“Saved it from dinner,” he mumbled, voice rough with sleep. “I know they don’t let you eat at those parties.”

“I could kiss you,” I moaned, and sank onto a pelt-covered sofa, inhaling the feast with unrefined gratitude.

Sanjeet chuckled and sat beside me, his molten eyes contemplative as he took in my ensemble—especially my scant top of cowrie shells. “So,” he observed in a carefully neutral voice, “I’m guessing the continent rulers swore fealty on sight?”

I snorted and wiped plantain grease from my hands, not feeling at all captivating. My intricate face paint and gold-powdered shoulders had faded with the revelries, and my necklace and wrapper skewed in disarray . . . but still, Sanjeet’s steeply slanted eyebrows rose with appreciation.

“Hardly,” I told him. “But at least they’re planning to stay for a while. Dayo basically offered them my head on a platter.” He recoiled, so I hurried to explain. “I have to give them all my memories. Even the bad parts. Don’t ask—it’s supposed to make them love me, or something.” I stared at my ring-covered fingers. “I don’t really want to talk about it.”

I banished any further thoughts about my sanity. It seemed easier, while apparitions of undead children lurked in the corners.

Sanjeet wisely asked no more questions. Instead, he reached his foot across the floor to nudge my ankle, where tiny bells jangled on a golden chain. The cowrie shell from his mother’s anklet gleamed against my skin, where I wore it always. “You know,” he said, tea-colored gaze glinting with mischief. “Amah would be disappointed if you never danced in that.”

My face heated, and I raced to banish a smug, hateful Djbanti face from my mind. “I doubt it. My rhythm would insult your amah’s memory.”

He shook his head. “She would have loved you.”

Imperial Guard drums thundered from the outer palace walls, announcing the late hour. He stood and rubbed the back of his neck, glancing at the door. “I guess we should get to bed.”

“I guess.” I played with a coil of my hair. “Where is that, tonight? The others are in the common room.” Amidst all the moving and upheaval, we hadn’t spent a night alone together since I returned from Sagimsan. Sanjeet had a private bedchamber like I did, of course, but we were too often bombarded by our affectionate wolf pack of siblings to find each other there.

“I hadn’t decided yet,” Sanjeet replied, darting a shy glance at me. “Do you want to be alone?”

I thought of dead-eyed children scaling walls in the shadows and suppressed a shudder, smirking instead. “No,” I croaked, giving a shaky little laugh. “I’d rather you stay.”

He nodded without a word, and I rose to undress. My room was a maze of chests, cushions, and gilded side tables, covered with cosmetics whose functions I had yet to memorize. The sparkling theater of An-Ileyoba life was a sharp contrast to the barefoot simplicity of Yorua Keep, and the military order of the Children’s Palace. I dug through several ornate chests, sneezing at perfumed sachets of myrrh and amber before finding a linen night shift, embroidered at the collar with a chain of sunbursts. Sanjeet, already in the low-necked tunic and trousers he wore to bed, stared studiously at his sandals.