Page 5 of Children of Anguish and Anarchy

“How long have you been locked in this hold?” he questions.

“Half a moon.”

“Do you still have your magic?”

I shake my head. “Every night…”

Inan extends his neck to the rays of moonlight, illuminating the puncture wounds along his throat that mirror my own.

“I know about the liquid majacite,” Inan says. “If we could stop it somehow… disrupt their supply—”

“There’s no guarantee our magic would return.” I look down at my empty palms, wishing I could stir the ashê that used to lie within my blood. “Our powers come from our land. We might not be able to restore them unless we return home.”

“Then we need to overwhelm them.” Inan grabs the iron bars as he thinks. “Break free at once. The others have been working on a plan.”

“What do they need to escape?”

“A distraction. A way to get close to the Skulls without them realizing what’s going on. But we can’t think about that now. We need to get you out of this hold.”

The seas push against our damp walls, making our hanging cages creak. Inan runs his hands up and down the bars, likely searching for a place where the metal is weak.

“Why’d they take you?” he continues. “Why’d they separate you from the others?”

I stop and think back to the day. So much of my time in this cage has passed in a haze. Moments spent waiting for the Skulls to descend. Hours spent in agony after they inject the majacite into my neck.

“They lined us all up. Every girl, one level above.” I close my eyes until I see it—the Silver Skull fills the blackness of my mind. I hear thecreaking floorboards under his approaching boots. I feel the warmth of the girls’ shaking bodies, pressed tight against mine. “The Silver Skull separated us with some kind of compass—”

“What did it look like?” Inan asks.

I focus, trying to remember exactly what I saw. “Bronze. Hexagon-shaped. A triple arrowhead painted in blood…”

The terror that gripped me that day returns like the rain. I see the compass’s thick red dial. I hear the way it hummed as it spun. I could barely survive waiting with the others in chains. I didn’t realize how much worse it’d be to be taken away.

“Did it react to others?” Inan continues.

“A few.” I nod. “They took me and three other girls. A Lighter from Ibadan. A girl from Zaria’s coast. A Healer from the sand huts of Ibeji.”

I think of the Healer’s round face, the lilt in her voice, her kind beauty, her grace. I recall the ways she collected rainwater and instructed us to dress our wounds, caring for us all, despite the pain she faced.

“Where are they now?” Inan pushes. A crease forms above his thick brows and I look down at the rusted floor. The empty cages answer in my silence.

“We have to get you off this ship.” Inan’s pacing quickens. His eyes dart around the hold. “We don’t have time to wait for the others. We need to find a new way to escape.”

The way Inan moves makes my stomach clench. There’s something he holds back.

“What is it?” I press. “What do you know?”

Inan stops and holds my gaze.

“These men aren’t just searching for maji, Zélie. They’re searching for you.”

CHAPTER THREE

INAN

“ME?”ZÉLIE WHISPERS.

Her delicate face falls.

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