“It’s just like the memories you used to show me,” said Sanjeet, sounding almost shy.

A copse of slender acacia trees and vibrant green grass surrounded us. The air was sweet with honeysuckle, and winked with whorls of lavender light. “Tutsu sprites,” I whispered. “I haven’t seen them since I was small.”

“Those only exist where the land is especially fertile,” said the Swana port guard, standing straighter with pride. I smiled weakly—even while trapped in his grassland, a little of Melu’s blessing still remained in Swana. I wondered how much longer that magic would last.

The port was located in a secluded crossroads. As we left, our stomachs still sloshing from the lodestone, the sound of singing and plodding donkeys greeted us.

Oluwan and Swana bring his drum; nse, nse.

Dhyrma and Nyamba bring his plow; gpopo, gpopo.

“It’s market day,” I observed.

“Good,” said Sanjeet, heading toward one of the caravans, which rocked with goods and gleeful children hanging off the sides. “We can ask for directions to Melu’s pool. If they don’t know, they can guide us to a town where someone does. Maybe they’ll even give us a lift.” When I didn’t follow him, he glanced back quizzically.

“I used to watch them,” I said quietly. “From my window. I used to dream about joining them and having a family. About being … normal.”

The corner of Sanjeet’s mouth lifted. “You can be a market girl today, if you like, I won’t tell. Imperial Guard gear might give you away, though.”

When Sanjeet and I approached the caravan, the family’s singing died. They eyed our uniforms, stiffening.

“We don’t have any griot drums,” said a bearded man in hoop earrings. “No scrolls either.”

My eyes widened. “Oh, we aren’t—”

“Check if you must,” said the man, uncovering the cart’s load. “We were already stopped twice in Pikwe Village.”

Wrappers in starry patterns shone from the cart: wax-dyed cloth of blue and maize yellow, beet purple and fuchsia. Rainbow-beaded bangles winked in the sunlight, waiting to be stacked on the arms of Swana lords and ladies. Thankfully, native clothing was not illegal under Thaddace’s edict. But how long until this merchant’s sales dwindled? How long until villagers and townspeople bowed to the pressure of empire cloth?

“We’d like to buy your whole stock,” I blurted.

Everyone, including Sanjeet, gaped at me.

“I’ll need my purse,” I told Sanjeet. “Just for now.” Puzzled, he retrieved my coin purse from the pouch around his neck. I selected three gold coins and offered them to the merchant.

“I am an honest man, lady warrior,” the apparel merchant stammered. “That is twice what I profit in a year. One gold and some coppers would more than suffice.”

“Two golds for the stock. The rest for you to finish your journey, and give the clothes away for free at the market. Color the whole town in your beautiful fabric.”

Sanjeet and I gave false names, and learned the merchant was called Tegoso. We traveled in his mule-drawn cart for eight miles, and he introduced us to his four daughters and one son, the latter of whom had not yet been born. His wife and fellow merchant, Keeya, pressed my hand to her belly.

“I know it is a boy,” she told me. Keeya was a plump, frank-voiced woman with cornrowed braids that fell to her hips. “I always know. I want to name him Bopelo, after his grandfather. But Tegoso thinks Overcomer or Peacemaker would be best. Good Arit names, he says. Meanings that everyone can understand. I tell him Swana people understand Bopelo just fine.” She laughed, then sighed and said, “My husband will have his way, in the end. We need the reward money for our daughters’ schooling.”

I grimaced, remembering the edict’s incentives for giving children empire names. Rashly, I slipped another coin from my purse and pressed it into Keeya’s palm. “For Bopelo,” I said. When she gasped, I winked and added, “I think Tegoso will come around.”

Keeya fussed maternally over my yarn-plaited hair, admiring the gold accents but gasping at the roots. “So tight, ah-ah! This is how fancy ladies are wearing braids in Oluwan? Cutting off the air to their brains?”

I shrugged. “I don’t mind.”

“Doesn’t it hurt?”

“Only when I think about it. It’s better this way,” I explained. “Everything under control.”

I asked about Melu’s pool. Keeya told us that only one kind of creature could help us find an ehru: tutsu sprites. A blind hermit was said to have control over the tutsu, and she lived several miles north of the nearest market town. When we reached a dirt compound with a high, broken gate, Tegoso stopped the cart.

“Old Mongwe lives in there,” he said, helping Sanjeet and me down. We wobbled, still queasy from the lodestone. “She helps travelers. It’s the duty of her holy order, the priests of the Clay. If she cannot find Melu, she can at least settle your stomachs.” He dimpled. “I suspect most imperial warriors do not have such refined accents, nor do they carry purses full of gold coins. But I will not ask your true names. Go well. If ever you pass through Pikwe Village, know you have a friend in Tegoso.”

He gave me three bangles, and a cobalt blue blouse and wrapper dyed with yellow stars. Sanjeet received a flowing tunic in the same fabric. We waved until the melodic chants of Tegoso’s daughters—Black and gold, isn’t he perfect?—faded in the distance. Then we turned to a tiny thatch farmhouse. Beyond the gate, tendrils of acrid smoke rose from the overgrown courtyard.

“Are you just going to stand there?” called out a nasal voice. “The sprites said you two would be late, but they did not mention that you were dawdlers.”

WE CREPT UP THE SHORT DIRT PATH, through a broken gate, and into the courtyard. At first, I thought the mud-thatch house was covered in bits of glass. But every minute or so the clusters of bright specks moved, adjusting themselves in the sun. Tutsu. Hives of them.

A green mound rested by a cookfire. No, not a mound: a woman, barely four feet tall, wearing a cloak woven from fresh leaves and rushes. A wizened arm stuck out from the cloak, stirring a pot of bubbling brown slime.

“You have come on soap day,” she complained. “If you had waited a week, I would have had solid bars. Eh! You will have to wash with mash. Beggars cannot be choosers. Not even fancy beggars in imperial armor.”

A mud-and-stick mural of a woman’s face splayed across the ground. Her nose was soft and broad, and her lips dark and full. Round stones swirled to form a crown of hair. I had not been brought up in a religious sect, but I had seen this sacred mural before. Mbali had tried to teach me how to make one, since Swana belonged to People of the Clay. The believers often meditated by assembling portraits of Queen Earth, made from natural or living materials.

Beyond the mural, a rough linen screen flapped on a clothesline. Behind it sat two washtubs, towels folded neatly over each rim. Waiting.

The woman turned her ear toward us when we didn’t move, rustling the leaves on her hood. Her eyes were milky glass.

“Are you Old Mongwe?” I asked.

“No,” said the Clay priestess with a straight face. “I am Mongwe the Newborn Babe. Old Mongwe is in the other sprite-covered earth shrine in the middle of the wilderness. Sit down and drink your tea, you tiresome child.”

A kettle and two cups of golden liquid rested on mats beside her. We hesitated, then sat obediently and claimed the clay mugs. The tea didn’t smell enchanted or poisoned, and the steam relieved my lodestone nausea instantly. Sanjeet frowned at Mongwe before taking a sip. “How did you know we were coming?”

Mongwe rolled her sightless eyes. “How could I not know? Those chatter-mouths love stray adventurers.” She gestured toward her house, where tutsu hovered sleepily in the eaves. “All day they whine, ‘Mongwe, a boy is on the road taking a magic cow to market. Mongwe, a dairy maid is running away to be with her true love. Mongwe, a wuraola and her friend have come to seek an ehru.’ You are all the same, young people. Full of questions and deaf to ugly answers. Leaving your safe homes, your warm beds because—let me guess—you want to follow your heart.” She laughed, a dry, wheezing sound. Then she turned back to her pot, stirring as she muttered. “Should a fool follow his heart? A thief? A murderer? Your heart is not your friend unless you know who you truly are.”

“Thank you for the tea,” I said after a confused pause. “What’s a wuraola?”

“How should I know?” She sniffed the pot, then dumped it in a vat of ashes. “You will have a hard time convincing them to take you to Melu. Protective of alagbatos, the tutsu. Especially when it comes to him. The last time they helped someone find Melu … Well. He suffered.”

I stared at the bottom of my teacup, heart sinking. If the tutsu knew that my mother had enslaved Melu, they would never help me.