Bal laughed at crows swooping for Soot’s tail. “Who has too many friends?” This sweet nature grated. Hadn’t Bal been the calm, bleak one when they were Sprites? Who was this volatile, cheery stranger? Bal turned and grinned at Awa as if she were coconut wine that vie’d like to guzzle right now in front of everyone. “You know I’m right. Friends are wealth too.” Bal loved a memory, a good story, not who Awa was now.

“Well—” Awa froze.

She didn’t trust love. Mother loved Father so much, she didn’t poison him after he sold her daughter. Djola loved Azizi even after Azizi had banished him, let his wife and children die, and then devastated the Empire. Djola forgave Azizi, but not Kyrie. Did he really expect more from a woman, from an Iyalawo, like Bal said? Maybe Awa did too.

Bal shot Awa another lusty look before lifting Djola over a muddy hole. “I’ve got you,” Bal whispered, sultry, throaty, talking to them both. Which story would Bal (and Djola) choose—lost daughter who’d become a protégé of Kyrie or shadow warrior orphan with a common name? Both might be true.

A black crow snatched the silver thread from the piebald one. They swooped around a ledge, teasing each other. Their carefree banter annoyed Awa. Why crows liked her or how Soot always found her or why Djola trusted her with his bag was a mystery. And what was Kyrie up to? Too many secrets and mysteries made Awa’s head throb.

“You’re so quiet back there,” Bal said. Bells and seeds on Yari’s drum rattled in time with their march. Bal added an occasional rhythmic flourish—an invitation to hold forth. Any griot could hear that. Awa refused.

“Hoarding all your good stories.” Bal kissed her teeth with mock irritation. “Spare us boredom. Tell your tales.”

A fearless shadow warrior would never understand life in the transgressor huts or love such a weak good person as Awa, such a broken person. Her bad leg screamed pain as her foot got caught in a crevice. She wrenched muscles to stay upright.

“I need breath for speed.” Awa lied with truth, a Holy City habit she couldn’t shake.

“Please. What of the musician whose spirit haunts the drum? Or the goat who lost her hide for upbeats?” Bal dared Awa to tell how she came by Yari’s drum.

“Sugar on dung.” Awa rubbed her face. Bal wouldn’t give up until vie extracted the snake-venom tale. “Well—”