a rapid succession of visions from his own past—his mother, early lovers, university, gambling, the sea crossing, Cuba, and finally the massacre at Cholula and that very morning. The visions then fold inward: He finds himself watching himself dream and remembering himself watching himself dreaming in compounding layers until the recursion collapses and he decides he is simply still drunk and should leave. He bids Moctezuma goodbye—speaking Greek without realizing it. Moctezuma tells him that he has heard about Cortés and his men’s misadventure at the temple. He promises that they will go to the temple together in a few days once he settles pressing matters with rival city-states. Cortés walks back to his room, assumes his captains and Malinalli are at dinner, and goes to sleep.

In the coming days, he grows bored waiting for Moctezuma to take him to the temple. The eagle guards mysteriously disappear. Cortés and his retinue discover Axayacatl’s treasure and melt it down. When Moctezuma tries to stop them, they imprison both him and Tlilpotonqui, the latter dying of grief the following day. Cortés’s departs to confront the rival expedition leader, Narváez. He returns with a larger force and, unknowingly, smallpox. Alvarado commits a massacre, triggering an uprising. During the uprising, Alvarado stabs Moctezuma. Cortéz holds Moctezuma’s already dead body over the palace ramparts until the body is hit by a stone, making it look like the emperor was killed by his own subjects. The Spanish are soon forced to retreat, but the tide turns at the Battle of Otumba, where Cortés personally kills Tlacaelel. Tenochtitlan falls on August 13, 1521. The narrative accelerates far into the future, through colonial rule, silver mines, independence, successive wars and leaders—until it arrives at this book and the reader now holding it. At that point, Cortés wakes up to find that he is still in the palace with Moctezuma and Tlacaelel, and everything that has happened since ingesting the cactus-of-tongues was a hallucination.

Buoyed by the vision’s apparent prophecy of his victory, Cortés stands with new certainty, already thinking of New Spain and permanent fame. He tries to speak to Moctezuma, but the drug’s effect has ended, and the language barrier has returned. Moctezuma claps his hands and says something Cortés does not understand, though Tlacaelel does: “Now, Cuitlahuac” (218).

On the shadowed rear wall, a figure whose body is painted the same deep blue as the stone opens his eyes and steps forward: Cuitlahuac, Moctezuma’s younger brother, who has been hidden there throughout. He approaches Cortés and swiftly and brutally kills him. Moctezuma sends Tlacaelel to fetch his father.

Tlilpotonqui enters to find Cortés dead on the floor. Moctezuma issues his commands: Cuauhtemoc is to deploy the Eagle Warriors; Tlacaelel is to lead the defense against Texcoco and will become the next cihuacoatl once Tlilpotonqui takes the retiring councilor’s seat. Moctezuma forbids the word ant from ever being spoken again in the empire, but he also resolves the mystery of what the many references to the ant have meant all along: “the ant may not talk, but in the end he always shows the way” (219). He orders Cuitlahuac to secure the courtyard where the Spanish horses are stabled, noting that it has only a single guard.

Moctezuma leaves the Old Houses alone and crosses the empty street to his own citadel. Pausing at a sacred spring to splash his face, he hears the Eagle Warriors already converging on the palace—streaming from colleges, temples, and residences throughout the city. He reaches up to straighten his tiara. It remains slightly crooked.