The safehouse smelled of wet rot and the sharp, medicinal tang of dried herbs, but beneath it all lay the copper scent of imminent violence.

  Ojie stood by the slatted window, peering through the gap in the wood. The floating district of the Low Market was usually a cacophony of shouting hawkers and splashing oars. Tonight, the silence was heavy. It pressed against the walls like the black water beneath the floorboards.

  "They are here," Dele said. The old soldier did not whisper. He stood by the door, his spear held with a grip that turned his knuckles the color of bleached bone.

  Y?misí swept into the room. She had shed her silks for the rough, dark tunic of a boat-hand, her head wrapped in a nondescript cloth. She looked smaller, harder.

  "The causeway is blocked," she said, her voice a rapid clip. "My scouts report Iparun at the rope bridges. They have sealed the district. They are going door to door, checking faces against a description."

  Ojie turned. His hand went to the hilt of the iron sword. "We fight our way out."

  "You have twenty men against a city," Y?misí snapped. "You do not fight. You vanish. That is what ghosts do."

  She kicked aside a woven mat in the center of the room, revealing a trapdoor. "The under-channels. It is low tide. We can move beneath the pilings."

  Ebose, the young guard, looked at the dark square with wide eyes. "The water is black there, mistress. The Drowned Ones—"

  "The Drowned Ones might take you," Y?misí said, descending the ladder. "The ?ba hunters will take you. Choose."

  They descended.

  The world beneath the city was a forest of slime-slicked wooden stilts. The air was thick, tasting of brine and ancient decay. The water was a mere foot below the suspended walkways of rotting planks and lashed canoes, black and oily.

  They moved in single file. Y?misí led, a lantern in her hand shuttered to a sliver of light. Ojie followed, then Ebose, with Dele bringing up the rear. The darkness hummed. Crabs scuttled over the pylons with the sound of dry leaves. Above them, heavy footsteps thudded on the floorboards of the houses, shaking dust into their hair.

  Thump. Thump.

  "Clear," Y?misí breathed.

  They moved for an hour, navigating a maze that defied geography. They crossed beneath the pleasure district, where the water vibrated with the heavy bass of drums and the air smelled of sweet ogogoro and jasmine. They skirted the edge of the merchant quarter, where the pylons were stone instead of wood.

  Ojie felt the itch between his shoulder blades intensify. It was not a warning; it was a scream. The lion in his blood was pacing, clawing at the bars of his ribs.

  Close.

  "Stop," Ojie hissed.

  Y?misí froze. "What?"

  "Something is here."

  Ahead, the narrow walkway opened into a wider clearing beneath a massive warehouse platform. Chains hung from above, clinking softly in the draft.

  From the shadows of the pilings, a low growl vibrated through the wood.

  It was not a lion. It was a hound—a massive, spirit-bonded beast with fur the color of ash and eyes that glowed with a sickly green luminescence. A tracker.

  Behind the hound, a man stepped out. He wore the leather armor of the Iparun, the House ?ba crest dull on his chest. He held a repeating crossbow.

  "The scent was old," the hunter said, his voice echoing in the damp space. "But the fear? The fear is fresh."

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  Two more hunters emerged from the flanks, blocking the walkway behind them. They were trapped between the black water and the bronze bolts.

  "Ebose," Dele barked. "Shield!"

  The young guard raised his buckler just as the crossbow twanged. The bolt punched through the wood and into Ebose’s shoulder. He cried out, stumbling into the water with a splash that sounded impossibly loud.

  "Move!" Dele roared. He charged the lead hunter, his spear a blur.

  Chaos erupted.

  Ojie did not think. He did not plan. The world narrowed to the beat of his heart and the man stepping toward him with a drawn sword. The hunter was Stage Two, maybe Three—his arms wreathed in the faint smoke of a Hyena bond. He grinned, anticipating a quick kill against a starved boy.

  Ojie drew his iron blade.

  The hunter lunged, a fast, high strike meant to decapitate.

  The lion woke up.

  It was not the slow awakening of the morning training. It was a detonation. Heat flooded Ojie’s veins, searing and absolute. His vision sharpened, the darkness becoming a landscape of grey and silver. He saw the twitch of the hunter's muscle before the blow landed.

  Ojie sidestepped. He didn't just dodge; he flowed. He caught the hunter’s wrist with his free hand.

  The contact sparked. Gold light flared from Ojie’s skin, illuminating the dark under-city like a lightning strike. He felt the hunter's pulse, the rush of blood, the fragile architecture of bone.

  He squeezed.

  There was a wet crunch. The hunter screamed, dropping his sword.

  Ojie didn't stop. He drove his own blade upward, under the hunter's ribs, finding the heart. It was not a duel. It was an execution.

  He shoved the dying man into the water. The splash was heavy, final.

  Ojie stood panting, the golden light on his skin pulsing in time with his heavy breaths. He felt a terrifying exhilaration. He felt the lion lick its chops.

  "My lord!"

  Ojie turned. Dele was holding off the other two hunters, his spear keeping them at bay on the narrow planking. But he was old, and he was tired, and blood was already dark on his tunic.

  Y?misí was pulling at Ojie’s arm. "The boat. It’s past this platform. We have to go."

  "Dele," Ojie shouted.

  The old soldier looked back. One eye was swollen shut. He smiled, a grim barring of bloodied teeth.

  "Go," Dele rasped. He slammed the butt of his spear into the walkway, cracking the wood. "I will hold the bridge."

  "No," Ojie started forward. "We leave together."

  "You cannot save everyone!" Y?misí screamed, her composure cracking. "Look at him, Ojie! He is spent. If you stay, the house dies here in the mud."

  Dele looked at Ojie. He looked at the golden light fading on Ojie’s skin. He nodded, once. A salute to a king, not a boy.

  "Survive," Dele commanded. "Remember. Return."

  Then he turned back to the hunters and let out a roar that had no magic in it, only the iron of a man who had waited years to die for something that mattered.

  Y?misí dragged Ojie away.

  They ran. They scrambled over slick beams and waded through waist-deep water that tugged at them with cold, hungry hands. Ojie heard the sounds of fighting fade behind them, replaced by the silence of the labyrinth.

  They emerged into a hidden cove where a merchant cog, the River’s Luck, sat low in the water. Lanterns hung from its masts, signaling departure.

  They scrambled up the netting. The moment Ojie’s feet hit the deck, the gangplank was pulled. The sails dropped, catching the night wind.

  Ojie ran to the stern. He looked back at the sprawling lights of ?k?. Somewhere in that darkness, beneath the wooden city, the only family he had known for the last decade was bleeding out in the dark.

  He gripped the railing until the wood groaned. The lion in his blood was silent now, satiated by the violence, indifferent to the grief.

  "Drink."

  Y?misí stood beside him. She held out a flask. Her face was composed again, the mask back in place, but her hands were shaking.

  Ojie took the flask. He did not drink. "Where are we going?"

  "Igwe?cha," Y?misí said. "The hunters guard the roads to ?do. The river is the only path left."

  "Igwe?cha is in chaos," Ojie said. His voice sounded rusty, like an old hinge. "The priests... the Unbinding."

  "Chaos is a ladder," Y?misí said softly. "And it is far from Osaze."

  She looked at the city receding into the mist.

  "You killed a man tonight," she said. It was not a question.

  "I did."

  "Good. You will have to kill many more."

  Ojie looked at her. "Dele is dead."

  "Dele was a soldier," Y?misí said, her voice hard as diamond. "He spent his life waiting for a way to spend it well. Do not insult him by wasting the purchase."

  She pulled a scroll from her tunic.

  "While you were playing hero in the mud, my network sent word from the palace. Intel on your enemies."

  Ojie looked at the scroll, then at the water. "Tell me."

  "The marriage between Osaze and the Olúf?? girl," Y?misí said. "It is not just for power. It is for survival. House ?ba is dying, Ojie."

  Ojie stiffened. "Tell me something new"

  "Ewuare." Y?misí lowered her voice, though the wind snatched the words away. "The Bronze Lord is beyond saving now. His physicians can do nothing. He is rotting from the inside. Osaze is strong, but he is hated. Without his father, without the iron of ìbàdàn... the Leopard is vulnerable."

  Ojie looked at the golden pendant resting against his chest. He thought of the hunter he had killed. He thought of Dele’s body in the black water.

  "They are weak," Ojie whispered.

  "They are desperate," Y?misí corrected. "Which makes them more dangerous. But yes. They can be broken."

  The ship turned, catching the current of the great river, heading east toward the burning delta. Ojie turned his back on ?k?. He had entered the city a ghost. He left it a killer.

  The lion settled in his chest, warm and heavy but still angry. It was ready for the next hunt.