Below them, the upturned faces of over a hundred spirit slaves wore the same smirk: Hezram. Worker bees flew into vacant eye sockets and exploded. The fiend’s ember hearts flickered brighter. Djola snorted wing filaments and bitter venom as he and Awa plummeted down through smoke toward the dead riverbed.

“Master of Poisons”—Hezram’s horde spoke with one melodious voice—“why carry so many heavy ghosts?”

Displaying great Smokeland skill, Awa slowed their descent. The blast of light from her heart made Djola squint. “We all carry ghosts,” she proclaimed, “and still fly.”

Hezram’s horde shouted over her. “Djola, you think you’re better than I am, better than us all, yet you’d sacrifice anybody or anything for your cause.”

“I’m not like you,” Djola insisted. He gagged on a mouthful of void-smoke. “You would destroy our world.”

“Denial is worse than poison sand.” More worker bees exploded in dark fiend mouths. “Your words. Look in your bag of death.”

“Don’t.” Awa pulled him close as they stalled in midair. “It’s a trick.”

“Your only shield is a swarm of bees.” The horde snickered. “Lugging a library of lost languages and a dead mountain, you’re too heavy to fly.”

“Ice Mountain too?” Djola squinted in Vandana’s bag. The turquoise rocks turned into crumbling cliffs jammed between dry waterfalls and silent songbirds. Citizens’ bones rattled in glass jars. Icy mountain tears turned to muck.

“Witchdoctor illusions.” Awa shook Djola. “Look away.”

“To where?” Djola asked. “Smokeland is never very far from the everyday.” Ice Mountain’s ghost glaciers got heavier with each breath. Tessa and Quint were shadow and ash among burning cathedral trees. Where was Bal?

“Hezram is the rogue Babalawo who lost his way on the Empire Road, not you.” Awa cinched the bag shut. “He tries to snare us in your despair.”

“I do that myself.” The bag banged Djola’s hip, a hammer smashing his bones.

Awa slugged him too. “Tell a different story.”

“You’re a true child of Yari, of the griot of griots—”

“You’re not?”

“Sometimes, there’s only one story to tell.”

“Never.” Awa clicked and warbled like a cheeky crow. Her breath tasted of honey and bananas. “I am feathers,” she sang. “My bones are air. I am the wind.”

Djola scowled. “Green Elder jumba jabba.”

Awa tugged his murderous weight straight up. “The Empire tongue twists meaning. To northern ancestors, jumba jabba means speaking miracles is grace, for we are what we say.” She sucked in a deep breath. Her heart was like a volcano pumping lava. “Say who you mean to be.”

Djola’s tongue felt too thick for words.