It was a head. She could not tell what Della had used to create it. Maybe the petals of some sort of yellow flower or maybe yellow paper or some kind of yellow paste that it had found in the market. There was gold, too. The face was ringed with pointy gold rays, like a sun. The nose was wide-nostriled and flat like her father’s. The yellow lips were smiling. The eyes were hazel, as if “God had run out of the right color.” They were her eyes. This was her. Della had sculpted a perfect blend of her human and spirit face, Sunny and Anyanwu. How does one hug an insect? she wondered. “Della,” she whispered. “I . . .”

The insect quickly flew circles around her head and then hovered in front of her eyes. Sunny smiled. This was its way of saying, No need for words.

“Do you understand that I will be gone for a few days?”

The insect buzzed.

“You’ve been in here when Chichi and I were talking,” she said. “So you know what is going on.”

It buzzed again.

“Should I be afraid?”

It flew to its art, stood on top of it, and buzzed its wings.

Sunny chuckled. Her wasp artist seemed to know who she was more than she did. And it thought rather highly of her. Della flew up to her and touched her forehead with its long, limp legs and then zipped into its nest on the ceiling.

There was a knock on her door. It was Chukwu.

“Good morning,” she said. “I’m going to get dressed in a little bit. I . . .”

“I need to know something,” he quietly said, coming in.

Sunny shut the door behind him. “Okay,” she said.

“You still can’t talk about it, can you?”

She shook her head. If she spoke, her words would feel heavy and slow the way they always did when she skirted too close to speaking directly about being Leopard.

“Is . . . whatever you all are doing in Lagos dangerous?” he asked.

Sunny thought about it. “We can handle it,” she said.

“It doesn’t involve any of these ritual people? Because they’re murderers and . . .”

“I’ve never ever been involved with those people,” she firmly said.

“Lagos is a big crazy place for you,” he added.

“No more than it is for you. Plus, Orlu and Chichi know it well,” she said. “And Sasha has . . . international street smarts.”

Chukwu scoffed. “Sasha? No comment.”

“We’ll be fine,” she said. “And I’ll have my cell phone.” But if all went as planned, there would be a few days where he wouldn’t be able to reach her. She’d cross that bridge when she got to it.

What Sunny was more worried about was Sasha and Chukwu being in the same space for so many hours. As far as Sunny knew, Chichi refused to make a choice between the two, and both refused to cut things off with Chichi, so the love triangle was very much intact. How was this even going to go?