“And when no acolytes feed spirit slaves blood and oil?” Awa bit her lip.

“They become void-smoke. I could teach this spell to one such as you in an hour.”

“Why teach me?” Awa asked.

“You see what hides in plain sight.”

Awa squinted back at the city. “Why teach anybody a nightmare spell?”

The poison master bristled. “Ignorance won’t save us.”

“Neither will arrogance.” Fannie flicked her tail, as if she agreed.

Cottages and bridges collapsed on dancers, priests, apprentices, and laborers. White flames scorched the sky, claiming crows, hawks, and rare songbirds who’d come for the festival. Sand fell instead of afternoon rain, searing the dead and dying. Trees couldn’t get up and run in the everyday. Seeds flung into the wind burned. Few people or animals would escape. The devastation was too quick-moving. Awa’s brothers might be poison dust if they hadn’t already moved on to Arkhys City, Meera and Rokiat too, if their horses weren’t fast and sure. The trees wailed mourning. Awa croaked a harmony to the burning branches and crackling leaves.

“Do you curse a hero?” The poison master asked again, low in his chest. A threat?

“What hero?” Awa said. Was he truly deluded? “You?” She bit her tongue too late. Living in a transgressor hut, she usually sassed in her mind, keeping her spirit alive without risking her neck. Tree song made her reckless.

“Heroes are fools,” he said. “I curse them too.”

Farm laborers ran around Fannie, heading toward disaster, toward families trapped in a city turning to poison desert. The poison master warned them to turn back, but they continued going in the wrong direction. The poison master finished his song:

Lost is my art—cracked is my heart, yet—

Who knows what tree grows

I say, who knows what tree grows

In all our lost art

In the crack in my heart

The piebald crow soared and dipped in time with his melody, warning the flock. Awa wanted to urge crows to peck the poison master’s eyes or call bees to sting him.

“Green Elders say folks who curse others waste passion,” he said. “Worse, they curse themselves. Squandering heart spirit on ill will supposedly hastens death.”

“In Holy City, I never saw curses turn back on anybody, even inside Hezram’s Gates—except a weapon-spell.” Still, she’d refrained from cursing priests, Zamanzi, barbarians, Father, Mother, or brother Kenu. Conjure was a long game. Power for spells was borrowed from the same well that nourished heart spirit. Blessings might fill the well; curses drained the heart for sure. “Reckoning fire awaits conjurers who abuse borrowed power.”

“Maybe,” he growled. “How did you survive the huts without curses?”