“I… I…” I try to look around, but like a dream, nothing I tell myself to do is working. I can’t take steps. I can’t turn my head. I can hardly breathe. “I… The magic you gave me. The magic you gave our people. It has been stolen.” Lightning crackles. “A-and we need you to restore it, so we can take our land back from the thieves.”

The Ancestor touches her crown, easing it more upright on her head, before clasping her hands. “Jelani, I am sorry but we cannot restore the magic.”

Her words knock the wind out of me. My tongue sticks to the roof of my mouth. “No, w-wait, but y-you gave it.” Blood drains from me and I dig a nail into my palm. “Th-this was my plan. This was the entire plan. Y-you have to fix this. I…”

“Listen closely, because time is short.” She takes my hand in hers again and it is like holding fire. “The magic we gave was a gift from the gods, woven into our blood. It flowed through us; it even fertilized the soil where our people were buried. So much so that the ground burst forth with vegetation rich in magic. We’d eat it and it would nourish our abilities even further. It helped us strengthen our control over our powers, helped us find synergy. Magic saturated our corner of this island.”

I gaze at the ground; it pulses as she speaks and I can almost picture the way they lived.

“But any remnants of what used to be lie dormant, like seeds in winter.”

She coils one hand over the other and a ball of onyx appears there, like the one the Grays wear. I reach for it but it’s nothing more than air.

“Understand me, until this stolen magic”—she indicates the stone—“is removed from the traitors and returned back to the very soil it came from, there’s no magic left to give.”

“B-but…”

“You see, Jelani, the magic wasn’t for them. It was for us. And the moment its purity was broken by binding to those for whom it wasn’t meant, it caved in on itself. Simple self-preservation. Magic is alive. It preserves, defends. You probably feel it moving, searching, humming inside you. But as living things live, they also die.”

I stagger, steadying myself, her words a dagger.

“Fortunate for us, our magic is not dead, not entirely… sleeping, more like.”

Something tinges inside me and my knees feel weak.