The walk back from the junction was a blur. The "Void-Seeker's" threat echoed in Amina's ears, louder than the honking of the okadas or the splash of tires in the mud.
Three days.
They entered the apartment, and the moment Tunde punched the twenty-digit code into the meter, the lights flickered and hummed to life. The sudden brightness was violent. The messy kitchen, the half-burnt rice, the peeling paint on the walls it all looked so small and pathetic compared to the marble halls of the Aether.
"Finally," Tunde muttered, tossing the recharge slip on the table. "I'm going to shower. Don't wake me up unless the house is on fire."
Amina watched him walk away. But the house IS on fire, she thought. The whole city is.
She sat at the small kitchen table, her legs feeling like lead. She pulled the jasmine petal from her dress. It was no longer white; it had turned a dark, bruised purple, and the heat coming from it was almost unbearable.
"You're not just a flower, are you?" she whispered.
As if answering her, the purple petal began to vibrate. It bled a drop of glowing ink onto the wooden table, and for a second, the wood grain shifted. The scratches on the table rearranged themselves into a symbol a circle with a jagged line running through it.
The Alchemy circle for "Separation."
"He told me to break the bond," she realized. If she broke the bond, the Void-Seeker would leave her alone. She could go back to being just Amina from Mowe. She could go back to worrying about rice and light bills. She wouldn't have to see silver-eyed monsters at the suya spot.
But then she remembered the way the Alchemist-Tunde had looked at her.
She stood up and walked to the bedroom door. The shower was running. Through the frosted glass of the bathroom, she saw the silhouette of her husband.
She stepped inside the bathroom. The air was thick with steam.
"Amina? What is it now?" Tunde's voice came from behind the curtain, annoyed and muffled.
She didn't speak. She reached out and pulled the curtain back.
"Hey! What are you "
Amina didn't look at his face. She looked at his chest. Right over his heart, where the "Soul-Core" should be. In the dim light of the bathroom, she saw it a faint, rhythmic pulsing of silver light just beneath his skin. It was weak, suffocating under the weight of his stress and his "Null" life, but it was there.
"Tunde, you have to remember," she said, her voice cracking.
"Remember what? Amina, get out, you're letting the cold air in!"
She stepped into the shower with him, clothes and all. The water drenched her silk-blend dress instantly.
"Amina, have you gone mad?" Tunde grabbed her shoulders, trying to push her back, but she lunged forward and pressed her forehead against his.
"Remember the Aether! Remember the silver basin! Remember who you are!"
She squeezed her eyes shut and willed every ounce of the heat from the jasmine petal into him.
For a heartbeat, the Mowe bathroom vanished. The sound of the running tap turned into the roar of a waterfall. The plastic shower curtain felt like heavy tapestry.
Tunde's body went rigid. His hands, which had been pushing her away, suddenly gripped her waist with a strength that wasn't human.
"Amina?" he gasped. But it wasn't the Mowe Tunde's voice. It was deeper. It was the King. "Is that... is that you?"
Then, just as quickly as it came, the connection snapped.
The water turned cold. Tunde stumbled back against the tiles, gasping for air, his eyes wide and bloodshot. He looked at Amina like she was a stranger who had just tried to drown him.
"What did you do to me?" he hissed, his voice trembling. "My head... it feels like it's splitting open."
Amina stood there, soaked and shivering. She had reached him, but only for a second. And she knew, with a terrifying certainty, that the Void-Seeker had felt it too.
She had just signaled their location to the hunters.