The ride to Ikeja was silent, save for the hum of the Corolla's engine and the constant click-click of Okoro's tracking device. They didn't take the expressway; they wound through the backstreets of Agege and Akowonjo, avoiding the major police checkpoints. It seemed the Bureau didn't like being seen by the "regular" authorities.
Tunde stared out the window, his hand still gripped tightly in Amina's. He looked like a man who had seen the sky fall and was waiting for the ground to disappear next.
"We're here," Okoro said, pulling up to a nondescript, high-walled compound in a quiet part of Ikeja GRA. The gate was rusted, topped with jagged shards of glass typical for a Lagos mansion but when Okoro flashed his lights, a hidden thermal scanner behind a loose brick whirred into life.
The gate swung open. Inside wasn't a garden, but a courtyard filled with satellite dishes and heavy-duty generators that didn't make a sound.
"Welcome to 'The Forge,'" Okoro said, stepping out.
Inside the house, the air changed. It was cold, smelling of ozone and old books. The parlor was vast, but instead of sofas and TVs, it was filled with monitors, maps of Lagos marked with glowing pins, and strange glass tubes filled with swirling colored mists.
"Okoro, you're late," a woman's voice rang out.
She stepped out from a side room. She was middle-aged, wearing a simple Ankara wrap, but her neck was adorned with heavy bronze collars that glowed with a faint orange light. She was holding a tablet in one hand and a traditional iron staff in the other.
"The Void-Seekers were faster than the report said, Mama B," Okoro replied, gesturing toward Amina. "This is the one. A High Alchemist. She's already leaking Aether."
Mama B walked up to Amina. She didn't look at her face; she looked at the space six inches above Amina's head. "Leaking? She's a walking fountain. Child, how have you stayed hidden in Mowe for ten years without blowing up a transformer?"
"I... I didn't know," Amina stammered. "I thought it was just stress. I thought I was losing my mind."
Mama B let out a short, sharp laugh. "That's what the world wants you to think. They want you to think the magic is just 'nerves' so they can keep sucking the soul out of you to power the city."
She turned her gaze to Tunde. Her eyes widened slightly. She reached out with her staff, the tip of the iron hovering inches from his chest. The staff began to vibrate, a low hum that shook the floorboards.
"And here is the Prize," Mama B whispered. "The Star-Core. It's dormant, but it's heavy. No wonder the Seekers are restless."
"Wait," Tunde said, stepping back. "You're all talking like we're objects. My wife is a 'fountain,' I'm a 'battery.' We are people! We have a rent to pay on Monday!"
Mama B looked at him with a mixture of pity and amusement. "Monday is a long time away, young man. In this room, there are three others like your wife. One was a banker in Victoria Island. Another was a street hawker in Oshodi. They all thought they were 'ordinary' until their souls started bleeding into the Aether."
She pointed to the back of the room. Two men and a woman sat around a table. They looked normal one was scrolling on a phone, another was drinking tea but the shadows they cast on the wall weren't human. One shadow had wings; another looked like a towering giant made of smoke.
"You are not alone, Amina," Mama B said, her voice turning soft. "But you are the only one who has physically touched the other side and come back. That makes you the Bridge. And it makes you the only person who can help your husband survive the next forty-eight hours."
"How?" Amina asked.
"You have to complete the Alchemy," Mama B said, her expression turning grave. "You have to take him back to the Aether. Not as a dream, not as a glitch in the shower but fully. If you don't merge your souls there, the Void-Seekers will rip the Core out of him here. And when a Core is ripped out in the physical world... Ikeja disappears. Lagos disappears. Everything within fifty miles becomes a hole in the earth."
Amina looked at Tunde. His face was a mask of terror.