The crowd parted for Efe like water around a stone. Torches hissed in the harmattan wind, and the mask lay atop a pyramid of cedar wood, its painted face gleaming. Aruosa raised his staff to signal the fire-bearer when Efe shouted, "Wait! The mask is not Odion's!" His voice cracked, but the words carried.
Guards seized him, but Elder Osahon stayed their hands. "Let the boy speak." Efe held up the ivory fragment. "This was found in Igbinosun's hand. The grain matches the cursed mask, but not my master's work." Murmurs rippled through the crowd like wind through millet.
Aruosa examined the carving, his scar tightening. "Then who?" he demanded. Efe had no name, only the memory of a shadow and a voice. The chief's eyes narrowed. "Burn both," he ordered. "Let the spirits sort truth from lies." The fire-bearer lowered his torch.
Flames leapt high, devouring cedar and mask alike. Efe watched the painted face blister and blacken, heard a sound like a woman screaming from far away. The crowd gasped as the fire turned green, then white, then died as suddenly as it had risen. In the ashes lay the ivory fragment, untouched, glowing faintly.
Mama Izu pushed through the throng and snatched it up. "Cold iron," she muttered, wrapping it in cloth. "Someone quenched this in blood before the fire." She slipped away before the guards could stop her. Efe followed, heart pounding with the first thread of hope.
They hid in the herbalist's hut among bundles of fever grass and snake skin. "The mask was a vessel," Mama Izu said, grinding herbs with furious strokes. "But the poison was planted earlier. Find the carver, find the poisoner." She gave Efe a gourd of bitter tea. "Drink. It will quiet the spirits whispering in your blood."
Dawn found Efe at the dungeon gates, bearing a calabash of the tea for Odion. The guards, heavy-eyed from the night's madness, waved him through. His master sat chained to an ironwood post, beard matted with dust. When Efe pressed the gourd to his lips, Odion drank greedily, then whispered, "The ivory is from the old grove. Only one man carves there now."
Efe leaned closer. "Who?" Odion's eyes flickered to the guard, then back. "Ask the river at moonrise. But beware—the carver sees through masks." The guard stirred, and Efe was pulled away, the name unspoken but burning in his mind like a coal.
The city woke to news of another warrior lost to madness. This time the man had carved the Oba's name into his own chest before leaping from the palace wall. The drums beat a new rhythm—panic.