“A belly what?”

“That’s what we Blessids call it, back home.”

Home. What a foreign concept. The chilly white walls of Bhekina House loomed in the distance, reminding me that I had never been part of anything—not until I joined Dayo’s council.

“The place closest to your soul isn’t your heart,” Kirah explained. “It’s your stomach. Anger, love, and sorrow simmer together there, like bubbles in a cauldron. People of the Wing believe that when the Pelican breathed each soul into being, it wrote two secrets on a burning coal: your greatest good and your best desire. You swallowed the coal before being born, and it burned in your belly. That’s why we wail as newborns, Mama would say.”

Kirah smiled into the tall grass, as if seeing her parents there, and the many infants for whom she had helped to care. She had real siblings somewhere, blood brothers and sisters that she had left behind for this. Being priestess to the world, and sitting with a monster in the wilderness. I wondered if she ever regretted it.

“High Priestess Mbali says that people have many gifts,” Kirah continued. “But our greatest good is the one we can’t contain: compassion, loyalty, softness, fierceness. The ability to win hearts, or recognize beauty, or weather a storm … Our gift could be anything, really. And when we use our greatest good for something beyond ourselves, that’s our best desire. Our purpose.” She paused. “But the coal inside us gradually grows colder. We forget our cry as newborns, our bellysong. We forget our knowledge of why Am made us, and our frustration at being too small and weak to fulfill it. We grow old and content, and unless we try very, very hard—we never wail our bellysong again.”

I broke off a stalk of grass. “Why Am made us,” I repeated, ripping the stalk into pieces until my fingers were stained lurid green. “Why Am made us.”

Sanjeet blinked at me. “Are you all right?”

“I guess I’d better be,” I said, standing and throwing the grass into the pool. “Because if Kirah and Melu are right, then we’re all djinns. Just lines in the poem of an almighty griot.” I flopped my arms like a puppet, then dug my nails into my fists. “If Kirah’s right, then the Storyteller is no different than The Lady.”

Kirah recoiled, making the sacred sign of Am on her chin. “That isn’t true,” she said.

“You have to believe that. You’re a priestess.”

“What, so I don’t have a brain?” Kirah retorted. “The Storyteller isn’t a djinn-master, Tarisai. Singing your bellysong is a choice.”

“Not for me! If I don’t find a purpose, then Dayo dies, and The Lady wins, and the whole empire falls apart. What kind of a choice is that?”

“You have a choice,” Kirah said slowly, “because there’s another way. After you left Yorua Keep, I had to come up with a plan and …” She avoided my gaze, grinding her sandal soles into the dirt. “Look, it’s not what I want. Dayo refused to even consider it. But it’s a good plan, all right? He won’t be emperor for years, so there’s time to train a new Swana delegate. The rest of us could split your duties as High Judge, and …”

Sanjeet’s expression sickened. “You’re talking about Tar leaving the Eleven. You think she could stop being an Anointed One.”

She nodded grimly. “A living one, anyway. We would make up an accident. Find a body and say it’s her. Hold an empire-wide funeral. She would be muraled on the Watching Wall, and of course”—she added gently—“we would place a likeness on her throne.”

The title of an Anointed One lasted beyond their grave. Council members who died prematurely could not legally be replaced, even if their duties were assigned to someone new. The emperor fashioned a bust from the council member’s ashes and placed it on one of the twelve great thrones of An-Ileyoba. There, legend rumored, the ghost of the lost Anointed One would remain until the emperor died, releasing the deceased council member from their duty.

“Council sickness will be bad, in hiding,” Kirah admitted. “But we would visit you. It would have to be a place no one could find, ever. A realm close enough to Oluwan that Sanjeet and I could slip away. Somewhere like …” Her gaze drifted down the plain, where she knew The Lady’s fortress shimmered invisibly.

Bile stung the back of my tongue. “Bhekina House,” I whispered. Back to watching the world from a window. Back to those four mudbrick walls, rising like night around me. “Forever.”

“Or not,” Kirah said hurriedly. “We could disguise you. You could live in Oluwan City, in an outer district, far away from the palace. The risk would be greater, but not impossible.” She chewed her lip. “Some people don’t believe in bellysongs, you know. To them, Am is just a concept, and Am’s Story is no story at all. It’s simply the essence of being alive: the soup in which we all live. I don’t know if I believe that, but those people find happiness, and you can too. What I’m trying to say is: You have choices, Tar. And you always will.”

I nodded slowly. “And I’d go anywhere to keep Dayo safe.” Overhead, the tutsu from last night had dimmed, and they drifted in aimless patterns against the clouds. “But so much of my life has been a lie. I … I don’t think I want my death to be one too.”

Sanjeet’s features flooded with relief. “Then choose life,” he said. He locked his fingers through mine, as though I were in danger of vanishing. “Your greatest good, your best desire—whatever it takes, we’ll find it. All we need is time.”

After a long moment, I let my hand curl around his. “If we’re not going to fake my death, then I have to answer the emperor’s summons. I can’t afford for him to get suspicious and come looking for me.”

Kirah beamed. “So we’ll go to An-Ileyoba. Who knows? Maybe you’ll find your purpose there. There’s also a good chance Aiyetoro’s masks will be at the palace. Woo In told me that The Lady has searched for them everywhere except there.”

“Dayo will be at An-Ileyoba,” I pointed out.

“We’ll be careful—”

“I won’t see him,” I said firmly. “Don’t you dare let me. At the palace, I’m staying far away from him until I’ve found my cure. And thanks to Melu …” The ehru’s words curled around me like smoke. If you are ever to find your purpose, then you must know who you really are. Grimly, I set off toward Bhekina House. “I know just where to start looking.”

“You shouldn’t go in there alone,” Sanjeet countered as he and Kirah hurried after me.

“She won’t,” said Kathleen. She and Woo In were waiting by the gates of Bhekina House, leaning against a wall that Sanjeet and Kirah could not see.

Sanjeet shuddered, then scoffed. “You expect us to trust you?”

“We expect you,” Woo In droned, “to consider that we’ve protected her for six years.”

“You should have protected her from The Lady,” Kirah retorted, crossing her arms. Then she winced and uncrossed them, having clearly forgotten about her sprain.

“Can’t you fix that?” Woo In asked, eyeing her wrist with concern.

She scowled at him. “Soul-singers can’t heal themselves. That’s like—like trying to exhale and inhale at the same time. My Hallow doesn’t work that way.”

“Then I’ll help with the pain,” Woo In insisted, and before Kirah could protest, a whirlwind materialized in the savannah. The whipping air condensed into a shimmering ball, which Woo In directed toward her. “Your hand,” he said. “Please, Kirah.”

Slowly, she placed her bandaged hand into the levitating ball of wind. The ball attached itself to her arm, making it float, and her features relaxed instantly. “It isn’t throbbing anymore,” she muttered.

Woo In made an effort not to look pleased. “It’s the same airstream we used to fly. It doesn’t heal, but wounds tend to stabilize.”

I considered him suspiciously. “You never fully explained your Hallow to me,” I said. “It’s more than flight, isn’t it?”

“Much more,” Kathleen said, smirking at Woo In. “In a way, it’s really not even a Hallow, is it, princey?”

He sighed, rolling his eyes. “What you Arits call my Hallow,” he explained, “Songlanders call sowanhada: the language of nature. Unlike your Hallows, sowanhada can be taught, though some forces respond only to certain bloodlines. The silent language of wind and air, for example, may only be spoken by the royal family. Our military exclusively recruits fire-speakers. That’s why The Lady wants Songland’s army,” he added. “Sowanhada warriors can do a formidable amount of damage, even against Olugbade’s vast Imperial Guard.” He nodded at Kirah’s hand. “That ball of air should last a few hours. Enough time to search the house for clues about a certain person’s bellysong.”

My eyebrows shot to my hairline. “How did you know about—” Then I remembered a breeze whisking around Melu’s pool as I had spoken to Kirah and Sanjeet. “You were eavesdropping. Again.”