She was a bookish woman who wore red plastic glasses and a long red dress, and had reddish-brown skin like Chichi and Chichi’s mother. She’d piled her long braids atop her head as she carried the small tray. “Oh, Sunny, are you all right?” she asked. The worried look on her face cracked Sunny’s wall of strength like a sheet of thin ice.

Her body grew warm and tingly, and her eyes stung with tears. “No,” she whispered as Samya quickly came to her. She put the tray of food on the floor beside Sunny and gathered her in her arms.

“Why did you do it?”

“I had to!” Sunny sobbed. “I had to! It was my brother! You didn’t see what they . . .” She couldn’t breathe.

“Shhh, shhh,” Samya said, holding her back. “Relax. Get ahold of yourself.”

But Sunny’s entire body was shuddering. Images of her brother’s battered face, eyes swollen, mouth swollen. His pain. Capo’s terrified face as he gasped for air. Lying in wait in the bushes. Darkness. Screams.

“Sunny,” Samya said shaking her. “You need to calm down.” She paused. “There is something down here that can’t know you are weak.”

Sunny felt her nerves zing. There was something down here. She felt faint as she pushed her body to calm down. “What is it?”

“I can’t say, and I can’t come back,” Samya said. “When someone is sent to the basement, a different student must bring down food on each day. I think Sugar Cream sent me first because she knew you’d need me. Don’t expect the others that come to be helpful. They will . . . follow the rules.”

“What rules?”

“Never mind,” she quickly said. “Some things are worth it. Now listen, Sunny, and listen closely if you want to come out of here sane and alive. These books are old. They are used. They have been replaced, then cast aside. They will be dealt with eventually, but for now they are down here. Every book has a soul, every book . . . carries and attracts. There are sterilization and soothing jujus all over this room, but this is the earth. Something will always come and live here. In this case it is a djinn. It guards and hides in the books.”

“Does it make fire that doesn’t burn?”

Samya nodded and frowned. “So you’ve already seen it.”

“Yes . . . its bones. I fell asleep and I woke up and it was right over there.” She pointed to mere feet away.

“Oh my God, so soon?” Samya said, circling her head and snapping her finger. Then she looked at Sunny and gave the most pathetic reassuring smile Sunny had ever seen. “Listen, Sunny. It will try you.”

“Try what?”

“You. It knows . . . Sunny, you aren’t learned yet. You are just a free agent, but you were . . . are someone who did something in the wilderness. It was a good thing, I think. Otherwise, why would Ekwensu fear you? The thing down here is a djinn, and it’ll read your past life as you being powerful in your present one, some sort of chosen one. So it will try you. It will want to see what you’ve got.” She frowned. “Damn, Sunny, why did you have to get yourself thrown down here?”