The gates of Excellence Memorial High School loomed ahead, a fortress of peeling green paint and rusted iron. Femi and Lola spilled out of the danfo bus along with a dozen other sweating students, the conductor's parting insults fading into the chaotic roar of morning traffic.
Lola did not wait for him. She adjusted the strap of her frayed backpack and marched through the gates, her spine rigid. The air around her seemed to ripple, distorting the space like heat rising off hot tarmac.
Femi watched her go, the heavy silence between them a physical ache in his chest. He wanted to call her back, to apologize for pushing her away at Ojuelegba, but the words died in his throat. He looked down at his hands. They were trembling.
The morning assembly was a blur of recited anthems and the principal's droning voice over a crackling megaphone. By the time Femi reached the senior science laboratory for his first period, his head was pounding.
The lab smelled of sulfur, old wood, and the stale sweat of fifty teenagers crammed into a space built for thirty. Mr. Ojo, their chemistry teacher, was writing titration formulas on the chalkboard, chalk dust raining down onto his faded brown suit.
Femi sat at a wooden bench in the back, staring at a glass beaker filled with distilled water. His mind was miles away, trapped in the memory of Lola's eyes glowing violet in the storm. He reached out and wrapped his fingers around the cold glass of the beaker.
A Yoruba proverb his grandfather loved echoed in his mind: Odo to ba gbagbe orisun re, gbigbe ni yoo gbe. The river that forgets its source will surely dry up. But what if the source was something terrifying? What if the source was not human?
As Femi stared at the beaker, his thoughts consumed by Lola, the familiar, terrifying warmth flooded his palms. The low, vibrational hum began again, radiating from his bones into the glass.
He gasped softly. Beneath his fingers, the smooth, rigid surface of the glass was changing. It felt soft. Malleable.
He pulled his hands back as if burned.
The glass beaker was gone. In its place, holding the exact same volume of distilled water, was a perfectly formed cup of fired terracotta clay. It bore intricate, ancient geometric patterns along its rim, patterns Femi had never seen before but felt he had known for a thousand epochs.
"O boy, Femi," whispered Chinedu, his lab partner, leaning over. "Where you get that native cup? Na Mr. Ojo bring am for practical?"
Femi swallowed hard, his heart hammering against his ribs. "I... I brought it from home. For an art project." He quickly shoved the clay cup into his bag, water spilling over his notes, his mind spinning into sheer panic. Matter could not be created or destroyed, only transformed. He had just transmuted glass into ancient earth simply by touching it.
Meanwhile, on the other side of the school compound, the air was entirely too still.
Lola sat under the shade of a massive whistling pine tree behind the cafeteria, skipping her Commerce class. She could not breathe. The Lagos heat usually felt like a warm blanket to her, but today it was a cage. Every time she closed her eyes, she saw flashes of a blinding white realm, heard the collective roar of voices that sounded like thunder, and felt an agonizing sense of loss.
"The princess of the winds hiding in the shade. How ironic."
Lola's eyes snapped open.
Standing a few feet away was a young boy. He wore the oversized uniform of a junior student, but nothing about him looked like a child. His skin was ashen, and his eyes were completely black, devoid of whites. He stood unnaturally still, clutching a small, carved wooden bow.
Lola stood up, her instincts screaming. The air around her instantly chilled, a sudden breeze kicking up the dry leaves at her feet. "Who are you? What kind of stupid joke is this?"
The boy tilted his head, a sickening crack echoing from his neck. "My master, the Hunter, sends his greetings. You do not belong here, Oya. You and the Sculptor's boy are out of bounds. The veil is thinning, and your scent is loud."
"I don't know what you are talking about," Lola said, taking a step back. But even as she spoke the denial, the name he called her—Oya—struck a chord deep within her soul, a note of pure, undeniable truth that made her blood sing.
"They sent him to the dirt to learn humility," the boy rasped, stepping closer, his voice sounding like dry branches snapping. "But Chief Adeyemi will harvest your ase before you can ever return to the sky. You are vulnerable here. Fragile. Mortal flesh."
The boy lunged, his speed terrifying and inhuman. He reached out with a hand that suddenly resembled a gnarled, wooden talon.
Lola did not think. She reacted.
A primal roar tore from her throat. She thrust her hands forward, and the sky answered.
A violent, localized gale-force wind exploded from her palms. It hit the boy like a moving train, lifting him entirely off the ground and throwing him backward with bone-shattering force. He smashed into the trunk of the whistling pine, the tree shuddering violently, raining needles down upon them.
The boy slumped to the ground, coughing up a thick, black substance that smelled of rotting leaves. He looked up at Lola, a twisted smile on his face. "The storm wakes," he hissed, before dissolving into a pile of dry, dead leaves right before her eyes.
Lola stood trembling, her hands still raised. The wind died down instantly.
"Lola!"
She spun around. Femi was sprinting toward her from the direction of the science block, his face pale with terror. He had felt it. The sudden shift in atmospheric pressure, the massive surge of energy that had rattled the windows in the lab.
He skidded to a halt in front of her, looking from her glowing, terrified eyes to the pile of dry leaves at the base of the tree.
"What happened?" Femi demanded, grabbing her by the shoulders. He didn't care about the static shock this time; he held on tight. "Lola, what did you do?"
Lola looked up at him, tears of sheer overwhelm finally breaking free and spilling down her cheeks.
"Femi," she choked out, her voice trembling. "I think we are going mad."
Femi looked into her eyes, feeling the ancient, heavy truth settling over them both. He slowly reached into his bag and pulled out the terracotta cup, the ancient markings staring back at them in the harsh Lagos sun.
"If we are going mad," Femi said quietly, his voice carrying the weight of falling mountains, "then we are going mad together.
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