She was flying. The rush of the cool air against her face took her breath away. She was high above a great forest, a rain forest. Mist moved through the trees like clouds that were too lazy to float. Then in the distance she saw it. A city of smoke. Burning so hot the buildings looked otherworldly. “Noooo!” she screamed, trying to stop herself. But she couldn’t stop. She just kept hurtling toward it. She was going to burn, too . . .

She was falling. She was jarred awake by her body hitting the floor, again. “Oof!” She blinked in the dark, her eyes adjusting. She looked around her room and sat up. A bed, a dresser, a closet. There was a rolled-up newspaper on the floor. She felt a moment of panic. She couldn’t remember her own name. “Who am I?” she whispered, frowning.

She could not remember. The room was nice, comfortable, and pleasing to her eye, but it was foreign. Where am I? What is all this? She got up, fighting panic. The bed had yellow-and-rose-colored sheets that she’d pulled half off when she’d fallen out. She looked down at her legs and frowned. Her skin was so pale. There was a flat-screen computer monitor on the desk and a small computer box on the floor beside it. Schoolbooks were also on the floor. Yes, those were schoolbooks.

As she looked around the room, unsure of who or where she was, she began to remember other things. The wilderness. Like an impossible wonderful jungle full of . . . everybody . . . but the living. Mostly green, but every other color and kind dwelled there, too. The wilderness made the physical world seem flat, dead, and quiet. “Ekwensu,” she whispered. And when she spoke the name of the powerful terrifying masquerade who’d nearly killed her and her friends a year ago, she felt a deep anger rise in her. She hated no one; she didn’t have the propensity for hatred. Nevertheless, the one who held that name was one she wanted to send to the darkest corner of the universe.

Her eye fell on the top of the wooden cabinet beside her window. She blinked. Then she burst out laughing. She sat down on her bed, her eyes still glued to the top of her dresser, and she laughed even harder. As she laughed, it was as if her spirit flew into her and filled her up; everything returned—her memories, her destiny, her self. She was Sunny Nwazue and she was Anyanwu. She was the daughter of Kingsley and Ugwu Nwazue and granddaughter of Ozoemena of the Nimm Warrior Clan. She was a Leopard society free agent, initiated over a year ago and witness to the suicide of the ritual killer Black Hat Otokoto and the banishment of the evil Ekwensu. And she was a most excellent soccer player.

Sunny was laughing because Della her wasp artist had created a brand-new sculpture out of some of the Oreo cookies in her backpack, a perfect replica of a stern-looking . . . Batman. As she watched and laughed some more, Della used a skinny leg to add one last flourish—a realistic sneer to Batman’s lips probably made from the Oreo’s cream.