Quiet fills the back of the van. Then the grunt of a large animal whose pelt fills the window, blocking their view of the fireflies and the leaves swaying in the night wind. The van rocks back and forth, and Grace scrambles for purchase, but Ngozi only closes her eyes like she’s being lulled to sleep. Eventually, the large animal stops nudging the van and trudges onward. Ify looks at Grace and almost wants to chuckle at her assistant’s terror. But she also wants to tell her it’ll be okay. An almost overwhelming urge bubbles up in her to gently run her finger over Grace’s wound and murmur something soft and loving into her hair.

She turns to Ngozi and is ready to ask her question, except that when it finally comes to her lips, her throat closes up. Finally, she forces out, “How did you know her?”

Ngozi raises an eyebrow at Ify. “We served in the war, Onyii and I. You could call it her second tour.” A morose smile spreads across Ngozi’s lips. “A couple of the other sisters I served with knew Onyii from before. She’d lived in a camp that was attacked. Eventually, she made her way to us. That camp was where she raised you, wasn’t it?”

It all seems too much to Ify. After so long of having first denied Onyii, then searching for any trace of her in this country she bled for and finding nothing—after all of that, to be confronted with so stark a reminder of her sister, to be told of the life she lived without Ify . . . her heart doesn’t know what to do. “What was she like?” She has completely forgotten Grace.

Ngozi shrugs. “We didn’t really like each other at first. She thought she’d lost more than anyone else in the war.” Ngozi pauses to look at Ify and sees something that makes her face soften. “But we all loved. And the war took everything we loved away from us.”

“There was someone you loved?”

Ngozi leans back, smiles at the memory. “A sister. Her name was Kesandu. Sacrificed herself so that the rest of us could escape at the end of an operation.” She shifts, as though her mind is leaving the memory and returning to her body. “It was just before the ceasefire.”

Ify flinches and fears that Ngozi notices. “What happened . . . after the war?”