When the past echoes loud enough, even silence becomes unbearable.
The rain had returned to Lagos like an old grudge—silent, heavy, and cold. It fell not in torrents but in sheets that blurred the world into a watercolor of grief and longing. Agnes stood by the window of her new temporary apartment, far from the presidential quarters and even farther from the warmth of certainty.
She held a white porcelain teacup in her hand, untouched. The tea had gone cold hours ago, much like the voice that once called her name in the dark—Majek's voice, her name as only he could say it, like a prayer to the only god he had never believed in until her.
But that name now floated in the void, fractured.
It had been a week since the press conference. Since Lami tried to take the throne. Since Agnes, with her voice shaking but her resolve burning, told the world she would fight.
And still, she hadn't slept.
Not really.
The dreams had returned.
The first time, she had woken up to the smell of rusted metal and hot oil. The second, it was the sound of high heels on linoleum, echoing in a long corridor, growing faster and louder until she couldn't tell if the footsteps were hers or someone chasing her.
But the third time…
She had seen her mother.
Not the loving one from childhood photos. Not the careful, soft-spoken woman whose recipes still lived in Agnes's hands.
No.
This woman had eyes like knives and a voice like a locked door.
She'd said only one thing.
"He chose her. Not you."
Agnes had woken up screaming.
"What do you think it means?" Mr. Smith asked gently. He was the only one she allowed into her quiet.
Agnes sat across from him on the couch, legs tucked under her, wrapped in a gray cashmere blanket. She looked younger without the makeup and armor of her professional face.
"I think I'm unraveling," she said.
"Maybe you're just remembering."
She didn't answer. Instead, she looked toward the rain-smeared glass again. "I keep hearing a song. I don't know the words, but the melody…it feels like it's older than me."
Smith frowned. "Like something from childhood?"
Agnes shook her head. "Older. Like something from before I was born."
There was silence. Rain hit the glass in rhythms neither of them understood.
Then Agnes whispered, "I think someone's memory is living inside me. And I don't know if it's mine or… or hers."
"Whose?"
"My mother's."
Meanwhile, across town, Lami sat in her office, her manicured fingers tapping the edge of her mahogany desk. A fresh order of Chanel perfume had just arrived—No. 5, her signature—but the scent barely masked the stench of desperation.
Her eyes flicked through reports.
The court of public opinion was split.
Half of them called Agnes a liar and a snake.
The other half?
They called her a phoenix.
But it wasn't the headlines that disturbed her—it was the silence from Switzerland. The board hadn't contacted her since Agnes's counterpress, and her father's allies in Geneva had gone unusually quiet.
Worse, Majek had vanished.
Her jaw clenched.
He was the key. The wild card. The husband. The heir.
If she couldn't control him, she couldn't control the story.
And if she couldn't control the story…
The game was already lost.
"Call Toba," she barked.
Her assistant peeked through the door. "Ma?"
"Now."
Toba arrived an hour later, drenched from the rain but still in full suit and tie. His loyalty to the Ireti name remained ironclad—but his fear of Lami was beginning to tarnish.
He stood quietly as she poured herself a drink.
"Have you spoken to him?"
Toba hesitated.
She turned slowly. "Well?"
"He's… off-grid. Ghosted. Not at any of his residences. No security pings. I think he—"
"Ran?"
"Or he's planning something."
She downed the drink. "Find him. Use whoever you must. Bribe. Threaten. Leak if necessary."
Toba nodded. "And if he doesn't want to be found?"
Lami smiled, the kind of smile that belonged to no sane woman.
"Then find Agnes. They're like gravity now. Pull one and the other follows."
In a hidden corner of Surulere, Majek sat in a dim room lit only by candlelight and the flicker of an old projector. On the screen, home footage played in grainy detail—an old VHS converted to digital.
A woman—young, radiant, caramel-skinned, with the same eyes as Agnes—spoke into the camera.
"You were born in winter. A Lagos winter, which means rain and power outages."
The woman laughed.
"You didn't cry at first. I thought something was wrong. But the doctor said you were just… watching. That you had already learned not to make noise unless it was necessary."
Majek stared at the screen like a man clinging to a lifeline.
"She was different," he murmured.
Behind him, the private investigator nodded. "I've traced the hospital. The midwife. Even the burial site. The official death certificate lists 'complications during labor' but…"
"But?"
"There's a second file. Classified. Connected to a government project."
Majek's fingers tightened around the remote.
"Project name?"
The PI hesitated.
"Echo."
Majek's blood ran cold.
Echo.
The same name from Agnes's dreams.
Elsewhere, Agnes moved through her new apartment like a ghost, barely touching the floor. Mr. Smith had gone to arrange a private session with a trauma therapist, but Agnes didn't want to talk anymore.
She wanted to remember.
She closed her eyes. Let the melody return.
It was a lullaby. Half Igbo, half something older.
And then—like a floodgate broke—images came.
A man's voice, yelling.
A woman crying.
A child hiding under a desk, hands over her ears.
Then another woman—her mother?—reaching for her.
"They'll take you if you don't forget."
She gasped and fell to her knees.
The door burst open. It was Smith.
"What happened?"
Agnes clutched her chest. "They… they made her forget. They made me forget. My whole life… has been a lie."
Back in Geneva, a silent conference room filled with screens began to buzz.
Board members whispered.
"Agnes Ireti is remembering."
"We can't allow the Echo files to resurface."
"She was never supposed to survive."
"She did."
"What do we do now?"
An older man with silver hair lit a cigar. "We do what we always do."
He pressed a button.
Activate Protocol: Dandelion.
Meanwhile, Majek had returned.
He knocked once on Agnes's door.
She opened it.
They stared at each other.
No words.
Just breath and rain.
Then Majek stepped forward, wrapped her in his arms like it was the only home left in the world.
"I found them," he whispered into her hair. "I found the truth."
"I remembered it," she whispered back.
And together, they cried—not for what they had lost, but for what they had finally reclaimed.
Their story.
Their past.
Their fire.