says you’ve lived here for ages. Can you find us food? Can’t you break that chain on your arm?”
“If I could,” he said dourly, “then I wouldn’t be here, sunshine girl. I’m not that strong.” He gestured to the shadowy ground. “The candidates tossed the key down there.”
Thinking quickly, I dropped to my knees and pressed my ear to the floor. Memories echoed across the stone. Children’s feet. The clink of a key skipping across the floor’s surface and stopping beneath a sleeping mat. I groped in the dark until my fingers closed around something metal.
“Got it.”
I rose and took Sanjeet’s arm. He stiffened beneath my touch, then relaxed, watching me closely as I unlocked the iron cuff.
“Come on,” I said, feeling suddenly shy. I turned and headed for the door. “I saw a room with dining tables. There might be food left.”
He followed, hunching his towering shoulders. He looked uncomfortable with the space he consumed, as if his presence were a greedy imposition.
“So if you’re not that strong,” I asked, “what is your Hallow?”
Sanjeet stared down at me through long, thick lashes. “Now would be a good time for me to lie.”
“Why?”
“Because friends can’t be afraid of each other,” he said bluntly. “And I want to be your friend.”
I assessed him. “I don’t think you’d be very good at lying.”
“I’m not.” He smiled. “And you’d find out my Hallow anyway; there are no secrets in the Children’s Palace.” He sighed, scanned my body, and rattled off a list in a monotone. “You twisted your ankle months ago. It healed stiffly, so you’re easy to trip. There’s a knot between your neck and your left shoulder. Your reflexes will be slower on that side. When you blink, your right eye closes faster. It causes a blind spot …” He trailed off, shifting his feet. “I see weakness. Bones, muscles, ruptures. They sing to me, tell me all their secrets. That’s why Father put me in death matches. With my Hallow, I never lost a fight.” His face hardened, and then grew soft. “Amah … my mother made me come here. She thought if I joined the council, I could help people. Become a doctor, or a priest. I’d like that.”
“Then why did you say no when Dayo offered to anoint you?”
He swallowed. “Because if I join, I can never see Amah again.” His expression grew hunted. “She would be stuck with Father forever.”
Before we left the chamber, I looked back at the serene rows of sleeping mats, dappled with sconce light. Had Mbali slept here once too, like Olugbade? And Thaddace, and Nawusi? In this room, how many future rulers had dreamed away their childhood?
“Friends for life,” I murmured, remembering Dayo’s promise. I glanced again at Sanjeet. “Do you really think that will happen? If we’re anointed, do you think we’ll—love each other?”
“Of course, sunshine girl.” Sanjeet stared quietly at the window, where the moon glowed through whispering curtains. “We won’t have any choice.”
AT BHEKINA HOUSE, THERE HAD BEEN NO rhythm to waiting.
No pulse made the hours pass faster, like the thrum of rain on a mud-thatch roof. Questions trickled into the ground: Will I be touched today? Will I be loved today? Will Mother come? Why … why doesn’t she come?
But at the Children’s Palace, there was no time for questions. Routine oiled the wheels of every hour, so that before I could blink, years had passed. My body had changed. Muscles curved where timid limbs used to be, and my wide, love-starved eyes had grown hooded, hiding their hunger. I learned to drawl with an Oluwani accent, rehearsing my smiles and frowns in the mirrored palace ceilings. I donned masks until they felt like my face. The Lady’s voice grew faint in my mind. I burrowed into the love of my friends—the love of Dayo, Kirah, and Sanjeet—and I almost forgot that I was made to be a killer.
My fifteenth birthday dawned with the pounding of drums, echoing through the cavernous Hall of Dreams: pa-pa-gun-gao, gun-gao. Like all Dayo’s candidates, I had learned to interpret the countless drum pitches. By the fifth gun-gao—wake for prayers—I had disentangled from my mosquito net, ripped the sleeping scarf from my neatly twisted hair, and stood erect on my mat. I waited, hands clasped over my black tunic and Swanian candidate sash, with dozens of other candidates on the girls’ side of the hall.
Servants with leatherbound books pushed the partition screen aside and took their stations, accounting for children on mats, ensuring