ILORIN IS ENTIRELY too peaceful.
At least, it feels that way after today. Coconut boats pull against their anchors, sheets fall over the dome of ahéré entrances. The village sets with the sun, making way for a calm night’s sleep.
Amari’s eyes widen with wonder as we sail through the water and head toward Mama Agba’s on Nailah’s back. She takes in every inch of the floating village like a starving laborer placed before a majestic feast.
“I’ve never seen anything like this,” she whispers. “It’s mesmerizing.”
I breathe in the fresh scent of the sea, closing my eyes as mist sprays my face. The taste of salt on my tongue makes me imagine what would happen if Amari wasn’t here; a fresh loaf of sweet bread, a nice cut of spiced meat. For once, we’d go to sleep with full bellies. A celebratory meal in my name.
My frustration reignites at Amari’s ignorant bliss. Princess that she is, she’s probably never missed a meal in her entire pampered life.
“Give me your headdress,” I snap when Nailah docks in the merchant quarter.
The wonder drops from Amari’s face and she stiffens. “But Binta—” She pauses, collecting herself. “I wouldn’t have this if it weren’t for my handmaiden.… It is the only thing of hers I have left.”
“I don’t care if the gods gave you that wretched thing. We can’t have people finding out who you are.”
“Don’t worry,” Tzain adds gently. “She’ll throw it in her pack, not the sea.”
I glare at his attempt to comfort her, but his words do the trick. Amari fiddles with the clasp and drops the glittering jewels into my pack. The shimmer they add to the shine of silver coins is absurd. This morning I didn’t have a bronze piece to my name. Now I’m weighed down by the riches of royals.
I crouch on Nailah’s back and pull myself onto the wooden walkway. I poke my head through Mama Agba’s curtained door to find Baba sleeping soundly in the corner, curled up like a wildcat in front of a heated flame. His skin has its color back, his face isn’t so skeletal and gaunt. Must be Mama Agba’s care. She could nurse a corpse back to life.
When I enter, Mama Agba peeks her head out from behind a mannequin stitched into a brilliant purple kaftan. The fitted seams suggest that it’s noble-bound, a sale that might cover her next tax.
“How’d it go?” she whispers, cutting the thread with her teeth. She adjusts the green and yellow gele wrapped around her head before tying up the kaftan’s loose ends.
I open my mouth to respond, but Tzain steps in, tentatively followed by Amari. She looks around the ahéré with an innocence only luxury can breed, running her fingers over the woven reeds.
Tzain gives Mama Agba a grateful nod as he takes my pack, pausing to hand Amari the scroll. He lifts Baba’s sleeping body with ease. Baba doesn’t even stir.
“I’m going to get our things,” he says. “Decide what we’re doing about this scroll. If we go…” His voice trails off, and my stomach tightens with guilt. There’s no if anymore. I’ve taken that choice away.
“Just be fast.”
Tzain leaves, biting his emotions back. I watch as his hulking frame disappears, wishing I wasn’t the source of his pain.
“Leave?” Mama Agba asks. “Why would you leave? And who is this?” Her eyes narrow as she looks Amari up and down. Even in a dingy cloak, Amari’s perfect posture and lifted chin denote her regal nature.
“Oh, um…” Amari turns to me, her grip tightening on the scroll. “I—I am…”
“Her name’s Amari,” I sigh. “She’s the princess of Orïsha.”
Mama Agba releases a deep laugh. “It’s an honor, Your Highness,” she teases with an exaggerated bow.
But when neither Amari nor I smile, Mama’s eyes go wide. She rises from her seat and opens Amari’s cloak, revealing the dark blue gown beneath. Even in the dim light, the deep neckline shimmers with glittering jewels.
“Oh my gods…” She turns to me, hands clutching her chest. “Zélie, what in the gods’ names have you done?”
I force Mama Agba to sit as I explain the events of the day. While she wavers between pride and anger over the details of our escape, it’s the possibilities of the scroll that make her go still.
“Is it real?” I ask. “Is there any truth to this?”
Mama’s silent for a long moment, staring at the scroll in Amari’s hands. For once her dark eyes are unreadable, obscuring the answers I seek.
“Give it here.”
The moment the parchment touches Mama Agba’s palms, she wheezes for air. Her body trembles and quakes so violently she falls off her chair.
“Mama Agba!” I run to her side and grab her hands, holding her down until the tremors stop. With time, they fade and she’s left on the ground, as still as one of her mannequins. “Mama, are you okay?”
Tears come to her eyes, spilling into the wrinkles of her dark skin. “It’s been so long,” she whispers. “I never thought I would feel the warmth of magic again.”
My lips part in surprise and I back up, unable to believe my ears. It can’t be. I didn’t think any maji survived the Raid.…
“You’re a maji?” Amari asks. “But your hair—”
Mama Agba removes her gele and runs her hand over her shaved head. “Eleven years ago I had a vision of myself visiting a Cancer. I asked her to get rid of my white hair, and she used the magic of disease to take it all away.”
“You’re a Seer?” I gasp.
“I used to be.” Mama Agba nods. “I lost my hair the day of the Raid, hours before they would’ve taken me away.”
Amazing. When I was a child, the few Seers who lived in Ibadan were revered. The magic they wielded over time helped every other maji clan in Ibadan survive. I smile, though in my heart I should’ve known. Mama Agba’s always had a sage sense about her, the wisdom of a person who’s seen beyond her years.
“Before the Raid,” Mama Agba continues, “I felt the magic sucked out of the air. I tried to conjure a vision of what would come, but when I needed it most, I couldn’t see.” She winces, as if reliving the pain of that day all over again. I can only imagine what horrible images play inside her mind.
Mama shuffles over to her netted windows and pulls the sheets closed. She stares at her weathered hands, wrinkled from years as a seamstress. “Orúnmila,” she whispers, invoking the God of Time. “Bá mi s0r0. Bá mi s0r0.”
“What is she doing?” Amari steps back as if Mama Agba’s words could cut her. But hearing true Yoruba for the first time in over a decade makes it too overwhelming for me to answer.
Since the Raid, all I’ve heard are the harsh stops and guttural sounds of Orïshan, the tongue we are forced to speak. It’s been so long since I heard an incantation, too long since the language of my people didn’t only exist in my memories.
“Orúnmila,” I translate as Mama Agba chants. “Speak to me. Speak to me. She’s calling on her god,” I explain to Amari. “She’s trying to do magic.”
Though the answer comes with ease, even I can’t believe what I’m seeing. Mama Agba chants with a blind faith, patient and trusting, just as those who follow the God of Time are meant to be.
As she calls on Orúnmila for guidance, a pang of longing stirs in my heart. No matter how much I’ve wanted to, I’ve never had enough faith to call on Oya like that.
“Is it safe?” Amari presses against the ahéré wall when veins bulge against Mama Agba’s throat.
“It’s part of the process.” I nod. “The cost of using our ashê.”
To cast magic we must use the language of the gods to harness and mold the ashê in our blood. For a practiced Seer, this incantation would be easy, but with so many years out of practice, this incantation is probably drawing on all the ashê Mama Agba has. Ashê builds like another muscle in our bodies; the more we use, the easier it is to harness and the stronger our magic becomes.
“Orúnmila, bá mi s0r0. Orúnmila, bá mi s0r0—”
Her breath turns more ragged with every word. The wrinkles across her face stretch tight with strain. Harnessing ashê takes a physical toll. If she tries to harness too much, she could kill herself.
“Orúnmila—” Mama Agba’s voice grows stronger. A silver light begins to swell in her hands. “Orúnmila, bá mi s0r0! Orúnmila, bá mi s0r0—”
The cosmos explodes between Mama’s hands with so much force that Amari and I are knocked to the ground. Amari screams, but my shout vanishes under the lump in my throat. The blues and purples of the night sky twinkle between Mama Agba’s palms. My heart seizes at the beautiful sight. It’s back.…
After all this time, magic is finally here.
It’s like a floodgate opening in my heart, an endless wave of emotion rushing through my entire being. The gods are back. Alive. With us after all this time.
The twinkling stars between Mama Agba’s palms swirl and dance with one another. An image slowly crystallizes, sharpening like a sculpture before our eyes. With time, I can make out three silhouettes on a mountainous hill. They climb with relentless fury, making their way through thick underbrush.
“Skies,” Amari curses. She takes a tentative step forward. “Is that … me?”
I snort at her vanity, but the sight of my cropped dashiki makes me stop. She’s right—it’s us and Tzain, climbing through the jungle greenery. My hands reach for a rock while Tzain guides Nailah by the reins to a ledge. We ascend higher and higher up the mountain, climbing till we reach the—
The vision vanishes, snapping to empty air in the blink of an eye.
We’re left staring at Mama Agba’s empty hands, hands that have just changed my entire world.
Mama’s fingers shake from the strain of her vision. More tears spill from her eyes.
“I feel,” she chokes through her silent sobs. “I feel like I can breathe again.”
I nod, though I don’t know how to describe the tightness in my own heart. After the Raid I truly thought I’d never see magic again.
When Mama Agba’s hands are steady, she grasps the scroll, desperation leaking through her touch. She scans the parchment; from the movement of her eyes, I can tell she’s actually reading the symbols.
“It’s a ritual,” she says. “That much I can see. Something with an ancient origin, a way to connect with the gods.”
“Can you do it?” Amari asks, amber eyes shining with a mixture of awe and fear. She stares at Mama Agba as if she were made of diamonds, yet flinches whenever she draws near.
“It’s not I who was meant to do this, child.” Mama places the scroll in my hands. “You saw the same vision as I.”
“Y-you cannot be serious,” Amari stammers. For once I agree with her.
“What’s there to argue?” Mama asks. “You three were on the journey. You were traveling to bring magic back!”
“Is it not already here?” Amari asks. “What you just did—”
“A fraction of what I could do before. This scroll sparks the magic, but to bring it back to its full power, you must do more.”
“There has to be someone better.” I shake my head. “Someone with more experience. You can’t be the only maji to escape the Raid. We can use your power to find someone for the scroll.”
“Girls—”
“We can’t!” I cut in. “I can’t! Baba—”
“I’ll take care of your father.”
“But the guards!”
“Don’t forget who taught you how to fight.”
“We don’t even know what it says,” Amari interrupts. “We cannot even read it!”
Mama Agba’s eyes grow distant like an idea’s taken hold in her head. She scurries over to a collection of her belongings, returning with a faded map. “Here.” She gestures to a spot in the Funmilayo Jungle, a few days east of Ilorin’s coast. “In my vision you were traveling here. It must be where Chândomblé is.”
“Chândomblé?” Amari asks.
“A legendary temple,” Mama Agba answers. “Rumored to be the home of the sacred sêntaros, the protectors of magic and spiritual order. Before the Raid, only the newly elected leaders of the ten maji clans made the pilgrimage, but if my vision showed you traveling there, it must be your time. You must go. Chândomblé may hold the answers you seek.”
The more Mama Agba speaks, the more I lose feeling in my hands and feet. Why don’t you understand? I want to scream.
I’m not strong enough.
I look at Amari; for a moment, I almost forget she’s a princess. In the glow of Mama Agba’s candles she looks small, unsure of what to do next.
Mama Agba places a wrinkled hand on my face and grabs Amari’s wrist with the other. “I know you’re scared, girls, but I also know that you can do this. Of all the days to trade in Lagos, you went today. Of all the people you could’ve approached in that market, you chose her. The gods are at work. They are blessing us with our gifts after all this time. You have to trust that they wouldn’t gamble with the fate of the maji. Trust in yourselves.”
I release a deep breath and stare at the woven floor. The gods that once seemed so far away are closer now than I ever imagined they could be. I just wanted to graduate today.
I only needed to sell a fish.
“Mama—”
“Help!”
A scream breaks through the calm of the night. In an instant we’re all on our feet. I grab my rod as Mama runs to her window. When she rips open the curtains, my legs go weak.
Fire rages in the merchant quarter, every ahéré engulfed in the roaring blaze. Plumes of black smoke tower into the sky with villagers’ yells, cries for help as our world goes up in flames.
A line of burning arrows cuts through the darkness; each explodes as it makes contact with the reeds and wooden beams of the ahéré.
Blastpowder …
A powerful mix only the king’s guards could obtain.
You, the voice in my head whispers in disgust. You brought them here.
And now the guards won’t just kill everyone I love.
They’ll burn the whole village to the ground.
I’m out the door before another second passes, undeterred when Mama Agba shouts my name. I have to find my family. I have to make sure they’re okay.
With each step on the crumbling walkway, my home blazes into a living hell. The stench of burning flesh stings my throat. The fire’s only raged a few minutes, yet all of Ilorin fries in the flames.
“Help!”
I recognize the cries now. Little Bisi. Her screams cut through the darkness, desperate in their shrieks. My chest heaves as I sprint past Bisi’s ahéré. Will she even make it out of the blaze alive?
As I race home, villagers desperate to escape the flames jump into the ocean, their screams piercing the night sky. Coughing, they cling onto charred driftwood, fighting to stay afloat.
A strange sensation rushes through me, surging through my veins, trapping the breath in my chest. With it, warmth buzzes under my skin. A death …
A spirit.
Magic. I put the pieces together. My magic.
A magic I still don’t understand. A magic that’s brought us to this hell.
But even as embers burn my skin, I picture Tiders summoning streams of water to fight the flames. Burners keeping the blaze at bay.
If more maji were here, their gifts could stop this horror.
If we were trained and armed with incantations, the fire wouldn’t stand a chance.
A loud crack rings through the air. The wooden panels beneath my feet moan as I near the fishermen’s sector. I run for as long as the walkway holds before launching myself into the air.
Smoke sears my throat as I land on the teetering deck that supports my home. I can’t see through the blaze, but still I force myself to act.
“Baba!” I scream through my coughs, adding more cries to the chaos of the night. “Tzain!”
There’s not an ahéré in our sector that isn’t engulfed in flames, yet still I run forward, hoping mine won’t share the same fate.
The walkway wobbles beneath my feet and my lungs scream for air. I tumble to the ground before my home, burned from the heat radiating off the flames.
“Baba!” I shriek in horror, searching for any life in the blaze. “Tzain! Nailah!”
I scream till my throat rips raw, but no one answers my call. I can’t tell if they’re trapped inside.
I can’t see if they’re even alive.
I crawl to my feet and extend my rod, thrusting open our ahéré door. I’m about to run in when a hand clamps my shoulder, pulling me back with so much force I topple over.
Tears blur my vision. It’s difficult to make out the face of my assailant. But soon flickering flames illuminate copper skin. Amari.
“You can’t go in there!” she screams between her coughs. “It’s coming down!”
I shove Amari to the ground with half a mind to drown her in the sea. When she releases her grip, I crawl toward my ahéré.
“No!”
The reed walls we spent a full moon building collapse with a sharp crack. They burn through the walkway and into the sea, sinking to the bottom.
I wait for Tzain’s head to bob up from the waves, for Nailah to let out a roar of pain. But I only see blackness.
In one sweep, my family’s been wiped away.
“Zélie…”
Amari grips my shoulder again; my blood boils under her touch. I grab her arm and yank her forward, grief and rage fueling my strength.
I’ll kill you, I decide. If we die, you die, too.
Let your father feel this pain.
Let the king know unbearable loss.
“Don’t!” Amari screams as I drag her to the flames, but I can barely hear her over the blood pounding in my ears. When I look at her, I see her father’s face. Everything inside me twists with hate. “Please—”
“Zélie, stop!”
I release Amari and whip toward the open sea. Nailah paddles in the ocean water with Tzain on her back. Trailing behind him, Baba and Mama Agba sit safely inside a coconut boat attached to Nailah’s saddle. I’m so overwhelmed by the sight that it takes a moment to grasp that they’re actually alive.
“Tzain—”
The entire foundation of the fishermen’s sector slants. Before we can jump, it goes down, taking us with it. Ice-cold water engulfs our bodies in a rush, soothing the burns I’ve forgotten.
I allow myself to sink among the lumber and shattered homes. The darkness cleanses my pain, cooling the rage.
You can stay down here, a small thought whispers. You don’t have to continue this fight.…
I hold on to the words for a moment, grasping my only chance for escape. But when my lungs wheeze, I force my legs to kick, bringing me back to the broken world I know.
No matter how much I crave peace, the gods have other plans.