The chap­ter opens with a charged diplo­mat­ic lunch between Cortés’s con­quis­ta­dors and Aztec nobil­i­ty in the palace of Axay­a­catl, where cul­tur­al ten­sions sur­face imme­di­ate­ly. Cap­tain Jazmín Calder­a’s vis­cer­al dis­gust at shar­ing a meal with blood-smeared priests under­scores the Spaniards’ alien­ation in this sophis­ti­cat­ed yet alien world. Cortés, ever the strate­gist, tests bound­aries by boast­ing of his Tlax­calan allies—a gam­bit that back­fires when Princess Ato­toxtli extracts the truth from Caldera about their encamp­ment. The scene crack­les with unspo­ken threats, as the Spaniards grasp they’re walk­ing a knife’s edge between hon­ored guests and sac­ri­fi­cial offer­ings.

With­in Moctezu­ma’s palace, polit­i­cal fault lines emerge as Ato­toxtli con­fronts her broth­er about hous­ing the for­eign­ers in her cham­bers. Their exchange reveals an empire in qui­et cri­sis: the emper­or with­drawn and errat­ic, his sis­ter bristling at his deci­sions, and key fig­ures like Cuit­lahuac con­spic­u­ous­ly absent. Mean­while, the con­quis­ta­dors wan­der Axay­a­catl’s labyrinthine halls like men in a dream—Badillo tend­ing their prized hors­es in an orchard, Caldera lead­ing armed men through iden­ti­cal cor­ri­dors that mir­ror their geopo­lit­i­cal dis­ori­en­ta­tion. The palace becomes a micro­cosm of Tenochti­t­lan itself: breath­tak­ing yet unknow­able, its hos­pi­tal­i­ty laced with men­ace.

Cen­tral to these col­li­sions is Mali­nal­li, the Nahua trans­la­tor whose bap­tism as Doña Mari­na sym­bol­izes the flu­id loy­al­ties of the con­quest. Float­ing in a flower-strewn pool, she weighs her pre­car­i­ous val­ue to Cortés against the ghosts of her roy­al past. Her antique Nahu­atl unset­tles the Aztec elite, just as her pres­ence unnerves the Spaniards who rely on her. Near­by, the cihua­coatl Tilipo­ton­qui moves through shad­owed cor­ri­dors, pars­ing Moctezu­ma’s obses­sion with the “cahuayos” (hors­es) while sens­ing dis­as­ter in the miss­ing Tlax­calan lords. Every inter­ac­tion hums with mutu­al incomprehension—the Spaniards mar­veling at a Venice-like city they can­not con­trol, the Aztecs observ­ing these gold-obsessed inter­lop­ers with wary fas­ci­na­tion.

As dusk falls, Moctezu­ma’s melan­cholic murmur—“days of blood and shit”—hangs over the chap­ter like a prophe­cy. The Spaniards’ naive con­fi­dence (Alvarado’s boots sul­ly­ing pris­tine cush­ions, their lost sol­diers shout­ing through palace walls) con­trasts with Aztec patience, both sides cir­cling toward inevitable vio­lence. Even the sies­ta rit­u­al takes on omi­nous weight: this is the last pause before his­to­ry frac­tures. When the emper­or requests mush­rooms to “sum­mon sleep,” the read­er feels the com­ing storm—one that will sweep away empires, iden­ti­ties, and the very mean­ing of con­quest.