Eniola Agbaje was not a normal person. She was like a stain on the wall, a shadow in the corner, a ripple in the water. That was the first lesson of the Ilari—the body is just a vessel for the Queen’s eyes.

  She crouched on the thatched roof of a dried-fish stall, overlooking the alley where the Golden Lion had just torn a hole in the night. The air still tasted of ozone and burnt spirit-matter.

  She waited.

  She watched the Python Priestess; Adaeze, a woman Eniola had been tracking for weeks drag the unconscious Ojie away. She watched the merchant woman, Y?misí, limp after them, casting fearful glances at the sky.

  Eniola did not follow them. Not yet.

  She dropped to the wooden walkway, her movements silent. She wore the rags of a leper, her face wrapped in dirty bandages that concealed the ritual scars of the Oyo intelligence network.

  She walked to the spot where the Void Walker had died.

  There was no body. There was only a mark on the wood, a scorch pattern that looked like a scream frozen in charcoal. Eniola knelt. She reached out a hand, hovering it over the black stain.

  Her fingers went cold. Numb. It was not the cold of ice; it was the cold of absence.

  The Void, Eniola thought, a shiver chasing itself down her spine. The stories are true.

  The Emperor in Abuja was not merely a tyrant. He was trafficking with the Things Between.

  She stood up. This changed everything. Her mistress needed to know. Not tomorrow. Now.

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  Eniola hurried away from the market, slipping into the maze of the lower districts. She found a secluded alcove beneath a rotting pier, where the water was high and black.

  She pulled a small object from her rags. It was a mirror, no larger than her palm, framed in silver beaten thin as paper. The glass was dark, made from obsidian polished with diamond dust.

  She pricked her thumb with a needle. She pressed the blood to the glass.

  "Mother of the West," she whispered. "Your eyes are open."

  The blood sizzled. The darkness in the mirror swirled, clearing to reveal a woman’s face. Empress Oyin sat in her war tent, stripped of her heavy regalia, wearing simple white linen. Even in the distortion of the scrying glass, her intensity was terrifying.

  "Report," Oyin said.

  "Found him," Eniola said. "Igwe?cha. The Low Market."

  "Is he alive?"

  "He is," Eniola said. "And he is loud. He ascended, Majesty. Stage Four. I felt the shockwave three streets away. He manifested claws and fire. He destroyed... something."

  Oyin leaned closer to the glass. "Something?"

  "Assassins sent from Abuja," Eniola whispered. "But not men. They were smoke and porcelain. They drank the spirit-light from the air. The Emperor is using the Void, my queen. He sent demons to kill the boy."

  In the glass, Oyin’s face went still. A stillness that promised violence.

  "The Void," Oyin murmured. "Then the Emperor is not just an enemy. He is a cancer."

  "The Python Priestess has taken Ojie," Eniola continued. "Likely to the Temple of the River. He is exhausted, vulnerable."

  "Do not intervene," Oyin commanded. "Let the priests heal him. Let him feel safe. But keep your eyes on him. If he moves, you move."

  "And the boy?" Eniola asked. "The bastard?"

  "Watch him too," Oyin said. Her voice softened, just a fraction, revealing the crack in the marble. "Is he... does he look like him?"

  Eniola thought of the angry, sharp-edged boy she had seen ruling the mud-bank earlier that day. "He has the father's eyes. But he has your chin, Majesty. And your temper."

  Oyin closed her eyes. "Good. Stay hidden, Eniola. The army marches. We will be in the Delta soon."

  The image faded. The mirror went black.

  Eniola wrapped the glass in cloth and tucked it away. She looked out at the dark river. The game had changed. It was no longer just a war for territory. It was a race against the end of the world.

  And the Golden Lion was the prize.