an emerald cuff into the water. She murmurs over the jewel, kissing it tenderly, and the emerald glows and fades. Then she sets the cuff down and calls out, “Melu.” My mother tastes the word on her full lips, drawing out the syllables like a song. “Melu, my dear. Won’t you come out and play?”
The clearing is silent. The Lady laughs, a deep, throaty sound. “The seers say that alagbatos dislike humans. Some doubt you even exist, Great Melu, guardian of Swana. But I think you do hear.” She produces a green vial from her pocket and tips it precariously toward the pool. “I think you hear just fine.”
A hot wind rushes into the clearing, swirling up dirt and clay into a tall, lean man. His wings smolder cobalt blue, like a young fire, but his voice is frost cold. “Stop.”
“I would tell you my name,” The Lady tells him. “But as you know, my father never gave me one.” She pauses, still dangling that vial over the pool. “How quickly does abiku blood spread through earth and water, Melu? How much would poison every living thing within a fifty-mile radius? Two drops? Three?”
“Don’t,” Melu barks. “Wait.”
The Lady points to the emerald cuff.
Melu’s features contort with defeat. Stone-jawed, he picks up the cuff and snaps it on his forearm.
“If I’ve done that right,” says The Lady, “you are no longer Swana’s alagbato. You are my ehru … my djinn.”
“Three wishes,” Melu spits. “And I am bound to this grassland until your wishes are complete.”
“How convenient.” The Lady sits, thoughtfully dangling her muscular brown legs in the water. “Melu, I wish for a stronghold that no one may see or hear unless I desire it. A place my friends and I will always be safe. A place … befitting royalty. That is my first command.”
Melu blinks. “It is done.”
“Where?”
“A mile from here.” Melu points, and the newly blossomed plaster walls of Bhekina House shimmer in the distance.
The Lady glows with pleasure. “Now,” she breathes, “I wish for Olugbade’s death—”
“Not allowed,” Melu snaps. “Life and death are beyond my power. Especially that life. Even fairies may not kill a Raybearer.”
The Lady’s mouth hardens, then relaxes. “I thought that might be the case,” she says. “Fine. I wish for a child who will do, think, and feel as I tell it. An extension of myself. A gifted child, sure to stand out in a contest of talent. This is my second command.”
“Not allowed,” Melu intones again. “I cannot force a human to love or hate. You may not own a child as you own an ehru.”
“Can’t I?” The Lady steeples her fingers in thought. A smile spreads across her face, and her teeth are coldly white.
“What if,” she says, “my child was an ehru? What if my child was yours?”
Melu grows as rigid as a tree in dry season. “Such a union would go against nature. You are human, not of my kind. You ask for an abomination.”
“Oh no, Melu.” The Lady’s brilliant black eyes dance over the ehru’s horrified ones. “I command that abomination.”
They performed a ritual then, one I didn’t understand at seven years old. It looked painful, the way his body folded over hers in the grass. Two species never meant to unite, dissimilar as flesh against metal. But the memory told me that nine months later, my infant cries rang through Bhekina House. And The Lady’s third ungranted wish—her abomination—ran through my veins.
“Do you understand now?” Melu muttered over my drowsy form, once the memory had run its course. “Until you grant her third wish, neither you nor I will be free.” He touched my forehead with a long, slender finger. “I bargained with The Lady for the privilege of naming you Tarisai. It is a Swana name: behold what is coming. Your soul is hers for now. But your name, I insisted, must be your own.”
He sounded far away. Stealing The Lady’s story had exhausted me. I barely sensed Melu cradle me in his narrow arms, soar through the night, and deposit me back at the palisade gates of Bhekina House. He whispered, “I’ve been bound to this savannah for seven years. For my sake, I hope that woman claims her wish. But for your sake, daughter, I hope that day never comes.” Then servants clambered toward the gates, and Melu was gone.
A dozen anxious hands put me to bed, and syrupy voices soothed me when I babbled about Melu the next day. It was all a dream,