Too late I saw them—several bins, perched in eaves above the marketplace. Before I could shout a warning, distant figures overturned the bins . . . and waterfalls of cold, stinking blood filled the square.

My Guard warriors wheeled in confusion, temporarily blinded. I gagged and spat, slipping on the slimy, wet ground. Horrified shoppers formed a clumsy stampede, leaping over ruined piles of pelts and separating me from Kwasi. All too soon I was alone, nearly crushed by a stall as a mob of vigilantes overturned it and set it aflame.

I scrambled backward, only to press myself against a wall as shrieking, blood-soaked people roared past. Bile rose to my throat as one man fell and was crushed immediately by the exodus. Breathing hard, I pushed my way to an upended stall and climbed on top of it, hoping to avoid the fray. People and pack animals crashed into the stall’s sides. I swayed and cried for help, hanging on for dear life—and then a figure flew toward me from above. He dangled from a rope, riding the rows of pelts like a zipline: the Crocodile.

I turned around and tried to duck. But he reached my stall, seizing me across the waist. I yelped but held on to him reflexively, air knocked from my lungs as we whizzed over the crowd, through the market square, and into a quiet alley. When we stopped, I wrenched myself from the Crocodile’s sinewy arms. He did not resist, setting me gently on my feet.

“Don’t move,” I panted, whipping out the knife I kept always in my wrapper. “Don’t . . . don’t you dare touch me.”

“Thank Am.” To my surprise, the Crocodile only chuckled, tutting with his hands on his hips. “My dear empress . . . I was beginning to think you’d never force me to do anything.”

Then the man pulled off his mask, and I stood face to face with the grinning king of Djbanti.

CHAPTER 22

“We should get moving,” Zuri told me then, seizing my hand and towing me along. “The district guard will come trampling through soon enough, and they tend to slash first and ask questions later.”

“What? Where are you taking me?” I sputtered, managing to snatch my hand from his grasp. “And why should I trust you? You just destroyed a marketplace!”

“I prefer to think I revealed its true nature,” he said blandly. “And we’re going to my villa. Unless you’d like to find your way back to the palace in a crowded city, with no guards, looking like that.” He gestured at my gore-stained face and shoulders. When I glanced down at my wrapper, soaked in crimson, my stomach turned.

“It’s only pig’s blood,” he said, then winced. “I’d try not to swallow it, though.”

I needed, very badly, to be clean. I sighed, lowering my knife. He wore several weapon holsters, and we stood in an empty alley. If he was going to kill me, he would have done it already.