They fell silent at once. Then a sea of filthy fingers lifted to point at my chest, and the children spoke together as one:

Redemptor. Redemptor. Empress Redemptor.

Then I was back in the Imperial Hall, still in Dayo’s arms, ears ringing with the banquet’s cheerful music as cold sweat prickled my skin.

“Tar?” Dayo was scanning my face, his smile cracked with worry. “You left us for a moment there. Everything all right?” I returned his stare, numb with shock. He hadn’t seen them.

No one had seen those children but me.

“Of course,” I said, throat bone dry, and forced a wavering smile.

Dayo lifted our joined hands in triumph, egging on the chant of the crowd as petals flurried down from the ceiling, a cascade of crimson and bone-dust white.

Long live the emperor.

Long live the Empress Redemptor.

CHAPTER 8

When Dayo, Ai Ling, Kirah, and I returned to the imperial Suite, the usual Ray-speak whispering through the halls had gone dormant. We found our council siblings fast asleep, strewn across one another in the suite’s common salon. They snored and mumbled, clutching drained cups of honeywine and half-eaten bowls of fufu. It seemed they had tried to wait up for us. My heart twinged fondly at the sight of the sleep-softened faces of my motley family, drooped across tufted divans and rugs, their chests rising and falling in Ray-synced unison. I brushed my fingers over each of their brows, sending dreams into each one. Though I’d missed them all night, I was relieved that they slept.

If they had been awake, I would have had to tell them I was going insane.

The palace rumor mill would let them know soon enough. A cupbearer had seen me speak to thin air, and the entire court had watched a divine spirit possess me. The more religious of An-Ileyoba might revere me for the incident, but sanity and intimacy with gods were not known to go hand in hand. I needed Aritsar to take me seriously as empress, not cloister me like an oracle in a gilded temple.

But that was tomorrow’s struggle. I bid good night to Dayo, Ai Ling, and Kirah, but not before noticing that one body was missing from the common room huddle.

Jeet? I asked the air, sending the Ray-like fingers through the suite halls. Where are you?

The answer was a mind jolted awake, and then a surge of apologetic warmth, flooding my veins.

Here. Sorry, I meant to wait up.

I followed the voice and found Sanjeet in my bedchamber, sitting on the raised dais platform of my bed pallet. My chamber, swiftly added to the Imperial Suite after my rise to the crown, still felt foreign to me: muraled walls and a high, domed ceiling, with slanted skylights that let me spy on my sprites among the stars. Sanjeet’s copper features were hazy in the low lamplight, and when I entered, he rose to offer a bowl-ridden tray: stew and fried plantain, gone cold but still fragrant with spices.