After a long deliberation, several begrudging voices spoke around the room: “Dayo’s council … Mbali’s right … Her memory gift could be useful … Strict surveillance … Give it a try …”

“Fine,” Nawusi said finally, rigid in her chair. “She can meet the prince. But only after we have tried our last option.” She stood and approached me, back straight as a palace spire. Her face twitched as she tried, unconvincingly, to look friendly. “Are you hungry, child?”

“I don’t know.” I fidgeted. “A little.”

She reached into her robe pocket and produced a shiny red fruit. The room tensed immediately.

“Nawusi …” Thaddace growled. “Don’t be rash—”

“Do you know what this is, Tarisai?” Nawusi cooed. “No, you don’t have these in Swana. But in Oluwan City, we eat delicacies from all over the empire. This is called an apple. They grow far to the north. Won’t you take a bite?”

“No!” Mbali exclaimed, rising to her feet. “Nawusi, how could you?”

“You’re the one who’s so sure of her power, Mbali,” Nawusi retorted. “If you’re right, then perhaps she has nothing to fear from me.”

“We must obey the law, Nawusi,” Thaddace objected. “And for Am’s sake, she’s a child.”

“Olugbade?” Nawusi turned to the emperor, raising an expectant eyebrow.

Olugbade leaned back in his chair, tenting his hands over the obsidian mask. At last, he said weakly, “Give it to her.”

Mbali’s face slackened with horror. “Olu.”

But the emperor ignored the priestess, wincing at me. “I fear we are frightening you, little one. Sometimes, adults argue over silly things. But you need not fear. Take the apple.”

A small voice in my head told me to run.

But where would I go? There were guards outside the door, and these people were powerful in ways I dared not guess. What if they chased me? Besides … Arit emperors were good. They were perfect.

I took the apple. Everyone in the room held their breath. I raised the smooth-skinned fruit, opened my mouth, and …

Mbali reached me in two strides, knocked the apple out of my hand, then kneeled and pressed me to her chest.

“Am will punish us for this,” she whispered. “Poisoning a child is an unclean game to play. No matter how powerful that child may be.”

I recoiled, staring at the apple on the floor with horror. What was this place, where adults tried to kill children? Why had The Lady sent me here?

I began to cry. Mbali made a soothing noise, pushing a wayward coil from my face. “Let us start again,” she said. “I am the High Priestess of Aritsar. Everyone in this room is a member of Olugbade’s Eleven. And really—it’s lovely to meet you, Tarisai.”

“I don’t understand,” I hiccupped.

“Aritsar is ruled by twelve people. When the emperor is a young boy, he anoints eleven children, one from each realm, to rule beside him until death. These children are gifted, special, and loyal only to the emperor.”

“And,” Thaddace murmured, “to each other.”

Mbali shot him what appeared to be a warning look … but she nodded. “A child on the council gains not only power, but a family.”

Curiosity crept into my fear. I remembered Kirah’s joke on the stairs: If we both pass the trials, we’re stuck together for life. My whole life, I had longed for friends who stayed. For the people I loved to never disappear. I glanced at the men and women clustered around Olugbade, faces animated in silent conversation. That was how I had always imagined being part of a family: draped across one another like a pride of lions, trading giggles and secrets.

“If I want to join the prince’s Eleven,” I said slowly, “what do I have to do?”

“Well … above all, you must love Crown Prince Ekundayo, and devote your life to his service.”

I raised an eyebrow. “Love the prince? That’s it?”

“In summary.” Mbali waved a hand. “There are other tests, to be sure. But what matters most is your connection with the Ray: the power of Kunleo emperors. It allows them to join eleven minds to their own. If you succeed, the prince will offer you both the Ray and his hand in councilhood. Your choice is permanent. Nothing is more important than your love—than your loyalty. Do you understand, Tarisai?” She stood and reached for me. “Good. I think you’ll like the prince. He’s—”

“Wait,” I said. “How do you all know Mother? Has she been here before?”

Another pause from Mbali. “The Lady lived at the Children’s Palace a long time ago, when Emperor Olugbade was a boy. It would be best, Tarisai, if you do not speak of your mother while at An-Ileyoba. Few people are old enough to remember when she lived here, but those who do may not look … kindly on your connection. If anyone asks, your parents are middling gentry, prosperous farmers from the Owatu region in Swana. Can you remember that?”

I nodded reluctantly. Then I scanned the room with new interest, trying to imagine The Lady as a child. “Was my mother a candidate? Did she fail?”

“She failed in every way,” Olugbade intoned. “She was not aspiring to be a council member.”

“Oh. Then why did she—”

“It’s no use bringing up the past,” Mbali said briskly. “You write your story, not the people who came before you. Come.”

We crossed the room to a gilded set of doors behind Olugbade’s Eleven. My hand in hers, we entered a place that made me dizzy from gazing.

“Welcome to the Children’s Palace,” said Mbali. “The happiest place in An-Ileyoba.”

Sunlight streamed into a high-domed chamber of blue and gold. Rays glinted off a mountain of toys and a menagerie of rideable wooden animals from every Arit realm. Children on zebras and tigers scooted past me, jeering and screaming in chase. Servants in brocade wrappers bustled about, holding fruit trays and water pitchers.

Mbali caught a child by the arm: the girl I had met on the stairs. I smiled at Kirah, relieved that she had passed the mysterious trial. She beamed back and curtsied to Mbali. “Anointed Honor! Is it time for another test?”

“Not yet, my dear,” Mbali replied. “But can you help me find Ekundayo? I can’t pick him out in this crowd.”

Kirah’s round face flushed. “None of us can, Your Anointed Honor. He’s been hiding since I got here.” She gestured at a large group of children, who were throwing open cabinets and peeking under tables. As the groups of searchers disemboweled the room, shrieking the prince’s name … I felt a pang of familiarity.

My tutors had often searched for me in Bhekina House. I had hidden for hours, plugging my ears to the sound of my name as it echoed through every hall. My tutors feared The Lady, and so their lives had revolved around me: my every success and failure.

Empathy surged inside me for this prince I had never met.

“He’s not in here,” I said.

Mbali looked down at me in surprise. “How do you know?”

I shrugged, scanning the room. “Too many people. And the cabinets would be too easy.”

Mbali’s mouth twitched. “Then we had better look somewhere else.”

We left Kirah and passed through the brightly painted halls of the Children’s Palace. It was a miniature version of An-Ileyoba’s central wing, Mbali told me, and in one room, the floor was a giant marble checkerboard, where giggling children stood in place of the pieces. In another, dining tables brimmed with oranges, fried plantains, sticky fig cakes, and mountains of treats I couldn’t name. The wing even had a mock throne room—a chamber with mirrored ceilings and twelve child-size thrones. At last, I lingered in a large, airy room with a dais in the center. Murals of long-dead councils glittered overhead, depicted as flower-crowned children, smiling beatifically as they danced in a circle.

“This is the Hall of Dreams,” said Mbali. “You will conduct much of your training here during the day, and sleep here at night.” Rolled sleeping mats lay stacked in neat piles against the walls. Tied-up mosquito nets hung in gauzy festoons from the ceiling, and embroidered constellations shimmered in silver and blue across the netting. When the nets were let down, they would look like the heavens, tumbling to the bodies of children below.

“At night, a screen separates the boys from the girls. The prince sleeps there, in the middle.” She pointed to the raised platform. “Someday, his council will sleep close beside him.”

Lofty unglazed windows sank into arches along one wall, shielded by white damask curtains, which glowed with sunlight and shuddered in the breeze.

“Here,” I murmured. “He’s in here.”

Mbali raised an eyebrow. “How do you know?”

“It’s where I would hide. It’s so open that no one would look very hard.” One of the curtains wrinkled more than the others. I approached it, spying dark brown toes and the tips of golden sandals at the curtain’s edge.

“Don’t worry,” I said softly. “I won’t tell the others.” Then I drew back the curtain. A young Oluwani boy stood before me, parting his full lips into a curious, familiar smile.

I saw red. Heat tore through me, and my pulse thrummed with the same word, over and over and over.

Kill.