CHAPTER ONE56Please respect copyright.PENANA33Isut7ekQ
“Colonial Codes”56Please respect copyright.PENANA0w1PCO2FQU
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.PENANAndGK4tOi24
He wasn’t alone.56Please respect copyright.PENANA6npRte4x9i
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.PENANAlX5buZYjBU
“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.PENANA658YCn4hJ9
‘Edict 17B – Joint Custody Regulations – Kisumu Educational Districts – Dated: 1925’56Please respect copyright.PENANADzvoOPCDl0
Musa looked up. “You sure that’s the one?”56Please respect copyright.PENANAQhso98q5Ra
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.PENANAEAKkZ53m3O
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.PENANAGwTdZrjx2z
Jabari’s grip on the page tightened. “They didn’t just separate the schools. They erased the idea of unity.”56Please respect copyright.PENANA3MCIhb78SV
“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.PENANABUG4wGE8DG
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.PENANA766Q7uGnTT
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.PENANAcPKjvK928S
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.PENANATfxGXeXg2V
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.PENANAzew5m8cZr8
“One... two... three.”56Please respect copyright.PENANAZci6oabx34
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.PENANAl6IeSEB4G3
Inside was a roll of thick paper bound with twin cords — one red, one blue.56Please respect copyright.PENANAGfuuvo49M4
Jabari unrolled it slowly. His breath caught.56Please respect copyright.PENANAaEriqFm2nI
It was a map.56Please respect copyright.PENANAvuUklQNwFb
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.PENANAokk6p9219D
His pulse quickened.56Please respect copyright.PENANAtq5b5lCMwT
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.PENANAUwqgitzjjf
It reemerged somewhere beyond, marked only with a symbol: a water droplet inside a flame. No labels. No words.56Please respect copyright.PENANA7sg4sfEg4b
And then there was the note, in the same hand as before:56Please respect copyright.PENANAv9ze3xhnFR
“Built before the split. Sealed after the first betrayal. Still dry. Still waiting.”56Please respect copyright.PENANAolLqEuXCI1
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.PENANAlDFuFwELmS
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.PENANA7Z5gbCRKL7
“Movement,” he whispered. “Not just contact. Exchange.”56Please respect copyright.PENANAPbDUUCqTQx
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.PENANAGXEFWzBi9M
Back in his dorm, Juma was waiting at the window, arms folded.56Please respect copyright.PENANAWTbqJ3jZiy
“Well?”56Please respect copyright.PENANASkMVNVe7Yv
Jabari answered with a look, and a word neither of them had said aloud in months:56Please respect copyright.PENANAQf04tCOYuZ
“It’s real.”56Please respect copyright.PENANAbto2Wmar2e
They didn’t speak of it again. Not yet.56Please respect copyright.PENANACroWzqIMXT
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.PENANAZFVTjujel3
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.PENANAeMPG8mG7n3
They did not leave names. Only echoes.56Please respect copyright.PENANAjf1x4QQCsX
They did not follow rules. Only shadows.56Please respect copyright.PENANAeBIeWyy4NA
They did not ask permission. They moved.56Please respect copyright.PENANA1jQuGMboF0
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.PENANA6C4gNQjpJ1
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.PENANAT7oUMJzdlz
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.PENANARd7aPddGkI
And they had.56Please respect copyright.PENANAR8FcEdbliC
To her.56Please respect copyright.PENANAUZlkyxKvNU
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.PENANAPFwecyNx1q
They meet underground, in a forgotten crawlspace beneath the collapsed greenhouse, where mildew clings to concrete and the walls sweat memory.56Please respect copyright.PENANAAfx8dwbSoG
Only a few know the way. Fewer still survive it.56Please respect copyright.PENANAdzPKQI9J7L
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.PENANAYjsXUK8R1B
They didn’t speak often. Shadow Walkers spoke through action.56Please respect copyright.PENANAvTdE0z46oQ
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.PENANA1EMYGJEYts
A fragment of a science exam from Kisumu Girls. Still warm.56Please respect copyright.PENANAJAvNBbpfK2
“Direct,” Kwame murmured. “Clean.”56Please respect copyright.PENANA9yjqAOJQbd
Otieno smiled faintly. “The wall’s just paper now.”56Please respect copyright.PENANAAXXe4xwhfu
“No,” Kwame said. “The wall is a myth.”56Please respect copyright.PENANA6ppXffLZSp
They are not a gang. Not a cult.56Please respect copyright.PENANANcLT2jegWY
Not an extension of the Order.56Please respect copyright.PENANALkzzogkjRT
They do not ask for allegiance.56Please respect copyright.PENANAHt63tpvf2f
They require only presence.56Please respect copyright.PENANAWiP2BWoEUE
Their only law:56Please respect copyright.PENANAcPlvBo0Pqm
“Never be still.”56Please respect copyright.PENANAOzH9ZvL56k
Shadow Walkers are the quiet between bells. The blur behind hallway reflections.56Please respect copyright.PENANAXdt8mspICn
The glitch in the security feed.56Please respect copyright.PENANAq3TgWapIUv
They are protest and prophecy. They are the sharp breath before the truth drops.56Please respect copyright.PENANABtDMEKcmxN
No crests. No salutes. Just movement.
**********56Please respect copyright.PENANAVnVHckpD18
Kim stared at the red paper again, its surface soft but deliberate—cut clean, folded once, nothing else. Just the line:56Please respect copyright.PENANAP0cuAfuCDv
“Curiosity is no longer a private habit.”56Please respect copyright.PENANA2fir4bAqwx
It wasn't a threat. It wasn't a joke.56Please respect copyright.PENANA5jT1N3cjD6
It was a signal. But from who?56Please respect copyright.PENANAlYbLUqrxlz
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.PENANAZsF3QGABI8
And it meant someone had not just found her test note… but understood it.56Please respect copyright.PENANALbLQOAwL8g
Stone markings. The first thread that never frayed.56Please respect copyright.PENANAJpfrlTj6C6
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.PENANAGO1iynRQwN
Not by replying. By returning it—transformed.56Please respect copyright.PENANAv3YbUigATx
Kim clutched the atlas tighter to her chest.56Please respect copyright.PENANA8lNIPLuDgu
Someone had mapped her thinking.56Please respect copyright.PENANAQVK81GKqI5
And not by surveillance. Not by prefect tricks. This wasn’t Mercy. This wasn’t Naomi.56Please respect copyright.PENANA6RPJaMFWl9
This was someone else.56Please respect copyright.PENANAoBah2Ywz1p
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.PENANAJflXCTjjRM
Otieno crouched nearby, watching Kwame unfold the latest page torn from Kim’s original decoy.56Please respect copyright.PENANAUPNf05LSrI
“‘The first thread that never frayed,’” Otieno read aloud, smiling faintly. “She’s poetic.”56Please respect copyright.PENANA4Pocx3KtaD
“She’s calculated,” Kwame corrected. “She placed this for us.”56Please respect copyright.PENANAOdYtu1nx71
“No. She placed it for herself,” Otieno said. “We just saw it first.”56Please respect copyright.PENANAljEugzNupY
Kwame folded his hands beneath his chin, eyes distant.56Please respect copyright.PENANAQHgJk3IhI4
“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.PENANAUySImWK9FM
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.PENANAuUajNtsdkS
Because fear was best delivered in familiar fonts.56Please respect copyright.PENANAkiVPTuX61g
“Do you think she’ll trace it back to us?” Otieno asked.56Please respect copyright.PENANAd4OB1h4CSk
Kwame shook his head. “She’s too smart to assume. But just uncertain enough to wonder.”56Please respect copyright.PENANAn8benBgsrb
He tapped his fingers slowly on his knee.56Please respect copyright.PENANAqAvuQKUR3k
“If she follows the pattern, she’ll leave something else. Soon.”56Please respect copyright.PENANAaU6mNpPI6y
Otieno glanced up at the bleachers. “And if she doesn’t?”56Please respect copyright.PENANAKgCyQUsGwU
Kwame’s smile was subtle, grim. “Then she’s not the threat we hoped.”56Please respect copyright.PENANApt9oGV15Bz
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.PENANA1zxxA7dtCe
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.PENANAu4RLoI3xo2
“Do you think it’s the Order?” Shiko asked again.56Please respect copyright.PENANAcDj7VYmKT4
Kim shook her head.56Please respect copyright.PENANAtQg1Uw4Stt
“No,” she murmured. “I think it’s someone else.”56Please respect copyright.PENANAHDUnHaZd8u
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.PENANA07XdyDbT38
She’d played these games before.56Please respect copyright.PENANAkHeXlDxGRz
And this time, she’d play them first.
*****56Please respect copyright.PENANAhqViLboFPo
Ayo didn’t believe in ghosts.56Please respect copyright.PENANAjzpLlkYtYC
But that didn’t mean he didn’t see them.56Please respect copyright.PENANAc3CeOatKhX
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.PENANAPI3wM6XyFF
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.PENANAXfLzPsRhLi
Prints. Not shoeprints. Barefoot. Deliberate. Light. Whoever had stepped here had done so with practice.56Please respect copyright.PENANAIrDt6jXjW0
But what made him freeze wasn’t the shape. It was the color.56Please respect copyright.PENANAGzLiJ2Jn0J
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.PENANA88AvIxgMBq
Mercy. Not as a prefect. Not even as a leader. But as something far older.56Please respect copyright.PENANA07p3ipljlZ
Ayo’s breath caught.56Please respect copyright.PENANAsHRcgueLL3
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.PENANAFA4TOxRE7z
But Kwame had only smiled that small, cold smile he wore when something clicked.56Please respect copyright.PENANA1E53VDSoEc
“She was one of us. You just didn’t know it yet.”56Please respect copyright.PENANAbV9fv4gtgs
Mercy hadn’t just corrupted the Order.56Please respect copyright.PENANA4Nm7p8ZycA
She’d outgrown it.56Please respect copyright.PENANAHHH1FRIbip
She’d used it like a shell. A decoy.56Please respect copyright.PENANArk5AU1Wi1N
While underneath, in tunnels and side passages, she had trained with the Walkers.56Please respect copyright.PENANAdWEvBmiupv
Unaligned. Untraceable. Unquestioned. Until she got bored. Until she vanished.56Please respect copyright.PENANAhlB4njZSfR
And now— She was back.56Please respect copyright.PENANAR8qyV5OqID
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.PENANAe2XvUwB1cQ
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.PENANAsMBXnnkQFz
She wasn’t just reclaiming a position. She was reactivating a network.
56Please respect copyright.PENANAnHtXvNpFue
Mercy moved like she never left. She wasn’t hiding — not in the way the Order expected. She was remembering.56Please respect copyright.PENANAQqwKlIpI1U
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.PENANAbBTkf7EVDC
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.PENANAfCsiLCbbpc
The prefects had finished inspection rounds. The paths were swept. The dorms were silent.56Please respect copyright.PENANAZgucRsiesN
But Kim was already up.56Please respect copyright.PENANAkCwJsEcWDx
Shiko had left her a note before dawn: “Come alone. Old pump.”56Please respect copyright.PENANArY1gwfMh3B
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.PENANA8lsY7Gq1AI
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.PENANAcrwN9fTiop
Her eyes were locked on the concrete slab where the rusted borehole cage sat unused.56Please respect copyright.PENANAvV6ztxfHKt
“Look,” Shiko whispered.56Please respect copyright.PENANADSoEvsyeME
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.PENANAAFbaVvCS6V
Not graffiti. Not words. Symbols.56Please respect copyright.PENANA3Sco0zZt4i
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.PENANAw8H3857aMu
“This wasn’t here yesterday,” Shiko murmured.56Please respect copyright.PENANAbEJXM2WYr3
“No wind or rain overnight,” Kim added. “No footprints.”56Please respect copyright.PENANARDXXw88crQ
“Not visible ones,” Shiko replied grimly.56Please respect copyright.PENANAw4XGT39kKU
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.PENANAx5QDI8qwpQ
But something in her chest stirred. A memory. Something old.56Please respect copyright.PENANAgsxT6xVIyF
Blue ink. Sandstone. A girl with eyes that didn’t blink.
56Please respect copyright.PENANAy5ZxakPpa2
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.PENANAJcsjSXaJP3
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.PENANAj1MjpuMuyh
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.PENANAP5HA1s521C
She knelt, pressed her hand to the cement, and whispered:56Please respect copyright.PENANAgcSczTTHGY
“Curiosity wakes the tunnels. Let them crawl back to me.”56Please respect copyright.PENANAO1dZgC9okq
Then she vanished before the sun cleared the dorm rooftops.56Please respect copyright.PENANAEfpZiQmplY
“We should tell Naomi,” Shiko said.56Please respect copyright.PENANAi1vyzLiISF
Kim didn’t move. “And say what? That someone wrote ancient wall symbols in ink that shouldn’t exist anymore?”56Please respect copyright.PENANArpVRsWCCmf
She traced one of the crescents with her finger, careful not to touch the wet center.56Please respect copyright.PENANA3GwIRJz92b
“I’ve seen this,” she whispered. “Last term. Just not this clear.”56Please respect copyright.PENANAXlZfNnYFe0
Shiko looked at her sharply. “Where?”56Please respect copyright.PENANAGEpq5toiLX
Kim’s eyes lifted toward the wall.56Please respect copyright.PENANAsXI6STXZ2C
“On a stone. Right before the night I saw them.”56Please respect copyright.PENANANvJTXNsEmX
“The boys?” Shiko asked.56Please respect copyright.PENANACCnW2rPC8O
Kim nodded.56Please respect copyright.PENANANhOM9fCbL0
“And the girls who followed.”56Please respect copyright.PENANAenLiqbH913
Shiko’s voice dropped. “You think this is them?”56Please respect copyright.PENANAdi1CQupXS4
“I think this is her.”56Please respect copyright.PENANAqYlmeQ9A0c
They didn’t say her name.56Please respect copyright.PENANA6DbE8LW3EU
But in the silence that followed, the ink on the stone dried like breath held too long.56Please respect copyright.PENANAwhOiwvTQMr
56Please respect copyright.PENANAi3jJNwzjGE