Three days of mourning passed before the Oba summoned Efe to the queen's private garden. Queen Idia waited beneath a frangipani tree, her face unveiled, eyes sharp as obsidian. "My son wears a mask when he sleeps," she said without greeting. "Not of wood, but of dreams. He wakes speaking of rivers of blood."
She led Efe to the prince's chamber, where a boy of ten lay sweating on silk. Around his neck hung a pendant carved from ivory—Osaro's work. Efe's stomach twisted. "This is the third," he said. The queen's hands trembled. "Remove it, or I will cut it from his throat."
Efe worked through the night, painting protective sigils with Mama Izu's ash. At dawn the pendant cracked, revealing a hollow filled with dried blood and a single white cowrie. The prince woke screaming, but alive. Queen Idia pressed a bronze ring into Efe's hand. "Find the others. My husband's pride blinds him, but a mother sees."
Efe returned to the workshop, now guarded day and night. Odion was carving again, but his masks were small, meant to heal. "The guild is fractured," he said. "Some believe Osaro, some Aruosa, some fear us both." He showed Efe a map etched on palm leaf—the locations of the remaining masks, divined from Osaro's sketches.
One mark lay in the palace itself, hidden in the ancestral shrine. Efe's heart sank. To enter the shrine uninvited was death. But the prince's screams still echoed in his ears. That night he climbed the palace wall with a rope of woven grass, the bronze ring glinting on his finger.
The shrine smelled of dust and old blood. Ancestor masks lined the walls, their eyes following Efe as he searched. Beneath the altar he found a loose brick. Behind it: a mask of pure gold, its surface crawling with carved serpents. When he touched it, visions flooded his mind—warriors slaughtering their own families, the Oba crowned in bones.
Efe fled with the mask wrapped in his tunic, but guards spotted him. He ran through corridors lit by flickering lamps, the gold burning against his skin. At the garden wall he met Queen Idia, waiting with a dagger. "Give it to me," she whispered. "I will say I found it."
He hesitated, then handed it over. Her eyes softened. "You are braver than my husband's generals." She pressed a kiss to his forehead, tasting of salt and fear. As Efe climbed down, he heard her scream—the mask had spoken to her too, promising power if she killed the Oba.
The city woke to find the queen locked in her chambers, the golden mask melted into slag. Four remained.