I frowned at him, and a nagging uneasiness edged at the back of my mind. I hadn’t forgotten that at the beginning of the school year, Tisha Thomas had a vision that Zeran would betray me. “What’s going on?” I asked, trying my best not to sound nosy and failing.

“Are you my babysitter now?” Zeran rolled his eyes, although there was no bite to his words. He grinned. “I’ll see you tomorrow.”

I swallowed my doubt and smiled back. “I’ll beat you next time.”

He was free to leave whenever he wanted. It wasn’t like training with Ogun was mandatory, especially not for a darkbringer who knew more than the rest of us combined. As he turned to go, his horns, wings, and tail vanished, and his blue skin changed back to brown. In his human form, he could have passed for Lil Nas X’s younger brother. I watched as he walked out of the gym without looking back.

By the time I grabbed my staff from against the wall, the god symbols had stopped glowing. I could have sworn the staff shuddered beneath my grip. Eleni came over to where I was still sulking after my crushing defeat.

“How do you explain Zeran disappearing yet again?” I asked. “What if he really is a spy?”

Eleni shook her head as if I had just told her that cornflakes grew on trees. “He helped you save Papa’s soul and rescue me from the Lord of Shadows. That sounds very un-spy-like.”

“But Tisha Thomas said it, and her godling gift is foresight,” I said, pitching my voice low so no one else could hear. “She can see into the future.”

“Why would you listen to Tisha Thomas?” Eleni crossed her arms. “She can’t hold water.”

I frowned. “What does holding water have to do with anything?”

“I mean that she tells everything she knows.” Eleni glanced over her shoulder at Tisha, who was chatting with her friends.

Eleni wasn’t wrong about that. Tisha was the gossip queen, but ever since she came into her godling power, she’d been different. It wasn’t like before, in fourth grade, when I told her about one of my father’s fantastical stories. She had called me a liar and by the end of the day, the whole fourth-grade class was cracking jokes at my expense.

“Usually, I would ignore her, but she knows things,” I said. “She asked me about the Dark before the celestials told the other godlings the truth.”

“Maybe it would be better if you asked Zeran outright, Maya,” Eleni suggested. “See what he says.”

“Of course.” I crossed my arms. “He’ll admit that he’s a spy for the Lord of Shadows. A double agent. And he would have gotten away with it too if it wasn’t for those meddling kids?”