Page 194 of Children of Blood and Bone

“If it makes you feel better, youdidpush me into the sand before you said it.”

“So is it my turn?” Zélie asks. “Is this where you push me?”

I shake my head. “I needed to hear that. I neededyou. After Binta died, you were the first person to treat me like more than some silly princess. I know you may not see it, but you believed I could be theLionaire before anyone ever uttered that name.” I wipe away the remainder of her tears and place my hand on her cheek. I couldn’t be there for Binta, yet being with Zélie, I feel the hole in my heart closing. Binta would’ve told me to be brave. With Zélie, I already am.

“No matter what he did, no matter what you see, believe me when I tell you it is not forever,” I say. “If you broke me free, you will find a way to save yourself.”

Zélie smiles, but it only lasts an instant. She closes her eyes and clenches her fist, the way she always does when practicing an incantation.

“What’s wrong?” I ask.

“I can’t…” She looks down at her hands. “I can’t do magic anymore.”

My heart seems to stop, sluggish, heavy in my chest. I clasp Zélie’s arms tight. “What are you talking about?”

“It’s gone.” Zélie grips her braids, pain etched into her face. “I’m not a Reaper anymore. I’m not anything.”

The weight Zélie bears on her shoulders threatens to break her back. All I want to do is comfort her, yet this new reality makes my arms feel like lead.

“When did it happen?”

Zélie closes her eyes and shrugs. “When they cut me, it was like they cut the magic out of my back. I haven’t been able to feel anything since.”

“What of the ritual?”

“I don’t know.” She takes a deep, shuddering breath. “I can’t do it. No one can.”

Her words rip the floor out from under me. I can almost feel myself falling through the hole. Lekan said only a maji tethered to Sky Mother’s spirit could perform the ritual. Without another sêntaro to awaken others, no one else can take Zélie’s place.

“Perhaps you just need the sunstone—”

“I tried that.”

“And?”

“Nothing. It doesn’t even feel warm.”

I chew on my bottom lip, brows furrowed as I try to figure out something else. If the sunstone isn’t helping her, I doubt the scroll will.

“Didn’t this happen in Ibeji?” I ask. “After the arena battle? You said your magic felt blocked.”

“Blocked, not gone. It felt stuck, but it was still there. Now I feel nothing.”

Hopelessness builds inside me, making my legs go numb.We should turn back.We should wake one of Roën’s men and redirect the ship.

But through it all Binta’s face shines through, overpowering my fear, Father’s wrath. I’m taken back to that fateful day a moon ago, standing in Kaea’s quarters, holding the scroll. The odds were against us then. Reality told us we would fail. But again and again, we fought. We persevered. We rose.

“You can do it,” I whisper, feeling it even more when I say it aloud. “The gods chose you. They don’t make mistakes.”

“Amari—”

“I’ve watched you do the impossible since the first day we met. You’ve taken on the world for the people you love. I know you can do the same to save the maji.”

Zélie tries to look away, but I grab her face and force her to meet my eyes. If only she could see the person I see now, the champion prevailing inside.

“You’re that sure?” she asks.

“I have never been more sure of anything in my life. Besides, just look at you—if you cannot do magic, no one can.”

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