Gold spread beneath Kẹ́hìndé's fingertip.
He pulled his hand away, but the lines kept moving. They slipped across the false registration form like roots beneath thin soil until the upper sheet buckled. Beneath it lay the old writ, its writing emerging from the pale surface as though it had been waiting there all along.
KẸ́HÌNDÉ ADÉYẸMÍ.
Omotoyosi read the name twice. The second reading made it no less impossible.
Kẹ́hìndé.
Not Tàíwò.
A different placement of the mark on his cheek. A manner far too easy for the distant young man she'd studied on Tavern. She had noticed the discrepancies and dismissed them because the face looked right and the opportunity seemed too good to lose.
There were two princes with that face.
She had bound the wrong one.
“What,” he asked pleasantly, “have I just touched?”
Omotoyosi looked up. He was still watching the gold, more curious than alarmed. That would change in a moment.
“Your Highness, could we step somewhere private?”
“After you tell me what it is.”
Beyond the awning, two young swordsmen were finishing a demonstration. Spectators applauded, an argument broke out over a disputed point, and the entire Festival continued without the smallest concern for Omotoyosi's suddenly endangered future.
“It is a service writ,” she said.
“Is that the Festival's term for a registration form?”
“No.”
“Then I suspect we have a problem.”
He shifted the covering sheet aside. The old inscription brightened.
GOLDEN BAOBAB GUILD.
Kẹ́hìndé turned the document a little. “That is a Guild.”
“Yes.”
“Am I expected to congratulate you?”
Omotoyosi swallowed. “The writ registers whoever activates it as a full member of the named Guild.”
He looked at her.
“For three months,” she added.
“An odd sort of application. I don't remember applying.”
“You didn't.”
“Can I decline?”
“Not after activation.”
His easy expression disappeared. “And how exactly does a piece of paper decide what I have consented to?”
“It doesn't ask. That is why the old writs were forbidden.”
“You knew that when you brought it here.”
“Yes.”
“Who authorised you?”
“No one.”
For a long moment he studied her. He did not raise his voice; the care with which he spoke was worse than shouting.
“I see. You've given me three months of Guild membership without asking, and you are not even entitled to offer it.”
“Is there a better way?”
“No, Your Highness.”
Omotoyosi wished the swordsmen would stop shouting. She wished the official she'd impersonated would materialise and arrest her, simply to end the suspense. Most of all she wished she had never looked at that saved Tavern image.
“I can explain,” she said.
“You will.”
He moved the covering sheet to the edge of the table and waited.
She began with the borrowed Festival clothing and the false request that had sent Bámidélé to the eastern desk. The account sounded appalling when spoken aloud. A real office, a genuine messenger, and a discrepancy invented solely to remove the one person likely to interfere.
“You arranged all that because I was standing beside my attendant?” Kẹ́hìndé asked.
“Yes.”
“You could have approached us both.”
“I could have.”
“Then why didn't you?”
“I thought he would stop me.”
“He would have been right.”
Omotoyosi had no answer.
Kẹ́hìndé examined the edge of the binding. “What happens when the three months end?”
“The registration expires.”
“And before then?”
“You are a member. The Guild can recognise you as one, but it cannot force you to like the arrangement. The writ doesn't command your mind.”
“How considerate of it.”
“I didn't mean—”
“I know what you meant.” He laid the document flat. “Can you undo it?”
“No. Not by myself. The Guild can investigate the misconduct and have the relic examined, but I can't promise the magical term can be shortened.”
“So the person who did this is also the person least able to repair it.”
When she remained silent, he let out a slow breath. A faint edge of light gathered around his hand, then faded as he closed his fingers. The movement reminded her that he was a practitioner, a prince and an exceptionally poor choice of person to deceive.
“Your name,” he said.
“Omotoyosi.”
“Your full name and Guild appointment. Someone in authority who can answer for you.”
She supplied them, resisting the urge to improve the story with any further omissions.
“Now,” he said, “who did you think I was?”
Her stomach contracted.
He had noticed.
The golden lettering still lay between them. She looked from his name to the royal mark on his cheek, wishing she could go back to the puzzle stall and ask a single sensible question.
“Your Highness—”
“Tàíwò?”
“Yes.”
“My brother.”
“Yes.”
“My twin brother.”
“I didn't know there were two of you.”
“Not when you put it like that.”
“How else would you put it?”
“Very badly, apparently.”
His gaze remained fixed on her. She abandoned the attempt at humour.
“The photograph showed his mark from a different angle,” she said. “And everything I heard said he was reserved. You weren't reserved at all. I told myself reports could be wrong.”
“They often are.”
“I should have listened to the doubts.”
“Yes. You should.”
He looked towards the Festival crowd. Omotoyosi recognised the moment he remembered the conversation by the wooden puzzle, because the anger in his face changed into something that made her feel smaller.
“Were you enjoying yourself this morning?” he asked.
“Of course.”
“Or were you only enjoying the prospect of delivering Tàíwò to your Guild?”
“I enjoyed talking to you.”
“Then I wish you'd left it at that.”
She had no defence worth making. The exchange had been enjoyable. The puzzle had defeated her before she found the trick, and he had made her laugh without seeming to care that she was a stranger. She had liked the person she'd met, then decided his wishes mattered less than his name.
Kẹ́hìndé rubbed his thumb against the place where the writ had caught it.
“Why my brother?” he asked.
“Golden Baobab has been overlooked for years. Our members still do difficult work, but people remember the famous names in other Guilds. I thought someone with Tàíwò's reputation might make them look again.”
“And you knew him well enough to judge?”
“No.”
“Do you even know his rank?”
“Only rumours.”
“Then you weren't recruiting a person. You were recruiting a story about him.”
Omotoyosi looked away. She'd spent weeks imagining the triumph of returning with the empire's prodigy. The idea had been so bright that she had ceased to consider whether the real young man would want any part of it.
“You're right,” she said.
“There's a novelty.”
He gave the document another careful look, as if a closer examination might reveal some harmless clause everybody had overlooked.
“So you need attention,” he said at last. “That explains why you came for Tàíwò. It does not explain what Golden Baobab could offer either of us.”
“We have experienced hunters, independent commissions—”
“Stop.” He raised a hand. “Before you list training facilities, I ought to mention that I live in an imperial palace.”
Omotoyosi pressed her lips together.
“I suspected that much.”
“Then offer me something that isn't a smaller copy of what I already have.”
She thought of a dozen rehearsed benefits and found none of them suitable. His suggestion was reasonable, which made the whole afternoon worse: she might have recruited him honestly if she had bothered to learn what he wanted.
“I might be able to,” she said.
“Then I shall hear it somewhere quieter.”
“Your attendant will return.”
“He will. And you are going to have to look him in the face when he does.” Kẹ́hìndé folded the covering sheet around the writ, careful not to touch the marked centre. “For now, come with me.”
He moved towards the narrow garden passage behind the courtyard. Omotoyosi hurried after him, already wondering whether she could find any words that would make the next conversation less disastrous than the first.