The execution ground baked under the noon sun. Odion knelt blindfolded, his neck stretched across the carved stump. The executioner raised his machete, its blade catching fire in the light. Efe burst through the crowd, shouting, "Stop! The traitor is Aruosa!"
Guards seized him, but the Oba raised a hand. Efe thrust the sketches forward. "These prove Osaro works for the chief. He wants the guild weakened so his own carvers rise." The crowd murmured; Aruosa's scar flushed purple.
The Oba examined the sketches, then turned to Aruosa. "Explain." The chief's voice was steady. "Lies from a desperate boy." But his eyes flicked to the palace, where smoke suddenly billowed from the queen's quarters. Screams erupted—another warrior, wearing a new mask, had attacked the royal women.
Chaos swallowed the execution ground. Efe slipped free in the confusion and ran toward the palace. He found the warrior thrashing in the courtyard, the mask fused to his face as though grown there. Mama Izu knelt beside him, forcing bitter tea between his teeth. The man convulsed, then went still, the mask cracking like eggshell.
Beneath lay Osaro's laughing face. The banished apprentice had worn his own creation into the palace, a living accusation. Guards dragged him away, but not before he spat at Efe: "You delay the inevitable. The set is almost complete."
The Oba arrived, coral beads clattering. He looked from Osaro to Aruosa, whose scar now seemed a brand of guilt. "Chain them both," he ordered. "The boy has earned his master's freedom." Odion was released, but his eyes held no triumph—only the knowledge that the grove still waited.
That night the city burned its dead. Efe stood with Odion on the palace walls, watching pyres light the horizon. "Osaro was my brother in all but blood," the old man said. "I taught him too well." Efe clutched the cracked mask fragment. "There are more," he whispered.
Odion nodded. "The set of seven. Each drinks a different madness. We have stopped two." He placed a hand on Efe's shoulder. "You must find the rest before the next new moon, or Benin will tear itself apart." The drums beat softer now, a heartbeat uncertain of its next rhythm.
Efe looked toward the river, where mist rose like spirits. Somewhere in the grove, wood was being carved, and the city's fate hung on an apprentice's blade.