CHAPTER ONE56Please respect copyright.PENANAPRXkd1rRF1
“Colonial Codes”56Please respect copyright.PENANA4oDz2waf86
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.56Please respect copyright.PENANACHtsctMiuT
He wasn’t alone.56Please respect copyright.PENANAQskFbEKwfq
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.56Please respect copyright.PENANAqwqTI1FMYD
“I’ve found it,” Jabari said quietly, pulling out a single, sealed envelope tied with faded red tape. In ink barely legible, it read:56Please respect copyright.PENANAPEMXsVDWTY
‘Edict 17B – Joint Custody Regulations – Kisumu Educational Districts – Dated: 1925’56Please respect copyright.PENANA9JJ0DDIrnX
Musa looked up. “You sure that’s the one?”56Please respect copyright.PENANANE2KiFjKs5
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.56Please respect copyright.PENANAXolPuukp2m
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.56Please respect copyright.PENANA5rqMK7gCsc
Jabari’s grip on the page tightened. “They didn’t just separate the schools. They erased the idea of unity.”56Please respect copyright.PENANAdurlYMasS7
“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.’”56Please respect copyright.PENANAytCrJLlXNd
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,56Please respect copyright.PENANA5xxY31yveX
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.56Please respect copyright.PENANASz8AYiyA4Z
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.56Please respect copyright.PENANAUteI7g5kpF
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.56Please respect copyright.PENANAHFLURe4IXU
“One... two... three.”56Please respect copyright.PENANA1JhLujz5BF
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.56Please respect copyright.PENANA9eX13GWZXX
Inside was a roll of thick paper bound with twin cords — one red, one blue.56Please respect copyright.PENANAyjcc76pyGi
Jabari unrolled it slowly. His breath caught.56Please respect copyright.PENANASMXnHQHYIo
It was a map.56Please respect copyright.PENANA7aXQZVBTbY
Faint, but clear enough: the outline of the school compound. Except… it was too broad. It stretched beyond the wall. It showed both schools.56Please respect copyright.PENANANp3KAcjzwQ
His pulse quickened.56Please respect copyright.PENANAKQDLwjG1ts
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.56Please respect copyright.PENANA1EF32IDpye
It reemerged somewhere beyond, marked only with a symbol: a water droplet inside a flame. No labels. No words.56Please respect copyright.PENANAPOmhzjMRaM
And then there was the note, in the same hand as before:56Please respect copyright.PENANAeTlXPg8C10
“Built before the split. Sealed after the first betrayal. Still dry. Still waiting.”56Please respect copyright.PENANAD6Tcjec9KS
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.56Please respect copyright.PENANASDkGSgMDFt
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.56Please respect copyright.PENANAtismtOtWes
“Movement,” he whispered. “Not just contact. Exchange.”56Please respect copyright.PENANAWx0p33xLbZ
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.56Please respect copyright.PENANAnRtp3hAgE8
Back in his dorm, Juma was waiting at the window, arms folded.56Please respect copyright.PENANA6ciVYNZZea
“Well?”56Please respect copyright.PENANApSZ9VdqDmn
Jabari answered with a look, and a word neither of them had said aloud in months:56Please respect copyright.PENANAtQSJJD5NKC
“It’s real.”56Please respect copyright.PENANAvtjRUpLuk4
They didn’t speak of it again. Not yet.56Please respect copyright.PENANAKFIv5srpwh
But that night, for the first time in years, Juma dreamt not of climbing over the wall—but of passing through it.
**********56Please respect copyright.PENANALHMqeSJmGJ
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.56Please respect copyright.PENANAANbSn1XY8O
They did not leave names. Only echoes.56Please respect copyright.PENANAgOLMx0QP3E
They did not follow rules. Only shadows.56Please respect copyright.PENANAMfSCx5v97q
They did not ask permission. They moved.56Please respect copyright.PENANAGRY87nEPSS
And on one night, two terms ago, Kim had seen them — though she didn’t yet understand who or what they were.56Please respect copyright.PENANAcQt0xk1gk1
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.56Please respect copyright.PENANAr6sUs1UNUI
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.56Please respect copyright.PENANA5Bqd6qp3eY
And they had.56Please respect copyright.PENANAvJr5REjgPX
To her.56Please respect copyright.PENANAaDpwFqX6Jn
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.56Please respect copyright.PENANAbR2qGAS0Bn
They meet underground, in a forgotten crawlspace beneath the collapsed greenhouse, where mildew clings to concrete and the walls sweat memory.56Please respect copyright.PENANAHdD1rNzfao
Only a few know the way. Fewer still survive it.56Please respect copyright.PENANADMiCJd2A3A
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.56Please respect copyright.PENANAVKFRYpwtVT
They didn’t speak often. Shadow Walkers spoke through action.56Please respect copyright.PENANAuLI2asdorw
When Ayo arrived, breathless and muddy from the drainage slope behind the dorms, he tossed down a folded square of stiff paper.56Please respect copyright.PENANASjsYQdcEMi
A fragment of a science exam from Kisumu Girls. Still warm.56Please respect copyright.PENANAfqYltPylDT
“Direct,” Kwame murmured. “Clean.”56Please respect copyright.PENANAGodfsEue98
Otieno smiled faintly. “The wall’s just paper now.”56Please respect copyright.PENANAQfH07qcedN
“No,” Kwame said. “The wall is a myth.”56Please respect copyright.PENANACqQMIUAN9v
They are not a gang. Not a cult.56Please respect copyright.PENANATbAPKGB56x
Not an extension of the Order.56Please respect copyright.PENANAlWJG3fNe5H
They do not ask for allegiance.56Please respect copyright.PENANA37XjFKuj5G
They require only presence.56Please respect copyright.PENANAeooKnQMIyW
Their only law:56Please respect copyright.PENANAzDRSAI7CfJ
“Never be still.”56Please respect copyright.PENANAVWcwKTK8WC
Shadow Walkers are the quiet between bells. The blur behind hallway reflections.56Please respect copyright.PENANAOyz4Ti9yV1
The glitch in the security feed.56Please respect copyright.PENANAxWp0M87KMp
They are protest and prophecy. They are the sharp breath before the truth drops.56Please respect copyright.PENANAFHUJDGIRuK
No crests. No salutes. Just movement.
**********56Please respect copyright.PENANA9VivFDtBKr
Kim stared at the red paper again, its surface soft but deliberate—cut clean, folded once, nothing else. Just the line:56Please respect copyright.PENANAw31hZirzAC
“Curiosity is no longer a private habit.”56Please respect copyright.PENANApbddjyYsxY
It wasn't a threat. It wasn't a joke.56Please respect copyright.PENANAqFMnk6tkXh
It was a signal. But from who?56Please respect copyright.PENANArqmfDcqM4B
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.56Please respect copyright.PENANAF7weswb5ge
And it meant someone had not just found her test note… but understood it.56Please respect copyright.PENANAD3QhWTejBh
Stone markings. The first thread that never frayed.56Please respect copyright.PENANA2LRirC03yg
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.56Please respect copyright.PENANAICP80r32EW
Not by replying. By returning it—transformed.56Please respect copyright.PENANAM19OoqRgeO
Kim clutched the atlas tighter to her chest.56Please respect copyright.PENANAvLNNqtSkBI
Someone had mapped her thinking.56Please respect copyright.PENANAunCYYSjctb
And not by surveillance. Not by prefect tricks. This wasn’t Mercy. This wasn’t Naomi.56Please respect copyright.PENANAwKzciqSzfg
This was someone else.56Please respect copyright.PENANA2A5corGlaW
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.56Please respect copyright.PENANA6LZ4GbUJD5
Otieno crouched nearby, watching Kwame unfold the latest page torn from Kim’s original decoy.56Please respect copyright.PENANA4pYA6qbmSC
“‘The first thread that never frayed,’” Otieno read aloud, smiling faintly. “She’s poetic.”56Please respect copyright.PENANAo8ZXAhWfh4
“She’s calculated,” Kwame corrected. “She placed this for us.”56Please respect copyright.PENANANnYQuF8oA1
“No. She placed it for herself,” Otieno said. “We just saw it first.”56Please respect copyright.PENANAG3PgEZ70uQ
Kwame folded his hands beneath his chin, eyes distant.56Please respect copyright.PENANAdWpzjhimIH
“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.”56Please respect copyright.PENANAmu50vfLhCL
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.56Please respect copyright.PENANADIuA2Ysv3c
Because fear was best delivered in familiar fonts.56Please respect copyright.PENANAK2RI6RqGhY
“Do you think she’ll trace it back to us?” Otieno asked.56Please respect copyright.PENANAjkl5ocPAuA
Kwame shook his head. “She’s too smart to assume. But just uncertain enough to wonder.”56Please respect copyright.PENANAR1sWdSnPit
He tapped his fingers slowly on his knee.56Please respect copyright.PENANAeKuOkpfmEk
“If she follows the pattern, she’ll leave something else. Soon.”56Please respect copyright.PENANAZzTYhHU99K
Otieno glanced up at the bleachers. “And if she doesn’t?”56Please respect copyright.PENANAN9Tuw8USRo
Kwame’s smile was subtle, grim. “Then she’s not the threat we hoped.”56Please respect copyright.PENANAqFz9si0qXg
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.56Please respect copyright.PENANAz5ArWRZXLS
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.56Please respect copyright.PENANAHFch56j2Yx
“Do you think it’s the Order?” Shiko asked again.56Please respect copyright.PENANAXb0YlSvYL3
Kim shook her head.56Please respect copyright.PENANAhjDLAgfhro
“No,” she murmured. “I think it’s someone else.”56Please respect copyright.PENANA6Qs0sOPSZg
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.56Please respect copyright.PENANAEaG3VqjITz
She’d played these games before.56Please respect copyright.PENANAckklfIC409
And this time, she’d play them first.
*****56Please respect copyright.PENANAg9Ky6qfEiq
Ayo didn’t believe in ghosts.56Please respect copyright.PENANA7KUEddLcvO
But that didn’t mean he didn’t see them.56Please respect copyright.PENANAbEbOIaW3Jr
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.56Please respect copyright.PENANAL7tVJRwSmJ
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.56Please respect copyright.PENANAw6rm7awwoP
Prints. Not shoeprints. Barefoot. Deliberate. Light. Whoever had stepped here had done so with practice.56Please respect copyright.PENANABmz3mySmBn
But what made him freeze wasn’t the shape. It was the color.56Please respect copyright.PENANA6RJDHmlHTb
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.56Please respect copyright.PENANA8ThwVxcN8d
Mercy. Not as a prefect. Not even as a leader. But as something far older.56Please respect copyright.PENANACiBX7iHyE1
Ayo’s breath caught.56Please respect copyright.PENANA3I4TZtHUUo
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.56Please respect copyright.PENANAo5PnwMaiR9
But Kwame had only smiled that small, cold smile he wore when something clicked.56Please respect copyright.PENANA4JmD9DwaIl
“She was one of us. You just didn’t know it yet.”56Please respect copyright.PENANAsoFem8Q9I6
Mercy hadn’t just corrupted the Order.56Please respect copyright.PENANACdtJ4fizMc
She’d outgrown it.56Please respect copyright.PENANAgYypuoAOYs
She’d used it like a shell. A decoy.56Please respect copyright.PENANAglL4yjDlrb
While underneath, in tunnels and side passages, she had trained with the Walkers.56Please respect copyright.PENANAvMQPydY5Sw
Unaligned. Untraceable. Unquestioned. Until she got bored. Until she vanished.56Please respect copyright.PENANAsGiGfxwzEv
And now— She was back.56Please respect copyright.PENANAqBjurV7xWY
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.56Please respect copyright.PENANAwDfB7DIOKI
But Ayo remembered. Mercy’s games hadn’t been about leadership. They’d been about control. And if she was laying ink again…56Please respect copyright.PENANAyNJ59grvJk
She wasn’t just reclaiming a position. She was reactivating a network.
56Please respect copyright.PENANAvgqLYIQfSP
Mercy moved like she never left. She wasn’t hiding — not in the way the Order expected. She was remembering.56Please respect copyright.PENANA4OxLjJela5
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:56Please respect copyright.PENANAYwFiadmUD1
A curved wing. Half-finished. Someone would find it. Eventually. And they would understand: Mercy wasn't returning to power. She was returning home.
*****56Please respect copyright.PENANAscYQqpYUew
The prefects had finished inspection rounds. The paths were swept. The dorms were silent.56Please respect copyright.PENANA0n2UV5h4Ch
But Kim was already up.56Please respect copyright.PENANAaod6WxB9A8
Shiko had left her a note before dawn: “Come alone. Old pump.”56Please respect copyright.PENANAG2YviMGM7G
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.56Please respect copyright.PENANAziHimgAcnS
When she arrived at the overgrown edge of the borehole courtyard, Shiko was already waiting, crouched low behind the wall of banana leaves.56Please respect copyright.PENANAQCBbnsFXjq
Her eyes were locked on the concrete slab where the rusted borehole cage sat unused.56Please respect copyright.PENANAOZlUfJ0jfD
“Look,” Shiko whispered.56Please respect copyright.PENANAs6J0WKLMa8
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.56Please respect copyright.PENANA8iC50T9B74
Not graffiti. Not words. Symbols.56Please respect copyright.PENANAeWBaz2vOwA
Kim knelt beside her, scanning them with an almost instinctive unease. A spiral, a horizontal stroke, a crescent hooked beneath a triangle.56Please respect copyright.PENANA28IjcPMsmI
“This wasn’t here yesterday,” Shiko murmured.56Please respect copyright.PENANARqtbh63gyR
“No wind or rain overnight,” Kim added. “No footprints.”56Please respect copyright.PENANAOitJSy1KIZ
“Not visible ones,” Shiko replied grimly.56Please respect copyright.PENANAC1ZEoan7G2
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.56Please respect copyright.PENANA4WGmDrlaWG
But something in her chest stirred. A memory. Something old.56Please respect copyright.PENANA54IOPV7O7k
Blue ink. Sandstone. A girl with eyes that didn’t blink.
56Please respect copyright.PENANAZIKoMe4AqZ
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.56Please respect copyright.PENANACjkUPi1xzX
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.56Please respect copyright.PENANASJIcV4Kyqn
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.56Please respect copyright.PENANAIbFiYJ2DK3
She knelt, pressed her hand to the cement, and whispered:56Please respect copyright.PENANANMQJFFD41d
“Curiosity wakes the tunnels. Let them crawl back to me.”56Please respect copyright.PENANA8KFu3Glx7S
Then she vanished before the sun cleared the dorm rooftops.56Please respect copyright.PENANAnTxB3uUUmF
“We should tell Naomi,” Shiko said.56Please respect copyright.PENANARFqiy3NOAH
Kim didn’t move. “And say what? That someone wrote ancient wall symbols in ink that shouldn’t exist anymore?”56Please respect copyright.PENANASaonmE56V7
She traced one of the crescents with her finger, careful not to touch the wet center.56Please respect copyright.PENANADwQLy5M1Nw
“I’ve seen this,” she whispered. “Last term. Just not this clear.”56Please respect copyright.PENANADUFJxdCv5c
Shiko looked at her sharply. “Where?”56Please respect copyright.PENANAwfcNy7SCyE
Kim’s eyes lifted toward the wall.56Please respect copyright.PENANA6CpFNwpiob
“On a stone. Right before the night I saw them.”56Please respect copyright.PENANAybWdCofxDW
“The boys?” Shiko asked.56Please respect copyright.PENANAhhh0NZoCXx
Kim nodded.56Please respect copyright.PENANAjZEIEjyRRQ
“And the girls who followed.”56Please respect copyright.PENANAeSHihOIE4r
Shiko’s voice dropped. “You think this is them?”56Please respect copyright.PENANAgm10ZAbpnO
“I think this is her.”56Please respect copyright.PENANAIG0HAbngeU
They didn’t say her name.56Please respect copyright.PENANAjvSPsko3ax
But in the silence that followed, the ink on the stone dried like breath held too long.56Please respect copyright.PENANAlegsJpXTcH
56Please respect copyright.PENANAumoVFLSB6l