Awa feasted on Bal’s shadow-warrior prowess, in love, but fighting passion. Bal loved otherworldly Awa with abandon, drinking up her Jumbajabbaland spirit. Sweet romance had been stolen from them.

“We must be poetry in action.” Bal scowled at him. “How do we live Abelzowadyo?”

Djola tapped Kyrie. “You write on Abelzowadyo in your conjure book, don’t you?”

“Ernold and Money assume my gates fall when I do.” Kyrie kissed her teeth. “Spirits become the gate and work without the conjurer.”

“Gate conjure is shapeshifting, Abelzowadyo.” Awa sighed.

“Haints powering gates don’t linger forever.” Djola nodded at Kyrie. “You were planning to sacrifice yourself, not Samina or anybody. But Samina drank poison, found you in Smokeland, and offered to watch over Mount Eidhou.” Tears filled the back of his throat. “Tessa and Quint smoke-walked to you as poison desert claimed them. My family haunted your gates with their last breaths. Basawili.”

Kyrie blinked at him, eyes blurry. “I conjure only with the willing.”

“Forgive me.” Djola tried to suck down tears. “I was wrong about you.”

“Everyone is.” Bal poked Awa.

“Abelzowadyo is Zamanzi,” Kyrie said. “Shapeshift any direction, live like a god of the crossroads.”

Djola wanted to hug Kyrie, but she wasn’t sentimental. “Yes, be a trickster, beholden to no one, responsible to everyone. Create a new realm for all of us.”

Bal sucked vie’s teeth with the Empire’s matter-of-fact contempt for northlander wisdom. “Zamanzi arrogance.”

Awa rolled her eyes. “Yari talked this same arrogance to us when we were Sprites.”

“Lahesh arrogance is different,” Bal countered.

Awa snorted. “Everybody’s arrogance is special.”

“True. And admitting you were wrong feels wonderful.” Djola shook himself and smiled at Kyrie. Soot trotted back to them, tail wagging—nothing to fear ahead.

“Playing god is good meditation.” Bal stowed bow and arrow. “But the gods are just stories we tell ourselves, so the sky won’t seem so big and our moments too short.”

“What’s wrong with that?” Awa asked. “Crossing over, I chose griot, remember?”

“Fatazz,” Bal cursed. “How is temple talk a plan to defeat Hezram?”

“We must make up new gods, a new yesterday and tomorrow.” Awa sneered. “We must shift the shapes of the world.”

Bal sang, “We’re roots to hidden treasures and seeds for something new—”

“Do you sneer at me or Yari?” Djola snapped at them. His thighs ached from riding the elephant. The crystal in his foot burned. He uncovered it. Dust on the wind dissolved on its facets. “So much impossible work still to do.”