Dayo threw himself in front of me, right as another arrow sailed through the air . . . and lodged, firmly, in his back.

“Cohort, to me!” Bunmi screeched. “Get down. Get down!”

CHAPTER 12

The street echoed with pounding feet and the hiss of unsheathing weapons. Bunmi’s cohort surrounded us, lifting their long oval shields above their heads to form a covering. But before they could finish, a second arrow whizzed through a gap in their formation and lodged in Dayo’s shoulder.

Someone was keening, screeching unintelligible curses. I didn’t realize the person was me until Dayo, still shielding me against the wall, cupped my face with both hands.

“Tar. Look at me. I’m fine.”

“You have to get away,” I wailed, hyperventilating. “I won’t let you die; this cannot happen again—”

“Tar, look.” And as chaos ensued around us, Dayo grimaced, reached around to his back, and pulled out each arrow.

The bleeding holes in his back clotted before my eyes. His oba mask glowed as new skin crept across each wound, darkening into scars.

“These arrows aren’t for me. I can’t die,” he whispered, features taut with fear. He nodded at the lioness mask on my chest, its single stripe announcing my vulnerabilities to the world. “They’re for you.”

Blood from my grazed ear trickled down my neck. Shafts continued to thud, one by one, against the warriors’ shields. A single assassin, then—stationed on top of a nearby high-rise.

“We’ve been set up,” Bunmi growled, signaling warriors to enter the building. They broke down the door, and the confused cries of high-rise residents spilled onto the street as the warriors scrambled to reach the roof.

Still the arrows streamed, unnerving in their accuracy. The assassin began to target the legs and feet of the guards surrounding me, their lower halves unprotected by shields. One by one the warriors cried out, breaking the barrier around me and Dayo.

Bunmi locked eyes with us. “Run,” she rasped.

Heart in my throat, I seized an abandoned shield and fled the wall. The sound of revelry still floated in the streets, a ghostly anthem.

Why, you ask? Why?
The Pelican has spoken.

Adrenaline burned in my ears. The assassin had picked their hunting ground well—I ran in an open square, flooded with lamplight, with no shelter or alleyways in sight. An arrow grazed my shin. I hollered in pain, my flight reduced to a limp. My sprites spun in the sky, seeming to dim and quail as my own pulse weakened. Had I been thinking clearly, I would have willed them to help me—to dive in a glittering army, swarming my would-be killer. But my mind was a panicked fog, and tutsu sprites—curse them all—did not act without being commanded.

Dayo caught up with me and slung my arm around his shoulder, helping me hobble across the square. But we weren’t moving fast enough.