Stick bugs rubbed their legs together and frogs bellowed. Djola scanned the riverbanks, taking pleasure in oozing mud, river grass, torch-bugs, and countless mysteries unfolding in the moonlight. A hundred crows headed for their night roost in the oasis garden trees, squabbling and screeching. Djola smiled. He’d come to the end of his world, and everything was new again, wondrous. Impossible is a word for yesterday. He had little appetite for killing but felt ready for anything else. His spirit debt had come due. Tomorrow he’d be free, a flicker in the moonlight, a shadow on the water.

Angry voices wafted through the air. To the dismay of masters plotting to assassinate the emperor, Azizi had called Council an hour earlier than planned. He moved the gathering outdoors and invited festivalgoers and performers to attend Council deliberations and the gate-conjure ritual. Arms commandeered a stage table carved by Anawanama craftsmen in the shape of a winged jackal. Candles burned in its mouth and at the tail; wings were tucked against a broad flat back. Lilot’s helpers hung spark lanterns along the city wall and laid out a feast—fish from the river, groundnuts, seaweed, and mountain greens.

Azizi strode to the Lahesh waterwheel chair that Arms set at the fiery tail. He sat down with his back to the river. Faithful guards stood behind him with Arms. Kitchen helpers brought out Djola’s Anawanama chair and Grain’s sweetgrass one. Across the river at the cook’s entrance, Urzula fed a hyena pack the goat feast Djola and Azizi had picked at earlier. Warriors and festivalgoers shuddered as the beasts gobbled great hunks of meat and gristle and sang their high-pitched, rollicking odes. Griots readied a new hyena tale. Djola readied himself for battle.

The Masters of Water and Money—still silver-eyed rogues—stormed across the citadel bridge. Unnerved by hyenas and witch-woman conjure, they fumed to high priest Ernold, who was gaunt, ashy brown, and irritable too. Boto shadowed them, head bowed and eyes hooded, actually an excellent spy. The hyenas disappeared into the trees or the citadel maze. Ernold tightened his butt and chomped his teeth to walk through northlanders, barbarians, and veson-shapeshifters to reach the Council table.

“Fatazz!” Money swallowed more curses. “Is Council a masquerade to entertain the mob?”

“We gather around an Anawanama jackal?” Ernold glared at the emperor.

Azizi fed a rat groundnuts. “No one has moved the stone-wood table in a hundred years.”

Dressed in Aido cloth, Grain snuck in from the trees, refusing to look at anybody or perhaps vie just avoided Djola’s eyes. Gone was the bold young rascal. Tonight, Grain was a steely survivor, tense and guarded, yet still carrying a talking drum. Vie grumbled to Arms who grumbled back. Flirting.

“Grain,” Djola shouted and then added a name. “Adeley!”