“Hezram says smoke-walkers hide among us. He looks for a spell to expose them.” Rokiat winked at Awa. “Tembe says, no such spell. Anyone could smoke-walk. We just have to learn how. I believe her. Tembe is Hezram’s keeper of spells.” Rokiat unlocked their transgressor hut—a hovel built into the mountain behind the temple. Straw and rags were strewn on filthy ground. Dung burned in a fire pit. Folks huddled around dying flames. Rokiat dropped his voice—spies were everywhere: “Tembe’s conjure book is what Hezram uses for everything.”

“Why?” Awa asked. “Why help a monster?”

“Love,” Meera whispered. “It makes women weak and men strong.” Yet Meera let herself love Rokiat. “The people love Hezram too. He feeds on their love.”

Rokiat squeezed Meera’s hand. “Love is also a good thing.” He locked them in.

The hut smelled like a festering wound. Awa shivered in the damp. Meera hugged her, radiating heat. Other transgressors eyed them. Awa passed out the scraps of goat and yam she’d gotten from Tembe. People snatched bread and gristle from her hands, muttering at how little she had. A big man barged through the crowd, grabbed the pot, and disappeared into shadows, before everyone got a taste.

Awa had considered hiding the food, not sharing, to spite the greedy ones, but she feared what they might do to her or Meera if they came back empty-handed. She also feared feeling so cruel. Every day new cruel thoughts. That’s why she’d tucked mango in her Aido bag for the newest arrivals—Zamanzi twins, a boy and a girl, acrobats from a carnival troupe. She wanted to hate them, but they reminded her of Bal, muscular and fierce, balancing on one arm, dancing on high branches. What lies had folks told on them to land them here?

“Do you juggle fire? Shapeshift? Tease peaceful haints?” Awa offered the fruit.

They stared at her, surprised by Zamanzi words in her mouth. “We’re warrior-clowns and we see what you do for us,” the boy said. He was sharp angles.

“We remember this,” the girl added. She was intense and earnest. Wearing Aido cloth robes, they almost faded from view, but weren’t quite shadow warriors yet. They grabbed the last of the mango, nodded thanks, and swallowed quickly. Who had time to taste sweetness?

Meera pulled Awa down in the drafty corner near the door.

“You sleep first. I’ll keep watch,” Awa said.

“They fear you.” Meera nodded at transgressors scuttling away from them.

“Me? You’re the fierce one.”

“You speak with crows and horses and the river. They don’t know what other tongues you have, and Tembe trusts you.”

“Tembe thinks we can be redeemed from the huts, like some of her drummers. Then we’d be loyal to her, even after death.” Awa sneered. “That’s not trust.”

“You scare them. That means we can both sleep.”