“This may come as a shock to you, but my Pops wasn’t the traditional sort of father. But he was there. There is a power to presence. Of being there. Stability. Wisdom. Consistency. Knowing no matter how you fuck up—and you will fuck up—that person will still be present in your life. Xola Adisa wasn’t a perfect man. He didn’t have to be nor did he expect perfection out of others. He believed in making great, big, ‘run into the wall at full speed,’ ‘completely show your ass’ kind of mistakes, as long as you learned from them. Occasionally making fun of us to remind us not to take life, situations, even ourselves, too seriously. Now we have to be there for one another.”

We stepped aside, allowing the pallbearers to move the casket. The Hall of Ancestors was a little-used wing of the Dreaming City’s library. All but the closest family left the tesseract chamber to allow us our final goodbyes. Selamault collapsed on the casket with a terrible keening. Amachi held on to her, tears streaking down her face, turned away from the scene, from Xola’s casket. Ezeji touched the casket in silence before moving on.

We remained at the Hall of Ancestors sentry still, unable to weep. A sacred space where we could retreat to be alone. The funeral repast awaited us and would go on for hours. A hand-prepared meal, though the meat had been synthed. The equivalent of twenty-seven cows, fifteen goats, and thirty chickens, just for the Ijo and invited officials alone.

Never a respecter of lonely brooding, Jaha approached. People had been avoiding her. Her grief recorded itself in a torrential storm of work. Her demands bloomed to the other side of excessive, and anything short of perfect execution brought on her full wrath. We’d been receiving rumors to this effect for days, people wanting us to step in because they knew we could handle her. We offered them the reminder that she was a call-and-respond specialist: if she called, they’d better respond.

“Thought I’d find you here.” Jaha’s robe was a deep black matte, with an iridescent lining. When she turned or was seen from the corner of our eye, her robe blurred, flashes of red or emerald as an aftereffect on our lenses.

“Habari gani, Jaha?”

“Aw, nah, baby, that’s not going to work.” Jaha had a way of sounding like the sweetest of grandmothers even as she drove her foot up someone’s behind. Once she uttered the word baby, things were a wrap. It was foot-lodging time. “I never took you for a coward. Off here slinking about in the dark, trying not to be seen while there’s so much work to do. You can’t go your own way. And you damn sure can’t quit.”