The first stone hit the wall like a rude knock from an angry god.
Ifabola flinched at the dull thud. A small shower of dried mud sprinkled from the inside of the compound wall, dusting the ground like tired rain.
Outside, voices swelled.
"…how many more…?"
"…they meddle with what should sleep…"
"…first the king, now their own…"
Another stone struck, harder this time. The impact left a fresh gouge near the gate's wooden beam.
"Stay inside," Baba repeated, staff clenched in his fist. His voice was calm, but the tendons on the back of his hand stood out like ropes. "No matter what you hear. That is not a request, Ifabola."
"Yes, Baba," she whispered.
He shifted his gaze to his wife. "Take them to the inner courtyard. If anything happens to me—"
"Nothing will happen to you," she cut in sharply, though her eyes glistened. "Do not speak foolishness into the air."
He gave her a tired, crooked half‑smile, then turned toward the gate.
Ifabola watched his broad back as he walked away, the familiar beads swaying at his neck. For a moment, she was five seasons younger, watching him go to settle a quarrel at the market, certain he would come home with extra kola nuts and a funny story.
Now his steps looked heavier.
Her mother's hand tightened on her shoulder.
"Inside," she said again, voice flat.
Reluctantly, Ifabola allowed herself to be steered toward the inner courtyard. But when they reached the low wall separating it from the outer yard, she hung back, heart pounding.
"I want to hear," she said.
Her mother opened her mouth to refuse, then closed it. At last she nodded once. "Here, not a step further. If I tell you to run, you run."
Ifabola pressed herself against the shady side of the wall, just tall enough that she could see the top of the gate and a slice of the sky above it.
Another stone flew over, arcing high, then fell short, landing in the mud with a wet plop.
The voices outside had grown into a full roar.
"Open, Baba Ifa!" someone shouted. "Or do you hide behind mud while your shadows roam free?"
"Give us answers!"
"Give us justice!"
A woman's voice rose, raw and cracked. "Give me back my son!"
Ifabola's stomach twisted.
The apprentice boy's mother.
Baba reached the gate and laid one hand flat against the wood.
"Open it," he told the boy on duty.
The guard hesitated. "Baba, maybe we should let them—"
"Open," Baba repeated, not raising his voice, but brooking no argument.
The boy pulled back the bar.
The gate creaked inward.
Noise crashed in like a wave.
Dozens of people crowded the lane outside—men with work‑hardened shoulders, women in worn wrappers clutching baskets or nothing at all, youths with wild eyes and sticks in their hands. Fear shone in all their faces, twisted into anger to make it bearable.
In the front stood the apprentice's mother.
Her headscarf was askew, gray hair tumbling free. Her hands shook as she pointed at Baba.
"You!" she cried. "My boy followed you since he could walk. He carried your shells. He learned your chants. Where is he now?"
Baba stepped forward until he stood in the gate, neither fully inside nor fully out.
"He lies with our dead behind the house," he said quietly. "I wrapped him with my own hands."
"Wrapped him with your curses!" she spat. "You brought this thing into our homes with your foolish powers. You killed the king with one hand and my child with the other!"
Murmurs of agreement rippled.
Baba took the words without flinching, as if each insult were a stone he let strike and fall.
"I loved that boy," he said. "Not as a priest loves an assistant, but as a father loves an extra son. If blame is a goat to be tethered in this yard, tie it to me, not to this house."
"Blame is not a goat; it is a fire!" the woman shouted. "It will burn whatever is closest. And you have built your house from dry sticks!"
A youth beside her—one of the loud‑mouthed boys from the market, Ifabola realized with a jolt—brandished a stick.
"You say you didn't kill the king," he called. "Then swear it by the blood of your children! Swear by that little girl they say carries the same marks, and we will believe you."
A growl rolled through the crowd, ugly and eager.
Ifabola's mother sucked in a sharp breath. Her grip on Ifabola's shoulder became a clamp.
"Do not move," she hissed.
Baba's eyes hardened.
"I will not swear oaths on my children's blood," he said. "Their lives are not tokens to throw at your fear."
"Then you admit it!" someone cried.
Others took up the cry.
"Confess!"
"Cast them out!"
"Drive them to the bush before more of us die!"
A stone whizzed past Baba's head and struck the inner wall with a dull crack.
Now the guards inside the compound hefted their spears uncertainly.
Ifabola's heart pounded so loudly she could hear nothing for a moment but its frantic drum.
This was not like the stories of angry villagers her aunt had told, where some clever joke or small miracle smoothed tempers. The air tasted different—sour, heated. Somewhere just beneath all the human noise, she felt another presence watching, savoring.
He likes this, she thought dizzily. The hunger.
As if in answer, the mark in her palm flared.
Without thinking, she lifted her hand and pressed it against her chest, trying to smother the burn.
The world tilted.
For the slightest of moments—no more than the space between two heartbeats—her sight blurred.
She saw the crowd not as a knot of people but as a swirl of lines and threads: some bright, some shadowed, some fraying at the edges where fear gnawed. Above them, like a dark spider, something stretched thin arms toward the tangle, ready to drink whatever snapped first.
Her vision snapped back.
She staggered, catching herself on the low wall.
Her mother's head whipped toward her. "Ifabola—"
"I'm fine," she lied, jaw tight.
Baba lifted his staff.
It was not a threatening gesture. He did not raise it like a spear, only held it upright, butt on the ground, both hands resting on the carved head.
"Listen to me," he said, and somehow his voice cut through the shouting.
Not by magic.
By weight.
"I understand your anger," he went on. "I carry my own. If I could throw a spear and strike the hand that killed our king and our children, I would be the first to do it. But what stands behind these deaths is not a man you can stab and be done. It is older. It is patient. And it is feeding right now on the cracks opening between us."
Some of the crowd shifted uneasily.
"You think chasing my family from this village will make you safe?" he asked. "Hear me: if we leave, the hunger will not go with us. It will stay. Only then you will have no one to stand between it and your doors."
"Stand between?" the dead boy's mother spat. "You stood beside it! You called its name!"
The words hit like a slap.
Murmurs sharpened.
"So it's true?" a man cried. "You meddled with forbidden things?"
Baba's shoulders straightened.
He could have lied. He knew the words to wrap ugly truths in soft cloth.
Instead, he said, "Yes."
A collective gasp.
He continued before they could swallow it.
"Yes, years ago, when hunger walked with sickness and your children's ribs counted the days. I nearly made a terrible mistake to save this village. I stepped back before I finished it, but my footprint remained. If you want to curse someone for that, curse me. I am here. My back is broad enough."
"Your back?" the woman screamed. "What about my son's back, lying in the ground?"
Her grief broke then.
She surged forward, hands outstretched.
For a heartbeat, it looked as if she meant to claw at Baba's face. Instead she veered aside and hammered her fists against his chest, over and over, sobbing.
"You should have died," she choked. "Not him. You should have paid the price yourself."
Baba let her hit him.
He did not raise his arms to block, did not step away. Her fists thudded, not heavy enough to hurt his body—but each blow landed on some tender place inside his ribs.
He bent his head and let her rage spend itself.
The crowd fell almost silent, watching.
Finally the woman's hands slowed. She sagged, knees buckling. Baba caught her under the arms before she fell face‑first into the mud.
He lowered her gently to the ground.
"I will carry his name with me," he said quietly, only for her. "Every day until I join him. That will not bring him back. But know this: I am not standing idle. I will not stop until I find a way to shut this thing's mouth."
She sobbed once more, then turned her face away, refusing to look at him.
From the back of the crowd, a male voice called, "Words, words, words. While you talk, more of us die."
Ifabola craned her neck.
The speaker was a tall man she did not recognize, with a narrow face and a long scar along his jaw. He wore no clan marks she could see, only a plain dark wrapper. His eyes were bright, almost feverish.
"Fear has gotten into your tongues," he shouted to the others. "You know what must be done. In the old days, when a shrine became polluted, did our fathers hold meetings and weep? No. They pulled it down and drove its keepers into the bush!"
"Pull it down!" someone echoed, caught by the rhythm of the words more than their meaning.
"Drive them out!"
The crowd surged, as if some unseen hand had pushed from behind.
Inside the compound, the guards braced, spears lowering instinctively.
Ifabola's breath caught.
This was how houses burned.
Before the first body could slam into the gate, a sharp voice cut across the clamor.
"Hold!"
A drum beat once, deep and commanding.
Heads turned.
Down the lane, a cluster of figures approached. At their front walked a palace messenger, staff in hand, wearing the red‑and‑gold sash of royal authority. Beside him strode two guards in the king's colors, their spears gleaming even in the gray light.
Behind them, on a palanquin carried by four men, sat the queen‑mother herself.
The crowd scattered back like chickens before a hawk.
"Make way!" the messenger cried. "Who throws stones at the house of the queen's priest?"
No one answered.
The queen‑mother's face was unreadable as her bearers stopped a short distance from the gate. Rain beaded on her indigo headwrap but did not seem to dare soak it.
Her gaze swept over the gathered villagers, the scattered stones, the trembling woman on the ground, and finally settled on Baba.
"Baba Ifa," she said. "I sent for you. I did not expect to find half the village at your door."
Baba bowed, mud splashing around his bare feet. "Iya Oba. Your messenger came faster than I thought."
Her eyes flicked to the scar‑jawed man who had shouted for the shrine's destruction. He had melted a little back into the crowd, but not far enough to escape notice.
"You," she said sharply. "Step forward."
He hesitated, then obeyed with forced bravado.
"What is your name?" she demanded.
"Ajani," he said. "From the outer quarter."
"Ajani from the outer quarter," she repeated. "Did your father or grandfather sit on this council?"
He blinked. "No, I—"
"Then perhaps you do not know how fragile kingdoms are," she said coolly. "They crack first at the edges. Men like you are the hands that pull them apart."
Laughter rippled uneasily at his expense.
Her gaze hardened.
"Hear me, people of Ayetoro," she called, raising her voice so it carried. "The king is dead. The ground shakes beneath us. But if you allow fear to turn your faces against those who keep your shrines, you will fall faster than any enemy can push you."
Murmurs.
"Baba Ifa is not above question," she went on. "He will answer mine today. But no one will raise a hand against him or his house without this council's word. Any who do will taste the same law that falls on traitors to the throne."
Her tone left no doubt what that law was.
The crowd shifted.
Some looked chastened. Others resentful. A few, like Ajani, let anger harden in their eyes, but held their tongues.
The queen‑mother turned back to Baba.
"Come," she said. "Bring your son. We will talk where rain cannot eavesdrop."
Her bearers adjusted their grips.
Baba glanced over his shoulder.
Ifabola met his eyes over the low wall.
For a second, she saw the softness in them, the apology and the promise. Then he looked away.
"Fẹ́mi!" he called.
His son appeared from the inner courtyard, divination bag already slung over his shoulder, jaw set. He threw one quick look at his sister, then strode to his father's side.
Together, they followed the queen‑mother's entourage down the lane.
The crowd slowly scattered, some muttering, others silent. The dead boy's mother refused help to stand; she knelt in the mud long after most had left, face turned away from the Ifatedo gate.
When the lane was nearly empty, Ajani spat toward the wall.
"This is not finished," he muttered.
His words were meant only for himself.
They were not the only ears that heard.
Something thin and patient in the shadow of his thoughts stirred in pleasure.
In the palace's inner hall, the air smelled of damp stone and old palm oil.
Baba and Fẹ́mi knelt on woven mats before the queen‑mother. Ogunremi of Koleoso stood to one side, arms folded, expression unreadable. A few royal elders sat behind, their eyes tired, their beads heavy.
Rain drummed on the tiled roof in soft, insistent fingers.
"I will speak plainly," the queen‑mother said. "My patience for riddles has grown thin. Two nights ago my husband died with a name on his chest. Last night your apprentice and your kinswoman died—or nearly died—under your roof, with the same mark on at least one of them. Tell me why I should not see your house as the road this power walks."
Baba bowed his head.
"There is no easy answer that will cool your anger, Iya Oba," he said. "But I will not hide behind fine words."
He told her then—more briefly, more stripped of personal pain—the same story he had told his own people under the mango tree: the famine, the forbidden sigil, the almost‑invocation, his desperate retreat.
When he finished, the hall was very quiet.
Ogunremi's jaw was tight enough to crack stone.
"You kept this from us," he said softly. "From me."
"Would you have thought better of me if I had paraded my worst mistake through the market?" Baba asked.
"I would have cut that altar's remains myself." Thunder roughened Ogunremi's tone. "And I would have watched more carefully for its shadow sooner."
The queen‑mother lifted a hand.
"The time for 'should have' is past," she said. "We stand where we stand. The question is what ground lies under our feet now."
She turned to Fẹ́mi.
"You saw the king's body," she said. "You saw Dupe's hand. Are you sure the marks were the same?"
Fẹ́mi swallowed.
"Yes, Iya Oba. Same curves. Same feeling, like…like looking at a wound that wants to swallow instead of bleed."
A faint shiver ran through one of the elders.
The queen‑mother tapped a finger against her stool.
"This thing touches palace and shrine alike," she said. "It marked my husband and your aunt. It nearly took your child."
Her gaze sharpened on Baba.
"Is it true your daughter burned it?" she asked.
He had not expected that question.
Word ran faster than the river.
"Yes," he said slowly. "When it tried to enter her sister, she pushed it back."
Ogunremi's head snapped around.
"How?" he demanded.
"I do not yet know," Baba admitted. "She carries a mark now r—"
He stopped himself just before saying resembling the letter on your tree.
Queen‑mother caught the hesitation.
"Speak," she said coldly. "All of it."
He exhaled.
"Her palm bears a curved sign," he said. "Not the exact letters, but a piece of them. She is…touched. But also, perhaps, weaponized."
Ogunremi's hand dropped to the hilt of his ceremonial sword.
"A child carrying that thing's mark is a blade pointed at all our throats," he said. "We should—"
"Be very careful where we swing our swords," the queen‑mother cut in. "If hunger marked her, it is because your friend here tugged its attention first. Killing his child will not close that door. It may only throw it wider."
She studied Baba for a long moment.
"You are not innocent, great priest," she said finally. "But neither do I sense a traitor in you. Only a fool who tried to be a hero and handed his shadow a knife."
Baba bowed his head, the judgment fairer than he felt he deserved.
"I cannot afford to cast aside every cracked pot," she continued. "We need every vessel that still holds water. You will continue your consultations—but under watch. Any further rites of this scale will be done in the palace courtyard, under my eye and under Sango's tree. No more secret nights in your compound."
Baba stiffened.
"That will draw this power closer to your blood," he warned.
Her chin lifted.
"Let it come where my spear can see it," she said, glancing briefly at Ogunremi. "Better than snatching at children in the dark."
Ogunremi's mouth twitched in grim agreement.
"And your daughter?" he asked. "What of her?"
The hall held its breath.
The queen‑mother's gaze turned inward for a heartbeat, as if measuring the shape of the kingdom in her mind.
"At present," she said slowly, "the hunger is already sniffing at her. Sending her away would only drag its nose across more of our land. Keeping her here, under your roof, leaves our enemy a path into the heart of your house—but also perhaps gives us a chain on its ankle."
She looked at Baba.
"You will teach her," she ordered. "Quietly. Carefully. Not to use this mark, but to understand it. A child who does not know the weight in her own hands is more dangerous than any spear‑wielding enemy."
Baba's chest loosened, just a little.
"I will," he said. "I had already decided so, whether you commanded it or not."
"Good," she replied. "Then we are agreed."
Her eyes hardened.
"But hear me, Baba Ifa. If one more death like last night's happens under your roof—one more body marked with that name—I will not hold back the spears of this kingdom. I will tear your compound down stone by stone if I must. Not out of hatred. Out of duty."
The words were not loud, but they struck like a gavel.
Baba bowed until his forehead touched the mat.
"I understand," he said.
Ogunremi's gaze flicked between them, storm still in his eyes, but respect deepening for the queen's steadiness.
"Then go," she said. "Pray, study, choke on your regrets if you have to. But bring me something more than warnings next time we speak. Bring me a way to fight."
By the time Baba and Fẹ́mi returned to the Ifatedo compound, the rain had thinned to a drizzle.
The lane outside was mostly empty now, but a different kind of mark scarred the gate.
Someone had tied a small bundle of feathers and bones to the beam—a crude curse sign from some back‑street practitioner. Another person had smeared palm oil in a thick, greasy handprint just beside it, a sign meaning "danger, keep away."
Neighbors' doors were half‑shut, their occupants peering through narrow cracks as the great priest walked past.
Ifabola watched from just inside as her father paused to untie the bundle.
He held it up between two fingers.
"Coward's magic," he said quietly. "Thrown from a distance."
With a flick of his wrist, he cast it into the gutter, where the rainwater had gathered into a slow stream.
The feathers darkened, then drifted away.
Inside, the mood was no lighter.
Some apprentices avoided Baba's eyes, shame and fear making their feet suddenly very interesting. A few of the older witches watched him with something like accusation, remembering, perhaps, the part of the story he had shared that morning.
He bore it without complaint.
He found Ifabola in the inner room, sitting once more beside Kike.
"How was the palace?" she asked, trying for casual, failing.
He sank down opposite her, bones creaking.
"Loud," he said. "And quiet in the wrong places."
He studied her for a moment.
"You went walking again," he said softly.
Her stomach lurched. "How—"
He tapped his chest. "A father's worry is a long rope. When the spirit of his child tugs on it, he feels the pull."
She flushed.
"I went to Kike," she said quickly. "She's…stuck. Between. The messenger said bringing her back too fast could—"
He raised a hand.
"I know," he said. "I have walked that river many times. I feared as much."
"You're not angry?" she blurted.
"I am terrified," he answered honestly. "And proud. And deeply, deeply sorry you have to carry such things at your age."
His voice roughened.
"I prayed that my mistakes would die with me," he murmured. "Yet here you are, marked by a war older than both of us. I will spend whatever years I have left trying to put a shield between you and it."
"You can't by yourself," she said quietly.
He blinked.
"No," he admitted. "I can't. That is why you must learn to lift your own shield too."
He reached across and took her right hand.
She stiffened, then slowly let him uncurl her fingers.
The twisted mark on her palm stared up at them, ugly and bright.
He did not flinch.
"Names bind," he said softly, echoing the messenger without knowing. "This mark is a hook. If you do not understand it, it will drag you. If you learn its shape, perhaps you can drag back."
She swallowed.
"Can you teach me?" she asked.
"I can teach you how to stand in a storm without breaking," he said. "The rest…we will learn together."
For the first time since Dupe fell, a faint thread of something like hope slipped through the heaviness in her chest.
It was thin.
It was fragile.
But it was there.
As evening drew its gray curtain across Ayetoro, the Ifatedo compound settled into a cautious, exhausted quiet.
On the far side of the village, in a cramped room above a noisy wineshop, Ajani—scar‑jawed, angry‑eyed—sat alone, nursing a gourd of sour palm wine.
He did not notice when the corner of his shadow stretched slightly farther than it should.
He did not feel the faint, chilling touch that traced the old scar on his jaw like a finger.
He only thought, over and over, of Baba's calm face, of the queen‑mother's defense, of the villagers who had backed away when royal authority glared at them.
"They all protect him," he muttered. "While people like us bury our dead."
His resentment tasted sharp.
The thing listening in the dark behind his thoughts savored it.
Good, it whispered soundlessly. Let it grow. Doors do not always open from priests. Sometimes they open from the smallest cracks in ordinary men.
Ajani shivered, though he did not know why.
In the Ifatedo house, Ifabola finally slept, head resting near Kike's unmoving hand, her own marked palm turned inward.
Outside, the rain stopped.
The night held its breath, as if waiting to see where the next stone would fall.