Afua introduced everyone in her family in rapid succession: cousins, uncles, aunts, cousins of uncles and aunts, people they had picked up on the road to Ziran, more cousins. While several aunties dithered over Karina, Afua and the older children passed out bowls of a fragrant red soup filled with fish, goat meat, and round balls of boiled cassava.

“This is palm nut soup, and the white balls are fufu,” explained Afua as she offered the largest piece of meat from the pot to the oldest man in the room. “Don’t swallow the fufu too fast, or you’ll choke.”

Karina gave the bowl an uneasy look. She’d never eaten food not made by a palace cook, nor had she ever eaten a meal without taking her antivenom first. But she sincerely doubted that anyone here would try to poison her, and her doubts faded away after the first delicious bite. She tried to ask Afua about nkra again after the meal, but the girl ran off to deal with some baby cousins fighting with one another. Not knowing anyone else in the magicked tent, Karina watched Afua’s large family interact, feeling not unlike a spectator at a play.

Karina had never known her extended family. All the Alaharis were dead, and Baba’s family had cut off contact with him after he broke an engagement to be with her mother. It was strange to sit here eating and talking with people who weren’t trying to manipulate or use her for their own gain.

But she liked it. She liked it a lot.

“All right, I’m back!” Afua skipped over, and Karina shook her head. Right, she hadn’t come here to be sad. She’d come to save the Kestrel.

“Before we do anything else, I need answers,” demanded Karina. “What is nkra?”

“Imagine if the world were a big spiderweb. You’re a point on the web, so am I, and so is everybody and everything else. We’re all tied together by our feelings and the things we do for one another, like doing something nice for your best friend, or summoning wasps by accident. That’s how nkra works: by connecting us all even if we can’t see it. Magic is the ability to manipulate nkra to do what you want, but zawenji like me are the only humans left who can do magic at all.”

Zawenji. That was another word Karina had never heard, and it left an odd taste in her mouth. “What’s a zawenji?”

Taking on the air of a wise professor lecturing an infant, Afua explained, “When the Great Mother made our world, she made four classes of beings. The first were the elements, also known as the patron deities—Sun, Moon, Wind, Earth, Water, Fire, and Life.”

“Then she created the grim folk, humans, and animals in that order.” Karina wasn’t the most devout person, but even she knew the great creation myth.

“Yes! The patron deities shaped the world, the grim folk aided them with magic, the humans tilled the earth, and every creature lived forever. Satisfied that everyone was following the Ancient Laws, the Great Mother left Sonande to rest. However, not long after she was gone, humans grew jealous. They thought it unfair that the grim folk could raise forests and twist rivers with little effort when humanity had to toil day after day.”

Afua did not have the polished style of a griot, but she did have the excited energy of a child who hadn’t had anyone truly listen to her in a long time. It reminded Karina of the way she used to tell Hanane about her day with overzealous glee, and she made sure to lean forward so Afua knew she was paying attention. The smaller girl’s eyes brightened.

“Two humans decided they’d had enough, and they hatched a plot to get magic for themselves. They went to the top of the highest mountain in Eshra and tricked the spirit who lived there into revealing the secret of magic to them. When they had the secret, they spread it among their tribe, who became the first group of zawenji and ulraji.”

Karina’s body tensed. “Ulraji as in the Ulraji Tel-Ra?”

Afua nodded. “Yes, though the Ulraji Tel-Ra weren’t formed until thousands of years later. There’s two kinds of magic: zawenji magic, which affects the tangible, physical world, and ulraji magic, which affects the intangible world—memories, dreams, even death. Because humans weren’t meant to have any magic, each person can only do one of the two kinds, and the magic users named themselves based on which they could do.

“When the Great Mother learned that humans had stolen magic, she was furious. She punished humanity by shortening our life spans and taking away our ability to speak to animals. She punished the grim folk by banishing them into a separate realm that we can’t see. And she scattered the tribe that stole magic to every corner of Sonande. Those who can do magic now are their descendants, and they can come from anywhere. After that, the Great Mother left again with a warning to humanity that if we broke the Ancient Laws one more time, there would not be a third chance for our world.”

Afua pulled one of the bangles off her wrist and held it in her palm. Karina’s eyes widened as the metal began to twist and move in Afua’s grasp, as if it were alive.

“Your Alignment decides how your magic manifests. A Moon-Aligned zawenji can heal your body while a Moon-Aligned ulraji could heal your mind. Since I’m Life-Aligned, I can manipulate the ‘life’ of an object, its matter, like convincing the tent it’s bigger on the inside than it really is.”

The Kestrel had been Earth-Aligned. Suddenly the lushness of her garden and the way she’d been able to use it to fight off the assassin made sense. But if her mother was—had been—a zawenji, what did that make Karina? She glanced at her Wind emblem. “So if I were a zawenji, I could control the wind?”

“Yes, but if you had magic, you’d know by now. Most of our powers come when we’re kids.” Afua scrunched her nose. “It’s weird, though: I haven’t sensed a single zawenji since coming to Ziran. We’re rare, but normally we can feel when another is near because our nkra is so much stronger than a regular person’s. I thought I felt a magic surge during the comet viewing, but it was gone too quick to tell.”

Perhaps that had something to do with the Barrier. On any other night, Karina might have asked Afua if she knew of ways to break a spell like it, but she only had so much time before someone noticed she was gone.

“Can your whole family do magic?” Karina asked, trying to wrap her head around Afua’s tale. Even with the proof before her and what she’d seen in the Queen’s Sanctuary, it was still difficult to shift her understanding of the world she knew in just a few days.

“No, though my mom can be a real witch when she’s cranky. Don’t tell her I said that, though, or she’ll have me cleaning the outhouse for the rest of the week.”

Afua glanced over her shoulder, and when her mother didn’t appear, she continued, “Not every person descended from the First Tribe can do magic. My family’s huge, but I’m the only zawenji in it.” Afua’s shoulders sagged slightly. “They keep my secret and try to be supportive, but they don’t really get it. Not like other zawenji do.”

“One more question. Earlier, you said The Tome of the Dearly Departed was a record of the Ulraji Tel-Ra. What did you mean?”

Afua shifted uncomfortably.

“In the ancient times, the zawenji and ulraji worked together. But when Kennoua rose to power, the ulraji sided with the pharaohs, and their leaders became the Ulraji Tel-Ra. When Kennoua was finally defeated, all the ulraji were destroyed in the war, and there haven’t been any in Sonande since. I don’t know much about the ulraji magic in the book, but I can get you in contact with someone who does.”

Afua led Karina to the farthest corner of the area, where a group of precariously placed rocks formed a small enclosure. A part of Karina that sounded eerily like the Kestrel urged her to turn back, forget all this talk of resurrection and ancient sorcery. But it was the part of her that couldn’t forget her mother’s blood pooling on the ground that followed Afua into the cave.

She’d been hoping for a size enchantment similar to the one on the tent, but the interior of the cave was exactly as large as it appeared from the outside, meaning Karina had to crouch while entering so she wouldn’t crack her skull open. In the center of the ceiling, an image of the Great Mother stared down at them. The patron deities were depicted in a ring around her, the element they ruled over in a halo around their head. Then the grim folk in a ring around them, followed by humans, and then plants and animals in the ring around the wall that was eye level with Karina.

On a thin shelf behind Afua’s head stood seven stone statues about the size of children’s dolls and a row of jars. Afua pulled one filled with red powder off the shelf and sprinkled it into the fire she’d lit in the center of the cave. Unstrapping her oud from her back and placing it gently on the ground, Karina shot the girl a questioning glance.

“Dried monkey blood,” said Afua as the flames sputtered a multitude of colors.

Karina recoiled from the blaze. “Dried monkey blood. How old are you?”

“Eleven.”