I cradled Ae Ri gingerly, and said the first thing that came to mind. “Sorry,” I whispered. “Um. I know I’m bad at this. But you’ll never go hungry here. And you’ll still have Ye Eun to play with. Eventually, you’ll come to like us. I think—”

Ae Ri lurched from my grasp, reaching for someone behind me with insistent grunts. I turned, and the baby catapulted herself straight into Dayo’s arms.

Ae Ri and the emperor stared at each other, transfixed with delight. Solemnly, Ae Ri placed her pudgy hands on either side of Dayo’s dark, scarred face, cooing as if she’d known him all her life.

“Hello,” Dayo breathed, liquid with adoration. She beamed, and then claimed the oba mask on his chest, gnawing the rainbow lion mane.

“Well,” I said, blinking once. “I guess . . . that decides that.”

“We’ll have toys brought up from the Children’s Palace,” Dayo said dreamily. “We’ll hire a nurse, and a team of tutors, and make the salon a playroom. I think you’d like that, Ye Eun. And you too—wouldn’t you, Ri-Ri?” He blew on Ae Ri’s soft hair, glowing when she giggled. “You’ll love the wooden giraffes. And the rocking zebra . . . unless you want a real one.” He bounced her. “Should Uncle Dayo buy you a zebra? A rhino? You can play with Aunt Tarisai’s elephant, if you like . . .”

My cheeks hurt from smiling. But sadness panged through me. I had wondered if I’d fall in love with Ae Ri, like Dayo had. If holding her would reverse that impulse inside me—that conviction against having babies of my own. But as precious as Ae Ri was . . . my mind remained unchanged.

One thing, however, I knew for certain: Nothing would ever happen to Ye Eun, or Ae Ri, or any other innocent born with maps on their skin. Not on my watch. And if I was to be the world’s last Redemptor, I would have to learn what it took to survive the Underworld.

CHAPTER 24

“I hate this,” Dayo said quietly as Ae Ri fussed on his hip. “I hate everything about this.”

“Again,” I told Ye Eun.

“This is unwise,” warned Captain Bunmi, pacing in the Hall of Dreams. I had asked her to stand watch, making sure no one interrupted us in the old Children’s Palace, where I had been meeting with Ye Eun for a week, training for my journey to the Underworld. “Lady Empress, you aren’t immune to organ-death yet.”

“Do you want me to survive the Underworld or not?” I shivered in a thin embroidered shift. Ye Eun had advised against wearing anything else while I trained. The cold was the point. “Watch my sprites,” I told Bunmi, pointing at the floor-length arched windows of the hall. Outside, my sprites twinkled worriedly against the zenith. The night of the Emperor’s Walk, the sprites had dimmed when the assassin hurt me. I had experimented since, concluding that their lives were linked to mine.