“She did love you,” I whispered. “But she wasn’t strong enough.”

Then the girl under the tree, the one who shared my face and voice, plunged the silver knife into Dayo’s stomach.

“Don’t look.”

We are twelve years old, sitting side by side in a palanquin as it ambles through the Oluwan City Imperial Square. Dayo peers through the embroidered window flap. I wrestle him away, ignoring his protests as I clap my hands over his eyes.

“Don’t look,” I tell him again.

“Why?” Dayo’s head nestles against my neck, tickling me with his soft curly hair. He thinks I’m playing a game. He laughs, a warm, gurgling sound.

Through the window flap, guards lead an old woman in white rags through the square. Her hair hangs in matted clumps. Onlookers spit and hiss as she is forced to climb a platform. Traitor. Traitor. Her bruised knees shake.

“Let me go, Tar,” Dayo whines. “I never get to see the city.”

“It’s not good. It’s an execution.”

“Well, I’ve got to see one someday,” he retorts.

“Please, Dayo.” My throat is dry. The woman on the platform kneels, forced to lay her head on a wooden block. “Please don’t.”

“Why?” The hollow thud of imperial drums fills our ears, pulsing beneath the crowd’s roar. “You think I’m weak, don’t you, Tar? Just like everyone else does.”

“No. I think you’re too good.” I hold Dayo close as hazy noontime light glints on the executioner’s ax. “You think people are kind and soft and pretty.” The ax falls, and blood runs from the platform to pool on the paved square. “I’ll make it true, Dayo. When I’m grown-up, I’ll make the world better, just for you. But for now, close your eyes.”

He sighs into my chest, and I bury my face in his hair.

“I’ll keep you safe, Dayo.”

He gasped as my knife slid into his side. We fell together to the leaf-carpeted earth, like the lovers for whom Enitawa’s Quiver was intended. He gaped up at my unseeing eyes, his features contorted in agony. “Tar.”

“Will you come home now, Mother?” My voice was a monotone. “It’s so lonely in Bhekina House. The servants won’t touch me and I don’t have any friends and I hate it when you leave; please come back …” I blinked, suddenly very, very tired. “Mother?”

Where was I? And why was it so cold?

Bhekina House wasn’t drafty. The tutors had boarded up my windows … No. I didn’t live there anymore. Mother had sent me away to Oluwan with Kathleen and Woo In. Then the fire happened, and it was all my fault. I had been responsible for protecting Dayo. He had trusted me, everyone trusted me, but they shouldn’t, because I was a demon and Mother had sent me here to—

To—

Every hair on my neck rose as I registered the person in my arms.

“No,” I said. A scream worked its way up my throat, but came out as a croak. “No. It’s not—you’re not—Stay awake, Dayo! It’s over now. I’m back. I’d never let anything hurt you; I wouldn’t—Damn it, damn it.” I sobbed, pawing his face. I didn’t dare touch the knife.

He watched me hyperventilate. “You remembered,” he said.

“Don’t talk. Rest, I’ll get help.” His words didn’t make sense. My tears were a torrent; my ribs shuddered with each breath.

“You missed my heart.” He smiled, voice gurgling with blood. “That means you’re stronger than her, Tar.”

“What’s that supposed to mean?” I breathed. “Dayo, stay—”

His eyes fluttered closed.

“No.” I wagged my head, baring my teeth at the sky. “Am, no. I don’t care if you’re the Storyteller; I hate your stories. Kill me instead. Doesn’t that make more sense? Write something better. I’ll give up anything. Anything.” Tears ran into my open mouth as I pressed my ear to Dayo’s bare chest. The dimmest of heartbeats pounded against my cheek. “Anything,” I said, and felt the uneasy sensation of a sealed promise.

A footstep crunched behind me. Then I turned and locked eyes with a stiff, horrified face. Sanjeet stood over me in his wrinkled black festival clothes.

“Thank Am,” I said. “Jeet, we have to get help; Dayo, he—”

Sanjeet’s hand clamped my shoulder hard enough to leave a bruise. He wrenched me away from the tree, and I toppled, stunned.

He knelt, shielding Dayo’s body with his broad back. “Little brother,” he said, “don’t sleep. Don’t you dare sleep.” Avoiding the knife’s hilt, Sanjeet’s fingers ran precise patterns across Dayo’s side, assessing the failing organs.

I began, “We need help. I’ll—”

“You shut up,” Sanjeet rasped. “Just shut up and stay back.”

“Jeet,” I whispered. “It’s not … It’s not what you think.”

“Who are you?” Sanjeet asked. His quiet voice was more ominous than any roar. When he looked at me at last, his eyes were wet and savage. “What are you?”

“I don’t know,” I sobbed. “I don’t know, I don’t know.” Dayo needed help. My mind raced; he couldn’t be moved without making it worse. We needed a miracle-worker.

I flung the Ray back toward Yorua Keep. With difficulty it traveled through the stone; my temples pounded with pain by the time I found Kirah. Dayo’s hurt, I said as her mind woke up groggily. We need you. Don’t wake the others. Hurry.

“Kirah’s coming,” I told Sanjeet as my mind guided her to Enitawa’s Quiver. I could feel Kirah’s panic through the Ray; she barraged me with questions. Just come, I begged, adding to myself, Come and don’t hate me.

At last, Kirah stumbled from the murky passage into the clearing. “Where?” she panted.

I pointed at Dayo and said, “Please.”

The color drained from Kirah’s face. “Am have mercy,” she wailed. “An assassin infiltrated the keep? How? Why didn’t the Ray protect him?”

“Stay close to me,” Sanjeet snapped. He reached for Kirah, casting a searing glance my way. I nodded, keeping my distance. Kirah wasn’t mine anymore—demons didn’t have best friends.

Kirah coaxed Dayo’s head onto her lap, muttering prayers. Her hands trembled as they clutched the tassels of her prayer scarf. Sanjeet found Dayo’s shirt and bunched the fabric into a tourniquet.

“On three,” Sanjeet said curtly, and Kirah looked sick but nodded. He counted and pulled out the knife. As Dayo’s blood soaked the tourniquet, Kirah raised her veiled head to the moon and sang.

Blessid chants resonated in the throat, packed with power to cross miles of desert sand. Kirah’s song soared into the night, so strident I could see the notes winding around the stars. She sang lullabies to slow the rush of blood, high-pitched trills to scare away infection, basket-weaving rhymes to knit the flesh together. But her last and longest chant was a mother’s plea to a restless daughter: a song to keep a soul in its body.

No rubies for my baby’s head, no satin for her feet

No castles can I offer her, no princes dark and tall

But wandering girl, come find your bed,

sheets pressed with purple flowers

For castles have no camel’s milk; my kiss is baby’s crown.

Kirah crooned the song over and over, her homesickness pouring into each note until blue tinged the predawn sky. Sanjeet pressed his hands on Dayo’s side, repeatedly searching for weaknesses and telling Kirah where to direct her healing song. At long last, they sagged with exhaustion.

“The organs are intact again,” Sanjeet said. “Still weak, but getting stronger. He needs rest, lots of it. But you pulled him out of danger, Kirah.” He clapped her shoulder, his eyes glistening. “Thank you.”

“We’ll have to carry him back to the keep,” she said hoarsely. “We have to be careful, but between the three of us—”

“She will not touch him,” snapped Sanjeet.

“Why not?” Kirah blinked, still disoriented from hours of chanting. She glanced at me, then up at the tree. “What happened here? Tar, were you having a dalliance with Dayo? But I thought you liked …” She trailed off, noticing the tension between me and Sanjeet. “Great Am. Jeet … did you stab Dayo because … because you were jealous?”

“Jealous?” Sanjeet barked a laugh, and the sound pierced my stomach like a spear. “What for? The love of a monster?”

“Tell me what’s going on right now,” Kirah demanded. “Don’t make me call the others—”

“I tried to kill Dayo,” I said.

For the first time, Kirah noticed Sanjeet’s dry, clean hands and my shaking, bloody ones. She took in the tears and mucus streaking my face. “You didn’t,” she said. “You couldn’t.”

I said nothing.

“You’re scaring me, Tar. This isn’t funny. Am’s Story, say something—”

“You should tie me up.” I held out my wrists. “The cellar beneath the keep kitchens has a lock; put me there. Tell the others I’m sick. That I need to be quarantined. When it’s properly morning, I’ll have a guard smuggle me to the nearest lodestone port. I’ll go … somewhere far. A place I can never hurt him again.”