Malik hit the ground with a thud. He must have tripped on something, and now there he lay, limbs flailing uselessly like an overturned turtle. The image was so funny Malik laughed, because laughing hurt less than crying. He laughed in huge guffaws that sent tears and snot running down his face.

Apparently, whatever was wrong with him was embedded so deeply that not even regaining his magic could fix it. Eventually, the guards were going to come looking for him, and what would they find? A hysterical, panicked Life Champion with no sisters. Except he wasn’t even truly the Life Champion. He was just a kekki, a hysterical, panicked kekki with no sisters.

Now his arms were bleeding and he couldn’t stop laughing, even though his throat was starting to hurt and the turtle wasn’t even that funny and where in the name of the Great Mother was Leila—

“Adil, is that—what the—”

In several strides, the Water Champion, Adetunde, was by Malik’s side and hauling him to his feet. Malik had enough wits about him to know he shouldn’t be seen like this, especially by another Champion, but he barely fought as Adetunde led them both back to Malik’s bedroom. Malik felt himself saying something, but he had no idea what words were coming out. However, Adetunde just nodded. Then he was gone and the world spun, then Adetunde was back, this time with a silver pitcher, a loaf of bread, and . . . a length of elastic?

“You didn’t eat much at dinner. Finish this—you’ll feel better,” said the boy, shoving the loaf into Malik’s hands.

Though Malik wasn’t hungry, he forced himself to take several bites of the bread. He swallowed too fast and began coughing. Adetunde thumped him on the back.

“See, that wasn’t so bad. Drink the water.”

Malik wasn’t sure how long they stayed like that—minutes, maybe hours. Adetunde sat by his side the entire time, chatting aimlessly about everything and nothing. Slowly, Malik’s bearings returned as the tendrils of panic slowly receded. Fatigue and embarrassment rushed to fill their place, as well as a desire for the ground to swallow him whole.

“Why?” Malik croaked out.

Adetunde grinned. “Why am I so devastatingly handsome?”

“Why the elastic?”

“Ah, so that next time you feel like doing that”—Adetunde nodded at the stinging cuts on Malik’s arms—“you do this instead.” He snapped the elastic against the inside of Malik’s wrist, and Malik flinched at the sudden pain. However, it didn’t break skin, which made it an improvement over the alternative. “That little trick has helped me out a lot.”

It was the same principle as what Malik used to do with his satchel strap, deflecting that inescapable pressure inside him somewhere else before he turned it on himself. He couldn’t imagine Adetunde clawing desperately for anything that might make him feel in control of his own mind, but the boy had known exactly what to do when Malik had been incapacitated. Even now his eyes held no judgment or pity, which would have made Malik feel worse—only understanding.

“Thank you . . . Adetunde, right?”

“Just Tunde is fine. The only people who call me Adetunde are my mother when she’s mad at me, and my little brother when he wants to start a fight.”

“Thank you, Tunde.”

“Don’t even mention it, because I won’t. As far as anyone else is concerned, you passed out on the roof after being overwhelmed by the holy goodness of the gods and also wine. Happened to me at my little brother’s eighth birthday party. Besides, I was looking for you anyway.”

“Looking for me? Why?”

“Most of the courtiers have left for the night, and seeing as none of us knows how the Second Challenge might go tomorrow, I figured we should have a little Champion-to-Champion bonding on our night off.” Tunde leaned forward, speaking as if he and Malik had known each other all their lives. “If you’re feeling better, you should join us. The Dancing Seal is offering the person who shows up in the most realistic Champion costume their weight in free palm wine, and I fully intend to take them up on this offer.”

From the way Tunde talked, one might have thought they were having a slumber party and not a competition to decide the fate of Ziran and its territories for the next fifty years. Was this a part of his strategy, cozying up to the other Champions so they underestimated him?

“I’ll let you know,” Malik said, because he was too polite to say that he’d rather take his chances with a pack of bush walkers than willingly spend even a minute socializing with people he barely knew.

Tunde began to speak again, likely to try to persuade Malik further, but he was cut off by Leila running into the room, her arms loaded with books and scrolls. The Water Champion jumped to his feet.

“The elusive sister finally arrives,” he said. “If you change your mind, you know where to find me.”

And then Tunde was gone, leaving Malik to glare at Leila.

“Where have you been?” he cried. He was both relieved and irritated to see she looked absolutely fine. Not just fine, ecstatic, her face stretched wide in a rare grin.

“The library! I told you last night, I was going to use today to do some research while you were busy with your Champion duties.”

Face flushing, Malik self-consciously pulled his sleeve down to his wrist; once again, he had panicked over nothing. “You said you’d be back by nightfall.”

“I lost track of time. Not all of us have servants to remind us where to be every second.”

Leila rolled her eyes, and not for the first time, Malik wondered if they would have ever put up with each other had they not been siblings.

“Anyway, listen to this.” She pulled one of the scrolls from her pile and began reading, “‘The Kennouans believed the strength of the Gonyama River was tied directly to the pharaoh’s well-being. Records show that the pharaoh’s closest advisers would provide a sacrifice to the river, and the sacrificed would share their body with the spirit in order to ensure the prosperity of the pharaonic line.’”

“But what does any of that have to do with Idir?” asked Malik, his voice pitched low in case anyone was listening.

“I’m getting to that. ‘The spirit of the Gonyama was represented by a being known as ?w?. In Kennouan art and mythology, ?w? was depicted with many forms, chief among them a serpent or a wraith.’”

Leila placed the scroll on the bed between them, and Malik’s blood ran cold. There on the ancient parchment, the Mark leered up at him. He internally commanded the real Mark to move to his palm, the way one might summon a dog, and it did so. He compared the tattoo to the image on the scroll; they were identical. Now that he was examining the Mark up close, he noticed it was not solid black as he had first assumed, but made up of thousands of tiny, interlocking symbols not unlike the glyphs that formed the Kennouan writing system.

“So Idir is ?w??”

“It makes sense, doesn’t it? ?w? was the spirit of the Gonyama River. Bahia Alahari drained his river to build her city. Why wouldn’t he want revenge against her descendants?”

Leila’s eyes were shining now, and a part of Malik was glad to see her looking like her old self. Back when she was still training with the diviners in Oboure, research had been Leila’s specialty. Diviners were traditional healers, advisers, keepers of knowledge and more within an Eshran village, and Leila would often come home full of stories for Malik about some fascinating historical tidbit she’d learned or a new bandaging technique she’d tried. Back then, they had been best friends.

But then Papa had abandoned them. Leila had left her apprenticeship to help out on the farm, and she never mentioned the diviners again. Malik had never once heard his sister complain about giving up her studies to care for the family, but she hadn’t been the same since.

“But that still doesn’t explain why he chose me for this task.” Whatever ancient grudge the spirit held against the Alaharis had nothing to do with Malik and his family. Besides, if Idir had waited a thousand years for his revenge, what about Malik made him seem like the best person to deliver it? Surely someone else across the centuries had to have been more suited for the task.

“Who knows? But the more we can learn about Idir, or ?w?, the better we can figure out what our options are. In case we need to make a backup plan.”

Leila’s implication was clear: she doubted he could kill Princess Karina. Her lack of faith in him stung, but she was right. The more they knew about Idir, the better.

“What else did you learn?” Malik asked.

“Not much, only a little bit about spiritual binding. Depending on what the Second Challenge is tomorrow, I’ll see if I can slip away again to find out more. You’ve been preparing for it, right? People are saying it’ll be something easy to watch since the first one wasn’t.”

“But what’s the plan for tonight?”

“Didn’t Tunde say the Champions were heading into the Lower City?”

Malik squirmed. “I think it’s better if I stay here.”

“What? You have to go!” Leila argued. “These people have lived in Ziran their whole lives; who knows what useful information you could learn from them.”