Lagos doesn't sleep. It just blinks.
That's what I told the kids on my first day teaching. They were all sitting in the old community center we turned into a school, thirty of them, ages 8 to 16, all with that look in their eyes. The look that said they'd been in a pod, or they'd lost someone to one, or they'd learned early that lightning means the sky is angry and you should hide. I stood in front of them with no mask, no lightning, no storm behind me. Just a chalkboard and a broomstick I used as a pointer. "Lagos doesn't sleep," I said. "It blinks. And when it blinks, that's when we learn. That's when we build.
That's when we remember each other." They didn't believe me at first. Why would they? The last person who told them about power told them to burn the world with it. But Dele was right. You can't electrocute people into learning. So I taught them slowly. How to ground a current. How to read the weather. How to make light without making fire. And slowly, they started to believe me.
For eleven months it worked. The center had a garden. We had lights that didn't flicker. Kids who used to flinch at thunder started standing in the rain on purpose. We called it the Stormlight School. Corny name, but the kids picked it. I let them.
Then the forgetting started.
It didn't start big. It never does. First it was Musa and Tobi. Best friends since they were 5. They'd built a fort together out of scrap metal and old billboards. On a Thursday, Musa came to class and sat in a different seat. When Tobi asked him why, Musa frowned and said, "Do I know you?" Not mean. Not cruel.
Just blank. Like the road between them had been washed away. Tobi laughed at first. Thought it was a joke. By Friday he wasn't laughing. By Monday, three more kids couldn't remember their siblings. By Wednesday, a girl asked her own mother who she was.
I told myself it was stress. Told myself it was the city. Lagos does that to people. But I'm a god of lightning. I can feel when a circuit breaks. And this felt like circuits breaking inside people.
That's when Juma called.
He didn't say much. Just "Sango. Come home. The shards are cracking." I was there in 20 minutes. Not because of the lightning. Because of the fear. Because if the shards were cracking, then whatever we did to the Court wasn't finished. When I got back and saw Sango Jr's shard split down the middle with that black line and sand coming out, I understood something I didn't want to. The war didn't end. It just changed battlefields.
I went back to Lagos that night. Didn't tell the others yet. Told Dele I'd be back in the morning. Told myself I could handle one school. One city. One problem.
I was wrong.
By the time I got back to the Stormlight School at dawn, it was worse. The garden was still there, but the kids weren't tending it. They were sitting in separate corners.
Not fighting. Not even talking. Just... alone. Together, but alone. My assistant teacher, Aunty Ngozi, met me at the gate. She's 60, survived two wars, and she was crying. "They don't remember each other, Sango," she said. "They remember their names. They remember math. They remember how to eat. But they don't remember _us_. It's like someone took an eraser to the parts that matter."
I walked through the classrooms. Room 1: 12 kids, 12 separate desks, nobody making eye contact. Room 2: A boy staring at a drawing of two stick figures holding hands. He'd drawn it yesterday. Today he was trying to scrub it off. "Why did I draw this?" he kept asking. "Who is this?" Room 3: Empty. Because the teacher didn't come in. Because she didn't remember she had a job.
And then I saw it. In the corner of the yard, where we kept the old solar panels. Sand.
Not Lagos sand. Not beach sand. This was white. Dry. Cold. The same sand Juma described. It was in a perfect circle, maybe 2 meters wide, and in the middle of it were footprints. Small ones. Going in a straight line, from the circle to the school door, and then stopping. Like whoever made them just... stepped out of the sand and into our world.
My lightning reacted before I did. It crawled up my arms without me calling it. Not an attack. A warning. The air tasted like ozone and old dust. I knelt and touched the sand. It burned. Desert cold. The kind that tells your nerves you're dying even when you're not. And underneath the sand, pressed into the concrete, was a mark. Three lines. Like a mask. Like the ones the Court used to wear.
The Court was dead. Kunle broke the Spear. We closed the Gate. Old Taju walked into the desert.
So who was leaving footprints in my school?
I stayed there until sunset. Watching. Waiting. The kids went home, or to wherever "home" was now that they didn't remember it. Aunty Ngozi stayed too. She didn't say anything. She just sat with me. That's the thing about people who've survived things. They know when to be quiet.
At 3:17 AM, the sand moved.
I wasn't sleeping. Gods don't need sleep like that, not when something is wrong. The grains shifted, like wind was blowing through them, but there was no wind. And then, from the center of the circle, the air tore. Just a little. A crack, same as in the Hall. And through it I saw the white desert again. Endless dunes. White sun. And walking away from me, away from Lagos, were the footprints. Dozens now. All sizes. All walking in the same direction.
And at the edge of the crack, a hand.
Pale. Burned. Palm up. Three lines on it.
It didn't reach for me. It didn't threaten me. It just... waited. Like it was offering me something. Or daring me to take it.
I almost did. Almost reached back with lightning. Almost stepped through. Because part of me, the part that's still 14 and angry and wants to hit something until it stops hurting people, wanted to know who was doing this to my kids.
But then I heard it. Behind me. A small voice.
"Teacher Sango?"
It was Musa. He was standing in the doorway of the school in pajamas, barefoot. He wasn't supposed to be here. None of them were. "What are you doing out here?" I asked, keeping my voice soft. Trying not to let the lightning show.
He looked at the sand. Looked at the crack. Looked at me. And for a second, just a second, his eyes cleared. Like the fog lifted. "I had a dream," he said. "About Tobi. We were building a fort. And then the sand came and washed it away. And I forgot why we were building it." He paused. "Did we build a fort, Teacher?"
I felt something break in my chest. Not my heart. Something deeper. The part that decided to come to Lagos instead of staying to be a god.
"Yeah, Musa," I said. "We built a fort. It was the best one in Lagos."
He nodded, like that made sense, and then the clarity left his eyes. "Oh," he said. "Okay." And he went back inside.
The crack closed. The hand was gone. The sand stopped moving.
I sat there until the sun came up. And when it did, I made a decision.
I'm not a god of lightning anymore. Not just that. I'm a god of connection. Of the spark that jumps between two people and makes them remember they're not alone. And someone was cutting those sparks. One by one.
I called Dele first. "The power grid is fine," he said before I could ask. "But the people aren't. I've been tracking it. 14 schools in Lagos. Same thing. Kids forgetting. Adults forgetting. It's spreading."
Then I called Tsehay. "The desert," she said. "I'm already here. There's a city in the sand. Or what used to be a city. It's not on any map. And there are people there. People with three-line marks."
Then I called Juma. "It's spreading," I told him. "It's in Lagos. It's in the kids."
There was a long pause. Then Juma said, "Come home, Sango. All of you. We have to go through."
"Through where?"
"Through the crack. Into the white desert. That's where the roads are going. That's where whoever is doing this is."
I looked at the school. At the empty yard. At the sand that was already starting to fade in the morning light, like it was never there.
"Give me one day," I said. "I need to tell the kids something. Even if they won't remember it tomorrow."
Juma didn't argue. "One day," he said. "Then we go."
I hung up and walked into the school. All thirty kids were there. Sitting at their separate desks. Not talking. I stood in front of them and I didn't use lightning. I didn't use my voice as a god. I used it as a teacher.
"Today," I said, "we're not doing math. We're not doing science. Today we're going to remember."
"Remember what?" one of them asked. A girl. I didn't know her name. That hurt.
"Each other," I said. "I'm going to tell you a story. And even if you forget it tomorrow, I need you to hear it today."
So I told them about the war. About the Court. About the 12. About how we were all broken and we chose to be better. I told them about Musa and Tobi's fort. About Aunty Ngozi's jollof. About how Lagos blinks. I told them until my voice was hoarse and the sun was high and some of them were crying and some of them were just staring.
When I finished, Musa raised his hand. "Teacher?"
"Yes?"
"Are you going somewhere?"
"Yes," I said. "To fix what's breaking the roads."
"Will you come back?"
I looked at all of them. At the empty spaces between them where friendship used to be. "I'll try," I said. "But if I don't, you remember this: Lightning doesn't have to burn. It can light the way. And you are the light now."
I left before they could answer. Because if I stayed, I'd start hoping they'd remember. And hope is a kind of road too.
Outside, Dele was waiting on a bike. "Ready?" he asked.
I looked at the sky. No Gate. No ships. Just blue.
"Yeah," I said. "Let's go cut something back."
We rode toward the Tome Toward the crack. Toward the white desert.
Behind us, Lagos kept blinking.