From the emperor.

But why would Olugbade be worried about his council members having a dalliance? What threat could it pose to him, except the mild scandal of court gossip? Still, I nodded again, fidgeting with the beads on my wrists. “May I be excused, Anointed Honors?”

Mbali learned forward to peck me on the cheek. “I think you will make a wise Delegate to Swana,” she said. “And an excellent High Lady Judge.”

I tried to return to my council’s dais, where my siblings were busy accepting gifts and blessing the village children. But as I turned toward them, my head swam, as though struck with a sleep dart. I swayed on my feet, and a sweet musk filled my nostrils.

I heard myself mumble an excuse, though no one was close enough to hear: “Going to relieve myself.” Woodenly, I glided away from the firelit festival, where that familiar musk drew me, growing stronger with every step.

Several minutes outside Yorua Village, a masked elder stood in a crop of acacia trees. The brush was still, and the moon bathed us in deathly white. The elder’s mask was female: a round face of ivory bone with red slits for eyes. Its brow had an edge of jagged points, as if to imply a queen’s crown.

“Do … do I know you?” I whispered.

For some reason, I found it difficult to form words. I wished I could identify that smell—its name danced out of reach, like warning bells too faint for hearing.

The elder tilted her mask and bowed. A vessel rested in the crook of her strong, shapely arm. With her other hand, she held out a smooth-handled drinking gourd.

With effort, I shook my head. “I’ve already selected a token. We’re not allowed more than one.”

But my muscles relaxed as another fragrant wave rolled over me. I’d felt this way before. Small. Submissive. My fingers closed around the drinking gourd’s handle, and I dipped into the vessel when she offered it. The liquid was clear amber—not golden, like honeywine.

“What is this?” I asked.

The elder tensed impatiently, pantomiming for me to drink. The longer I stood in her presence, the hazier my thoughts grew. I could think of no objection, no reason to disobey. I brought the gourd to my lips and drank. It was then that I remembered the name of that smell.

Jasmine.

Fire burned over my skin, waking sounds and images that had slept for five years. This will be the day—The Lady will be so pleased—Melu, won’t you come out and play?—When you love him the most, and when he anoints you as his own, I command you … to kill him.

I stumbled back and the gourd fell from my grasp. As the liquid splashed on my open sandals, a sob caught in my throat.

I remembered everything.

The third wish. Our mango orchard. The tutors. The journey from Swana. Kathleen’s warning. Woo In setting the Children’s Palace on fire.

“What have you done?” I gasped at the elder. “What have you given me?”

“Water from Melu’s pool,” she said with a laughing, melodious voice that made my veins run cold. “You wanted to forget. But the ehru inside you knows who you are, daughter. It knows what you were made for.” Then the figure removed her mask, and I was staring into a mirror. A face chillingly like my own: the first face I had ever loved.

The Lady smiled, her brilliant dark eyes glittering with tears. “I have missed you, Made-of-Me.”

She kissed my forehead, and my heart grew as hollow as the drinking gourd. The Lady took my hand. Her wish draped around me like a mantle, and I sighed with horrified relief, like a warrior who had cheated death too many times—a fugitive tired of running.

“I was so hurt when you chose to forget me,” The Lady whispered. “Your own mother. But I forgave you, once I realized the truth. You rebelled because you are me.” She laughed softly. “Strong-minded. Independent. I cannot fault you for mirroring my strengths.”

She smiled, and lay a small silver dagger across my palm. Obediently, my fingers closed around the hilt.

“It is time,” The Lady said, and I nodded. I walked as if through water back to the village. Back to my council siblings—to warmth and innocence and light. You don’t belong here, whispered the pit flames, shadows dancing on my siblings’ faces. And you never did.

WHEN THE PALANQUINS RETURNED TO YORUA Keep, my council siblings were clumsy with honeywine. They slept fully clothed on their pallets, snoring in heaps of jewelry and wax-dyed mantles.

I lay among their sweaty bodies, watching their chests rise and fall. Dayo’s breaths tickled my neck. I listened to the guards change watch as the night grew old.

I waited.

I had promised to wake Sanjeet once the others were asleep. He lay on the edge of the sun-and-stars floor mosaic, backlit by the arched windows. All night, his fingers had searched for mine at the festival, restless and tender. I had teased him into chalice after chalice of honeywine, pretending to drink with him. Now, as he lay across from me in the banquet hall, he Ray-spoke drowsy messages through the dark: Promise you’ll wake me up when it’s time.

I will, I replied.

Sanjeet fell asleep, his mental guard down, and I stole into his thoughts. He was dreaming of Enitawa’s Quiver. I tried to make myself crawl over to his pallet. I tried to feel something. Anything.

But cold emptiness spread like fog through my mind, and I shook Dayo awake instead.

My lips caressed the burn scar on his jaw. He roused, confused, and I held a finger to my lips. I pulled him up, and hand in hand we wove around the sleeping bodies, slipping from the banquet hall. We stole through keep corridors, bare feet pounding on stone.

“Tar, what’s going on?” Dayo yawned. I didn’t reply, snatching a torch from its sconce and hurrying down a staircase. He puffed to keep up. “Are you all right? Is someone hurt?”

He sounded distant, an echo in my head. “Enitawa’s Quiver,” I told him, rounding a corner. After several drinks at the Nu’ina festival, Mayazatyl had revealed the tree’s hiding place. A passage ran through the bowels of the keep, circumventing the guards and leading outside Yorua.

Dayo stopped dead in his tracks.

I glanced back at him impatiently. His pupils were dilated from sleep and disbelief. He wore nothing but trousers and a linen shirt, undone to reveal his collarbone.

“Tar,” he whispered.

“What?” I asked. “Isn’t this what you want?”

His gaze searched mine, shy and vulnerable. “I—I don’t know. It’s what’s expected of us. But then I saw you with Sanjeet, and I thought—”

“You thought wrong,” I said, seizing his hand and sweeping down a narrow staircase. We passed through a heavily barred door into a passage beneath Yorua Keep.

As we charged into the damp darkness, Dayo noticed my torch. “Aren’t you afraid of fire anymore?”

“No, Dayo.” The flames snickered in my ears. “Not anymore.”

According to Mayazatyl, the passage let out onto a mossy plateau, shielded from outside view by an outcrop of brush and sharp boulders. Before long, a breeze teased my face in the passage. I hung the torch in a niche and stepped out into the open.

A single tree grew in the plateau’s center. It had a slippery pale trunk with branches like twisting arms, tinted purple as they reached for the sky. A soft, high moan shivered in the air as Enitawa’s branches sang, heavy with the secrets of lovers who had rolled beneath its shadow. The ground was spongy beneath my feet, damp with a bed of ochre leaves.

“Come,” I said. Run, Dayo. A dim voice struggled to rise in my thoughts, like a seabird keeping abreast in a storm. “Come here.”

Run, Dayo. Run, please.

“I don’t understand,” he said, but drew near anyway. When I stroked the raised scar on his jaw, he relaxed into my touch. Words seemed to escape him as my fingers traced the veins in his neck. I explored the bones beneath his warm skin, admiring their weakness. Marveling at how easily they could break.

Dayo, get away. Run as far as you can. The voice was wheeling, drowned out by waves and crashing thunder. My fingers were steady and cold as they peeled off Dayo’s shirt, caressed the obsidian mask, and danced across his bare chest. He stiffened.

“Tar,” he whispered. “There’s something I should tell you. I don’t … I don’t think I want sex. Ever. And I don’t mean with you, I mean—with anyone. Girls, boys. Anyone.” He stared at the leaves on the ground, smooth brow furrowing. “I mean, I’ve had crushes before. On you, on Jeet, and some of the others. I’ve just … never been interested in the sex part. Sometimes I wonder if I’m broken.”

You aren’t broken, protested the voice inside me. You’re the kindest, most loving person I know. Run. Live.

“But I’m crown prince,” he continued, grimacing, “and I have to have heirs someday, so … I guess—if I could choose anyone—”

“There is no choosing,” I intoned. There were only suns and moons. Demons and wishes. Curses written into the stars.

He sighed. “Do you love me now, Tarisai of Swana?”