“There’s a whole web of tunnels underground,” I say. “You said yourself. You sure none of those lead where we’re going?”

Kai turns, a flicker of something in her expression. “What are you suggesting, Jelani?”

“Just that coming outside, being exposed in the open, might not be… a necessary risk.”

“Oh, and you’d know?”

“Enough.” Jhamal steps between us.

It stings. She’s right to question me after what I’ve done. But I have good fighting instincts and I’d bet money we’re being watched.

“You will not speak this way to the Ancestors’ Chosen,” Jhamal says. “Kainese, you dishonor the gods with your loose tongue.”

Kai sucks her teeth with a hiss. But she says nothing else, just leads the way.

“You don’t have to do that,” I say to him out of Kai’s earshot. But he says nothing, just holds his chin up.

“I can handle mine, really.” I step away from him so he knows I mean it.

His adoration and protection of me is kind, sweet. But it’s his love for the Ancestors, for his people, crown jewels of Ghizoni pride, that sets his shoulders square—makes him puff out his chest. After my mistake, I don’t deserve a spot on that list.

CHAPTER SIX

WE HURRY ACROSS ANOTHER street and the quiet is eerie. Broken glass crunches under my feet and trash litters the street. It’s an upward incline and my thighs burn. Once we reach the top of the hill, I can see the District fully. Smoke from far off somewhere rises to clouds. The City is a carcass with burned bones. Businesses are dead, no people wander the street. Katsu’s is empty where patio chairs used to be teeming with students, their fizzy drinks in hand on a study break this time of day. A screen still hangs from a high-rise that’s somehow still standing. But its screen is glitching, black and white lines of static across it.

The truth of the Chancellor’s “great” land is bursting through like a boil preparing to pop. I dig my nails into my palm. The memory of his angry mug taunts me, his grimace when he told me I shouldn’t exist, the way he let the General play his games, killing my people back in East Row. My wrists warm at the thought and my fingers twitch. When I went up against him… what exactly did I do that made things go wrong? I look for the memories of how we started losing, but they’re not there.

I glance back at the Chancellor’s tower. How can a land be great when it’s nailed together with lies and nourished with poison? When it was built on bones, then dressed in half-truths? If he thinks his City is fractured now, wait until I’m done with it.

Ashes will rise.

Blood will boil.

And those stolen from will take.