CHAPTER ONE55Please respect copyright.PENANAlONMHy0CvG
“Colonial Codes”55Please respect copyright.PENANAmSoWRqZho6
The rain had stopped hours ago, but the scent of damp earth clung to the halls of Kisumu Boys’ like an old hymn. Jabari stood in the archive room of St. Theresa’s Missionary Annex, a dusty brick wing that had once served colonial officers and now housed forgotten files and moth-eaten school trophies. Light filtered through high, grilled windows, illuminating swirls of dust around him like the ghosts of policy-makers past.55Please respect copyright.PENANAYisK82jdU1
He wasn’t alone.55Please respect copyright.PENANAiBXfNgltHw
Musa sat crouched by a dented cabinet drawer marked “Education—Boundary Acts: 1920–1970”, flipping through yellowing folders. The pages crumbled at the edges but still bore the insignia of the British protectorate: a lion crouching beneath a palm tree.55Please respect copyright.PENANAOnKsrLTP7w
“I’ve found it,” Jabari said quietly, pulling out a single, sealed envelope tied with faded red tape. In ink barely legible, it read:55Please respect copyright.PENANAEkcEvlycRU
‘Edict 17B – Joint Custody Regulations – Kisumu Educational Districts – Dated: 1925’55Please respect copyright.PENANAKzV8qgBCLg
Musa looked up. “You sure that’s the one?”55Please respect copyright.PENANADBk16VT5Yg
Jabari didn’t answer immediately. He sliced the seal open with the edge of his prefect’s badge. Inside was a sheet of official parchment and a typewritten letter.55Please respect copyright.PENANAtsXhORDhxZ
By decree of the Provincial Office of the Protectorate, any institution found to be in violation of Gendered Custody or Moral Formation Standards will be segregated and bound by enforcement walls. No intermingling of students is to be permitted except during externally authorized national functions. The boundary shall be physical, symbolic, and cultural.55Please respect copyright.PENANAwJLnOXcDd1
Jabari’s grip on the page tightened. “They didn’t just separate the schools. They erased the idea of unity.”55Please respect copyright.PENANAXGjQtNqvhc
“And enforced silence,” Musa muttered, pulling out a second page. “Listen to this clause: ‘Failure to comply shall result in withdrawal of national funding, erasure from examination boards, and immediate restructuring of administration under colonial discretion.’”55Please respect copyright.PENANAZNGAAjVUsT
It made sense now. Why the two schools had been split. Why the wall had been built. Why even now, decades later, rebellion felt like a sin instead of resistance.
“Under the third stone from the left, by the old bell,55Please respect copyright.PENANA4q55T78mj0
Names are written that never rang.”
That night, long after lights-out, Jabari walked alone beneath the cloisters. He carried no torch — he knew the angles of this place by heart. Juma had offered to join him, but Jabari waved him off. Some discoveries had to be earned in solitude.55Please respect copyright.PENANAOpwjufBwcZ
The old bell tower was half-swallowed by creepers now, its spire cracked near the tip. Few students ever came here. There were no schedules to monitor, no records to file. Only silence, wind, and stone.55Please respect copyright.PENANAKpbYj3CMNl
He stood before the base — a squat square of worn masonry. At the base was a row of foundation stones, uneven and chiseled rough. He counted softly.55Please respect copyright.PENANAS4uKiM0sRw
“One... two... three.”55Please respect copyright.PENANAzwiivIAhcW
The third stone was looser than the others. His fingers, calloused from years of fencing practice, felt for the edge and pried gently. The stone shifted with a reluctant groan, revealing a small cavity beneath.55Please respect copyright.PENANAZoggXp1YkH
Inside was a roll of thick paper bound with twin cords — one red, one blue.55Please respect copyright.PENANAN8kAkDTbgq
Jabari unrolled it slowly. His breath caught.55Please respect copyright.PENANAI4RwRvJbdG
It was a map.55Please respect copyright.PENANAYcA88Fq8yL
Faint, but clear enough: the outline of the school compound. Except… it was too broad. It stretched beyond the wall. It showed both schools.55Please respect copyright.PENANATcyrOUE67V
His pulse quickened.55Please respect copyright.PENANAVuWOSre9IG
Drawn in graphite and ink, careful as a surgical diagram, was a narrow channel. It began beneath the Kisumu Boys borehole, ran beneath the bell tower’s foundation, and continued — dotted like a breath held — under the wall.55Please respect copyright.PENANAR0RlLVP7As
It reemerged somewhere beyond, marked only with a symbol: a water droplet inside a flame. No labels. No words.55Please respect copyright.PENANApr2KBQFlib
And then there was the note, in the same hand as before:55Please respect copyright.PENANAPOmpXSgQNz
“Built before the split. Sealed after the first betrayal. Still dry. Still waiting.”55Please respect copyright.PENANAPs2cL8PTnR
Jabari sat back on his heels, mind racing. This wasn’t part of the Order’s archives. It wasn’t even in the protected cipher vault. Whoever had drawn this had known how to vanish — and how to leave only what mattered.55Please respect copyright.PENANABtNqYe6X2l
He thought of what it would mean for their order — to have a corridor that didn’t just pass messages under the wall, but moved bodies through it.55Please respect copyright.PENANASWERnTHt8B
“Movement,” he whispered. “Not just contact. Exchange.”55Please respect copyright.PENANADDjCMosANg
He rolled the map back tightly, tucked it inside the hollow of his jacket, and replaced the stone as best he could. It no longer sat flush. That would have to do.55Please respect copyright.PENANAMsUr0RiqWT
Back in his dorm, Juma was waiting at the window, arms folded.55Please respect copyright.PENANAqibMLCHisJ
“Well?”55Please respect copyright.PENANApZ5YVqIIuP
Jabari answered with a look, and a word neither of them had said aloud in months:55Please respect copyright.PENANAzTz6wYQi7b
“It’s real.”55Please respect copyright.PENANA8g2brDD0T8
They didn’t speak of it again. Not yet.55Please respect copyright.PENANACRHyGXF0eL
But that night, for the first time in years, Juma dreamt not of climbing over the wall—but of passing through it.
**********55Please respect copyright.PENANAhFfB3Q0GGQ
Long before anyone admitted it — before the Order had its map, before Mercy returned with her black ribbons, before the prefects began whispering about breaches — the Shadow Walkers had already crossed.55Please respect copyright.PENANAuyg0US5Swd
They did not leave names. Only echoes.55Please respect copyright.PENANAwZAZlwMPXA
They did not follow rules. Only shadows.55Please respect copyright.PENANAonklG6auqs
They did not ask permission. They moved.55Please respect copyright.PENANAWUO7sppOY5
And on one night, two terms ago, Kim had seen them — though she didn’t yet understand who or what they were.55Please respect copyright.PENANAT638o0GjZG
She had crouched in the dark near the bougainvillea, and she’d seen the wall bend. Not break. Not fall. Just... give. Slightly. Like a breath held and released.55Please respect copyright.PENANAzpk9S0RQcy
She’d seen them — boys — fleeing across the red-dust path behind the dormitory. Moving like shadows cut loose from curfew. Moving with the urgency of those who had risked everything to deliver a message.55Please respect copyright.PENANAv0PyWumEcL
And they had.55Please respect copyright.PENANAX77rakdZcY
To her.55Please respect copyright.PENANALteFyXHW26
The Shadow Walkers don’t meet in daylight. They don’t record rosters. They don’t kneel to prefects or care for the rituals of the old Orders.55Please respect copyright.PENANA4Zw2DmdLmY
They meet underground, in a forgotten crawlspace beneath the collapsed greenhouse, where mildew clings to concrete and the walls sweat memory.55Please respect copyright.PENANANwfZrhT6Vw
Only a few know the way. Fewer still survive it.55Please respect copyright.PENANAxpS6viJJ9P
Kwame sat cross-legged on the cracked floor, back to the tunnel hatch, fingers brushing the map that had guided them on that first crossing. Otieno leaned beside him, massaging the knee he’d twisted months ago, the limp still aching from that night on the girls’ side.55Please respect copyright.PENANAfpupITYQtT
They didn’t speak often. Shadow Walkers spoke through action.55Please respect copyright.PENANAo4GgugA4AG
When Ayo arrived, breathless and muddy from the drainage slope behind the dorms, he tossed down a folded square of stiff paper.55Please respect copyright.PENANAm5F3tCAucZ
A fragment of a science exam from Kisumu Girls. Still warm.55Please respect copyright.PENANADUHKYx94We
“Direct,” Kwame murmured. “Clean.”55Please respect copyright.PENANANBD0XvQQLa
Otieno smiled faintly. “The wall’s just paper now.”55Please respect copyright.PENANAVz58DTfsFM
“No,” Kwame said. “The wall is a myth.”55Please respect copyright.PENANAGr9MLLp2R9
They are not a gang. Not a cult.55Please respect copyright.PENANAVt7HMGYdWA
Not an extension of the Order.55Please respect copyright.PENANAIWoB0GApWk
They do not ask for allegiance.55Please respect copyright.PENANAdO341EcPYn
They require only presence.55Please respect copyright.PENANAHXNZqJCwlf
Their only law:55Please respect copyright.PENANAxNX8qv6uXU
“Never be still.”55Please respect copyright.PENANALo0IK2sFQE
Shadow Walkers are the quiet between bells. The blur behind hallway reflections.55Please respect copyright.PENANACOuBF1Y0PT
The glitch in the security feed.55Please respect copyright.PENANA3a3IhdRn2I
They are protest and prophecy. They are the sharp breath before the truth drops.55Please respect copyright.PENANAgpRgmP4oZd
No crests. No salutes. Just movement.
**********55Please respect copyright.PENANAnmvyaE0vPE
Kim stared at the red paper again, its surface soft but deliberate—cut clean, folded once, nothing else. Just the line:55Please respect copyright.PENANAQnHxpr9w7t
“Curiosity is no longer a private habit.”55Please respect copyright.PENANAFm7iIKce77
It wasn't a threat. It wasn't a joke.55Please respect copyright.PENANA50ndRleywL
It was a signal. But from who?55Please respect copyright.PENANAeB3XUlL9kW
The Order didn't operate like this. They gave warnings in cold whispers or summoned girls under the guise of “guidance.” This—this was precise. Elegant. A response.55Please respect copyright.PENANAJ19P2selbK
And it meant someone had not just found her test note… but understood it.55Please respect copyright.PENANAuR19XGmvz5
Stone markings. The first thread that never frayed.55Please respect copyright.PENANAqHcL4TBGqP
Kim had written those lines as metaphor. A decoy—just cryptic enough to seem meaningless. But someone had read it like a code. And replied.55Please respect copyright.PENANAA45mxK6b2S
Not by replying. By returning it—transformed.55Please respect copyright.PENANAMii46xl4sU
Kim clutched the atlas tighter to her chest.55Please respect copyright.PENANAqHA4ddXmON
Someone had mapped her thinking.55Please respect copyright.PENANAWiKjscxiMR
And not by surveillance. Not by prefect tricks. This wasn’t Mercy. This wasn’t Naomi.55Please respect copyright.PENANAWM7Y0aRkDi
This was someone else.55Please respect copyright.PENANABEHOUNX6F3
Elsewhere, at the same moment — Kisumu Boys, beneath the bleachers, Kwame watched the rain drip through the iron scaffolding, tapping against the aluminum bleacher seats above like impatient fingers.55Please respect copyright.PENANA69C8ME9liG
Otieno crouched nearby, watching Kwame unfold the latest page torn from Kim’s original decoy.55Please respect copyright.PENANAhYqkCLN2DX
“‘The first thread that never frayed,’” Otieno read aloud, smiling faintly. “She’s poetic.”55Please respect copyright.PENANAt6PtXml426
“She’s calculated,” Kwame corrected. “She placed this for us.”55Please respect copyright.PENANAnyXeEoF4Ku
“No. She placed it for herself,” Otieno said. “We just saw it first.”55Please respect copyright.PENANAmnaoV8h8i1
Kwame folded his hands beneath his chin, eyes distant.55Please respect copyright.PENANAlvdIJjrMbZ
“She wants the truth,” he said finally. “But she wants to control how it arrives. That makes her more dangerous than anyone in the Order.”55Please respect copyright.PENANAeSBMEv9dqS
He pulled a thin strip of crimson paper from his pocket—the one he’d already sent back, tucked into the borrowed atlas. The message, his message, had been written in the penmanship of a prefect.55Please respect copyright.PENANAgCZXMQXVi9
Because fear was best delivered in familiar fonts.55Please respect copyright.PENANAUVf50qz5xI
“Do you think she’ll trace it back to us?” Otieno asked.55Please respect copyright.PENANAiDRP6UQEqt
Kwame shook his head. “She’s too smart to assume. But just uncertain enough to wonder.”55Please respect copyright.PENANAtyZehfk1An
He tapped his fingers slowly on his knee.55Please respect copyright.PENANAuWtORN6vZI
“If she follows the pattern, she’ll leave something else. Soon.”55Please respect copyright.PENANA7obOwFq0xe
Otieno glanced up at the bleachers. “And if she doesn’t?”55Please respect copyright.PENANAQznHp8kBt9
Kwame’s smile was subtle, grim. “Then she’s not the threat we hoped.”55Please respect copyright.PENANAeAaxVCuoAN
Back at Kisumu Girls. Kim walked slowly down the corridor, Shiko at her side, speaking quietly about missing class notes and cryptic schedules. But Kim wasn’t hearing her anymore.55Please respect copyright.PENANAuLJSiAJWPZ
Her eyes drifted to the rain outside. The same rain that fell across the wall. Across the space between schools. Between factions. Between watchers and the watched.55Please respect copyright.PENANAS4uEjtq0nF
“Do you think it’s the Order?” Shiko asked again.55Please respect copyright.PENANAaAIQGD9tko
Kim shook her head.55Please respect copyright.PENANApKv2x3dH3r
“No,” she murmured. “I think it’s someone else.”55Please respect copyright.PENANAbrdzyxn1K3
From behind the hall’s corner, Seline watched them again. Kim. Shiko. Leaning too close. Whispering too easily. And something inside Seline turned—not with fear, but precision.55Please respect copyright.PENANAfCKV85F5Pb
She’d played these games before.55Please respect copyright.PENANAF6eZj2cH7a
And this time, she’d play them first.
*****55Please respect copyright.PENANA3T0JA5wOPt
Ayo didn’t believe in ghosts.55Please respect copyright.PENANAIHHDTOTQfh
But that didn’t mean he didn’t see them.55Please respect copyright.PENANAhd7CJ9mBSX
They appeared in patterns. In broken routines. In marks left behind by people who didn’t want to be seen. And tonight, something was wrong with the air near the borehole — wrong in the way only silence could be when it used to hold secrets.55Please respect copyright.PENANAa4FuRK79GX
He crouched low behind the shrub line, just beyond the outflow grate. The rusted maintenance hatch hadn’t been touched in years — not officially. But Ayo’s fingers brushed over the soft earth near the metal bolts and paused.55Please respect copyright.PENANAXC84bc6Wsq
Prints. Not shoeprints. Barefoot. Deliberate. Light. Whoever had stepped here had done so with practice.55Please respect copyright.PENANAbEeTTX2B9J
But what made him freeze wasn’t the shape. It was the color.55Please respect copyright.PENANADro2u5PEWM
Just beside one of the indentations, smeared into the grainy dust, was a curved smudge of blue ink. The same type of ink the old Order used for encoded warnings. But only one person had ever weaponized it.55Please respect copyright.PENANA7mDrWZ84Mg
Mercy. Not as a prefect. Not even as a leader. But as something far older.55Please respect copyright.PENANAyhma22d6VD
Ayo’s breath caught.55Please respect copyright.PENANAZQQ1RccQzA
Back when he was still new to the Shadow Walkers — still earning trust, still failing small tests — he’d once followed a trail of blue drops from the chapel rafters to the records room. It had led to a pile of books, all hollowed out, each containing forged Order directives. He’d reported it to Kwame, thinking it was an outside saboteur.55Please respect copyright.PENANACTxPNpp4uJ
But Kwame had only smiled that small, cold smile he wore when something clicked.55Please respect copyright.PENANAtJ8xa0M1S2
“She was one of us. You just didn’t know it yet.”55Please respect copyright.PENANAQwkoNA6eQ4
Mercy hadn’t just corrupted the Order.55Please respect copyright.PENANA4XEoQZay5b
She’d outgrown it.55Please respect copyright.PENANAWtonMhvUps
She’d used it like a shell. A decoy.55Please respect copyright.PENANA8jkVAfGroj
While underneath, in tunnels and side passages, she had trained with the Walkers.55Please respect copyright.PENANADyNtecu6v1
Unaligned. Untraceable. Unquestioned. Until she got bored. Until she vanished.55Please respect copyright.PENANAJS1biqTOES
And now— She was back.55Please respect copyright.PENANA6tgo0KbwBz
Ayo stepped back from the ink. His mind raced. The others wouldn’t believe him — not unless he brought proof. Kwame had always kept his assessments of Mercy quiet, never confirming her role. Otieno hated her. Jabari pretended she didn’t exist.55Please respect copyright.PENANAPFSPWTTfap
But Ayo remembered. Mercy’s games hadn’t been about leadership. They’d been about control. And if she was laying ink again…55Please respect copyright.PENANAgiipuU1Roc
She wasn’t just reclaiming a position. She was reactivating a network.
55Please respect copyright.PENANADMD2oN95Np
Mercy moved like she never left. She wasn’t hiding — not in the way the Order expected. She was remembering.55Please respect copyright.PENANA7CSwgaaEly
Remembering how it felt to slip between the bell tower arches undetected, how blue ink bled better on sandstone, how shadows didn’t ask for loyalty — just silence. She knelt by the stones, dipped her finger in the capped vial, and traced the mark again:55Please respect copyright.PENANAe4VfLSkhDW
A curved wing. Half-finished. Someone would find it. Eventually. And they would understand: Mercy wasn't returning to power. She was returning home.
*****55Please respect copyright.PENANAZnKeo9eCH7
The prefects had finished inspection rounds. The paths were swept. The dorms were silent.55Please respect copyright.PENANAglg44AfZxM
But Kim was already up.55Please respect copyright.PENANAe3qu6GyxGh
Shiko had left her a note before dawn: “Come alone. Old pump.”55Please respect copyright.PENANAFgk0Uu7zfG
She pulled on her hoodie, slipped through the science wing’s fire exit, and jogged the narrow path behind the assembly hall. The air smelled of wet leaves and burning trash from the kitchen fires. The light was still violet-blue.55Please respect copyright.PENANAhfwG8bE6of
When she arrived at the overgrown edge of the borehole courtyard, Shiko was already waiting, crouched low behind the wall of banana leaves.55Please respect copyright.PENANAycuQivLCE3
Her eyes were locked on the concrete slab where the rusted borehole cage sat unused.55Please respect copyright.PENANAkmPHxsNd0D
“Look,” Shiko whispered.55Please respect copyright.PENANAd4UUymu84K
Kim followed her gaze — and froze. Drawn in four smooth arcs across the surface of the cement was a series of faint, blue ink symbols. Still wet in places. The lines gleamed like veins.55Please respect copyright.PENANA7PHSRKvk3Z
Not graffiti. Not words. Symbols.55Please respect copyright.PENANAUh6LHQUZ92
Kim knelt beside her, scanning them with an almost instinctive unease. A spiral, a horizontal stroke, a crescent hooked beneath a triangle.55Please respect copyright.PENANAeQoci5saZJ
“This wasn’t here yesterday,” Shiko murmured.55Please respect copyright.PENANAOwE4yxehG0
“No wind or rain overnight,” Kim added. “No footprints.”55Please respect copyright.PENANACYwWClbw5O
“Not visible ones,” Shiko replied grimly.55Please respect copyright.PENANAGpKfzi1vi9
They stared at the ink as it dried. One mark in particular — a shape like an inverted wing — felt familiar. Kim couldn’t place it.55Please respect copyright.PENANA4wDC1DZeDP
But something in her chest stirred. A memory. Something old.55Please respect copyright.PENANALDj2dyz2ae
Blue ink. Sandstone. A girl with eyes that didn’t blink.
55Please respect copyright.PENANAz1O98N8qhX
Mercy had always liked the borehole. It was forgotten, unguarded. The place where so many whispered things had begun when she still a junior in Form One three years ago.55Please respect copyright.PENANAyb3vdIb810
Now she walked its edge again, dipping her fingertip into a tiny jar of indigo ink and tracing her old mark on the slab — slow, deliberate strokes. Each curve a syllable. Each shape a warning.55Please respect copyright.PENANALfN6WRQlDq
She wasn’t returning to the Order. She was reactivating her passage. The Shadow Walkers — on the girls’ side — would recognize the mark. Even if they didn’t know it was hers. Especially if they didn’t.55Please respect copyright.PENANAFxYTGPW3Ab
She knelt, pressed her hand to the cement, and whispered:55Please respect copyright.PENANAekSq92ehzi
“Curiosity wakes the tunnels. Let them crawl back to me.”55Please respect copyright.PENANAc78DqfZ8A5
Then she vanished before the sun cleared the dorm rooftops.55Please respect copyright.PENANAhrjRuRm6Jm
“We should tell Naomi,” Shiko said.55Please respect copyright.PENANAUI2H0cT64U
Kim didn’t move. “And say what? That someone wrote ancient wall symbols in ink that shouldn’t exist anymore?”55Please respect copyright.PENANAAh52MJb9GU
She traced one of the crescents with her finger, careful not to touch the wet center.55Please respect copyright.PENANAan68FjJ9tU
“I’ve seen this,” she whispered. “Last term. Just not this clear.”55Please respect copyright.PENANA0c9RtKNimH
Shiko looked at her sharply. “Where?”55Please respect copyright.PENANAz6HV4uGBSD
Kim’s eyes lifted toward the wall.55Please respect copyright.PENANAyhmuLhp0md
“On a stone. Right before the night I saw them.”55Please respect copyright.PENANARmzGQgtbqS
“The boys?” Shiko asked.55Please respect copyright.PENANAIeuMu5VhbB
Kim nodded.55Please respect copyright.PENANACRQB56c4Iq
“And the girls who followed.”55Please respect copyright.PENANA265XeKF6bN
Shiko’s voice dropped. “You think this is them?”55Please respect copyright.PENANALApVR4iX9I
“I think this is her.”55Please respect copyright.PENANAippIpHZqb8
They didn’t say her name.55Please respect copyright.PENANAilm26kSRLs
But in the silence that followed, the ink on the stone dried like breath held too long.55Please respect copyright.PENANAy1KjY42FsD
55Please respect copyright.PENANAqenqKgWzJs