“Tar?” Dayo had roused, and was staring down at me, hair misshapen with sleep, brow creased.

I started. How long had I been sitting here? I glanced around the room. Minutes? Hours? The oil lamp wicks had burned to half their height. Dawn seeped through the salon skylight.

“Tar. Are you all right?”

“I’m fine,” I said, my voice breathy and shrill. I beamed up at him. “Better than fine. You know I’ve been worried about how I’ll enforce the new edict. Even if they seem to accept it at the Pinnacle, they know I can’t watch them all.” I dug through the piles of paper and waved a leaf at him. “Well. I’ve come up with ideas on how to keep them accountable. We could even enlist that vigilante, the Crocodile, to help us. It’s risky, but I think it could work . . .”

“That . . . sounds useful.” He squeezed my shoulder. “But why are you working now?”

“Couldn’t sleep. Besides, there won’t be time during the day.”

In three more months, I had anointed seven more rulers: Uxmal of Quetzala, Sadhika of Dhyrma, Danai of Swana, Edwynn of Mewe, Helius of Sparti, Nadrej of Biraslov. After seeing my fraught memories of The Lady, even Beatrix of Nontes developed a perverse maternal affection for me, allowing for an anointing.

Two stripes remained pale on my lioness mask: one for Kwasi of Nyamba and one for Zuri of Djbanti. Apparently I only gained immunities when I anointed members of my empire—when Min Ja accepted my Ray, the stripes had remained as they had before. Redemptor marks covered my skin from toe to collarbone, leaving clear my neck, face, and the palms of my hands alone. Shadows pooled beneath my eyes, and every limb in my body ached with cold. I drifted through each day, a raft on a vast, numb ocean. Only those children’s voices—a constant, bracing wind—egged me on.

Do more.

“These days,” I said softly, “between Aritsar’s mill and quarry workers, my old siblings, and my new ones, I never can decide who needs me more. No matter what I do . . . it feels like I’m betraying someone.”

Dayo sat cross-legged beside me. “You aren’t replacing our old council, Tar. That’s not how love works. Besides,” he added a little wryly, “if anyone could use a bigger family, it’s us.”

I didn’t reply. Some topics—like our lack of heirs, with no clear way of getting them—were too heavy to discuss before breakfast.

My heart ached. The suite seemed barren with all our siblings gone. Especially without . . . I banished Sanjeet’s face from my mind. That pain too could not be borne on an empty stomach.

He had left nearly four months ago. I heard news of him through reports from his guard captains, but in all that time, he’d sent me nothing, not even letters—until yesterday, when a package arrived at the palace: a long and bulky bundle.

It was an ivory-handled spear: perfectly balanced, with a head of razor-sharp adamant. Old Arit characters glittered on the shaft, in block script that I deciphered with a shiver.