The Codex of Forgotten Gods

Inspired by true events.

Prologue

New York, Autumn, 1890

“Don’t patronize me, Franz,” I snap, louder than I mean to. The salon hushes for a beat, the clinking of porcelain pausing as if the china itself is startled.

Franz Boas leans back, one brow raised, more amused than offended. That infuriating calm he always wears, like a wool coat in summer.

“I’m not patronizing,” he says. “I’m cautioning. You’re seeing what you want to see. There’s no untouched record of Mexica cosmology. Every source we have is post-conquest, Catholic-filtered—”

“Because the originals were burned,” I cut in. “Or mislabeled. Or hidden in European basements beneath piles of Latin scrolls no one has read in two centuries.”

He shrugs. “Even if one existed, someone would have found it by now. You’re chasing ghosts in a world with no afterlife,” he insisted.

I want to break something fragile. “You mean someone with tenure—so in other words, a man! As if women haven’t the eyeballs or the brains!”