The fortress had twenty pristine bedchambers, and we used every single one for storage. Sleeping separately, after all, meant eight hours apart, and the resulting nausea of council sickness was too steep a price. Instead we slept on the floor of the keep banquet hall, rolling out pallets as we had in the Children’s Palace and snoring together in a sweaty pile.

The banquet hall floor was a mosaic of the Kunleo sun and moons. Dayo lay in the golden center, with the rest of us scattered among the eleven pale orbs. Sheer curtains hung from floor-length, unglazed windows, screening us from the warm night air. As moonlight glowed across the tiles, we could hear the Imperial Guard warriors changing watch and the crash of the Obasi Ocean, churning on rocks hundreds of feet below.

The lullaby was almost enough to chase away the screams of commoners speared by talons. The jeers of citizens who had refused each other shelter. The scent of Ye Eun’s lily-of-the-valley crown, marking where her birthmarked feet had leapt into the breach. Almost, but not enough.

Some demons could not be soothed by any lullaby.

I was fast asleep on my pallet. Thaddace routinely sent me cases from the capital, and today’s collection had been particularly exhausting: everything from village disputes over cattle to housemaids reporting their masters for rape. I frowned into my pallet, burying deeper into the down pillows as a hand jostled my shoulder.

“Go’sleep, Dayo,” I mumbled. He woke me often these days, requesting dreams to help him sleep. “I’m tired.” The hand was insistent, so I grimaced and sat up.

It wasn’t Dayo. Sanjeet knelt over me, shirtless and disheveled. “He’s gone,” he said tersely. “Don’t wake the others.”

“What?” I whirled around. Dayo’s pallet was empty.

“He’s sleepwalking.” Sanjeet held a finger to his lips. “If the guards hear a commotion, they’ll come running. We don’t need rumors that the crown prince is unstable. I saw where he went, but we’ll need to use your Hallow.”

All of us suffered from night terrors, but Dayo had it worst. Once a terror took him, only one thing woke him up: removing the most grotesque of his memories. I sighed and pulled off my satin sleep scarf as Sanjeet woke Kirah. Then the three of us wove through the sleeping bodies of our council siblings, stealing out onto the banquet hall balcony. A steep whitewashed stairway led down to the garden, and far beyond it, the pale gold beach.

I swore. “Did he really take these stairs? He could have broken his neck. Why didn’t the guards stop him?”

“He wouldn’t have died, even with a broken neck,” Kirah pointed out. “And the guards probably don’t know he’s sleeping. Don’t tell them. Try to look calm.”

We nodded at the guards at the foot of the stairs, as if midnight strolls in our underclothes were nothing out of the ordinary. The armed warriors bowed. After an awkward pause, one of them ventured, “Will Your Anointed Honors also require a shovel?”

I blinked. “Shovel?”

“It is what His Imperial Highness asked for, Your Anointed Honor. We did not ask what for.”

“Oh.” Kirah cleared her throat. “No. I’m sure one shovel is sufficient for the prince’s business.” Whatever that is, she Ray-spoke dryly.

Sanjeet addressed the guards in a smooth, low voice that made me shiver. “There is no need to mention Prince Ekundayo’s activity to anyone.”

“Yes, Anointed General.” The warriors nodded curtly, and then one of them lifted a flaming brand from its niche on the wall. “Will you take a torch, Anointed Honors?”

The torch’s heat murmured across my face, crackling and wicked. Every bone in my body turned to jelly. For a moment I was melting, and the flame grew louder; the blazing doors of the Children’s Palace rose in my vision, opening their mouths to devour …

“Anointed Honor,” the guard began, peering at me as my breath came in shallow gasps. “Are you—”

“She’s fine,” Sanjeet replied curtly. “As you were.” He and Kirah led me down the path, gripping my petrified hands. We passed through an arbor of hanging wisteria into the keep garden, lit on either side with more bright torches.

“Don’t look at them,” Sanjeet advised me.

“Still?” asked Kirah. “After almost two years?”

I nodded mutely, staring at my bare feet. My arms prickled with goose bumps, free of the burn scars I should have received the day of my anointing. The day Dayo had almost died in the Children’s Palace.

Burn scars marked his face, but mine were all inside. For years, the heat of fire—the sound and smell of it—had turned my knees to water. The flames mocked me, hinting at secrets, summoning demons from the pit of my memories. With practice, I had learned to light candles without trembling, but bonfires—and torches—were still out of the question.

“It’s strange how that fire took your memories,” Kirah said with a frown. “Maybe it’s time we found a healer from the capital—”

“I’m fine,” I said, avoiding her gaze.

The garden gate opened to a sandy incline, tumbling down to the Obasi Ocean. At first, I thought Dayo had disappeared. Then a loc-covered head of hair popped up behind a ledge and vanished again. What was Dayo doing in a hole?

We padded across the beach and stopped at a shallow pit, yards from the churning tide. His nightshirt damp with sweat, Dayo hurled shovelfuls of sand over his shoulder, muttering. The obsidian mask dangled precariously from his neck.

“Dayo,” I panted. “Dayo, you’re not well. Wake up.”

He continued digging, bloodshot eyes glassy and unfocused. After exchanging a look, Kirah and I climbed into the pit. Sanjeet ducked to avoid the arc of Dayo’s shovel, then wrestled the tool away. Dayo paused, staring blankly at his now empty hands. They were bleeding.

My stomach knotted. “Dayo, you idiot.” I cleaned his fingers with the hem of my nightshift. “What in Am’s name are you dreaming about?”

“Bring them back,” he mumbled. In the moonlight, the burn scars shone pale against his dark skin. Sand clung to his sweat.

“Bring them back? Bring who?”

“Children,” he said. “Redemptors. I’m the future emperor. I should—I should save them.”

“This year’s Redemptors are gone, Dayo,” Kirah said softly. “Most of them are already dead, or lost.” She grasped his arms. “This has to stop. You have to accept things you can’t change. You can’t keep scaring us like—”

“Underworld,” Dayo repeated.

I stared, realization slowly sinking in. “You asked for a shovel so you could dig to the Underworld?”

Sanjeet, Kirah, and I looked at each other. Then we began to laugh, a breathless, wheezing noise that sounded suspiciously close to sobbing. Our shoulders shook, and we held each other up for support. Dayo stood quietly, watching us with those vacant black eyes.

Sanjeet hoisted him from the pit, and I pressed Dayo’s temples with both hands. Heat pulsed through my fingertips as I silenced his memories. I erased the shrill of wounded villagers, the shrieking hyena-beasts, the cries for help, the ghosts of vanished children.

Dayo sagged in Sanjeet’s arms. Then he revived and stood, looking about dazedly. “Tar … Kirah. Jeet.” He took in our beach surroundings, and his face shaded with understanding. “Twelve realms, not again. I’m so sorry.”

“Do me a favor, little brother.” Sanjeet dusted sand from Dayo’s hair and clapped him gently on the back. “Next time you’re digging to the Underworld, bring a bigger shovel. Thérèse could weed her dahlias with this one.”

“And be more careful with this,” I added, securing the obsidian mask back around Dayo’s neck. His immunities to death were not affected by whether or not he wore the mask. Still, the thought of him damaging it made me shiver.

“What would happen, I wonder?” Kirah asked, frowning at him. “If you lost it?”

Dayo shrugged. “Not much. There are only two Raybearer masks, mine and Father’s. And according to legend, they always find their way back to their rightful owners.”

When we returned to the garden, I grimaced and touched my wrist—I’d hurt myself helping Dayo from the pit. Sanjeet noticed, scanning me immediately with his Hallow.

“You pulled a tendon,” he said. “We’ll need to stop by the medicine shed.”

“I can fix it,” Kirah piped up.

I shook my head. “Save your Hallow to help Dayo get back to sleep.”

“We won’t be long,” Sanjeet put in. “Go on. We’ll catch up.”

Dayo nodded, giving me an apologetic smile before Kirah helped him climb the banquet hall steps. Sanjeet and I stood in the garden alone.

I raised an eyebrow. “We don’t have to do this. My wrist can wait till morning.”

“Do you feel like sleeping right now?”

“No.”

“Me either.”