Chapter 1: Rain on My Head*The sky over Surulere was lying.It was 2 PM, and the heat was unbearable, like Lagos had been locked inside an oven. The weather app said “Sunny.” But my skin felt cold. Goosebumps ran down my arms like ants marching.Rain was coming. In ten minutes.“Are you listening to me?” Mrs. Bello shouted from the front of SS3A. “If you don’t stop passing notes, I’ll flog all of you!”I wasn’t passing notes. I was staring out the window. Dark, heavy clouds were gathering over Yaba. My palms felt wet even though I hadn’t touched water all day.“Distracted again, Ada?” Kazeem whispered from behind me. He always sat behind me. He said it was strategic. I said it was annoying.“Shut up, hacker boy,” I whispered back. “Your laptop is still on 2%.”He grinned. “At least I have a laptop.”The bell rang and class ended. Or so I thought.As we filed out, the first drop hit my nose. Cold. Then another. Then the sky opened like someone had tipped over a bucket.Everyone ran for cover. I didn’t.I stood in the middle of the corridor, letting the rain hit my face. It felt familiar. Like it knew me.“Ada! You’ll catch a cold!” Chika yelled, dragging me under the roof.I pulled away. “Chika, did you feel that?”“Feel what? That I’m about to be late for extra lessons?”She didn’t feel it. The way the rain bent around me like it didn’t want to touch me. The way my headache vanished the moment the water hit my skin.That was new.And it scared me.Back home in Makoko, Aunt Ngozi was waiting with that look. The one she gets when she knows something I don’t.“Sit down,” she said, pouring water into a calabash. “The water is calling you, Ada.”I frowned. “Auntie, it’s just rain.”She pushed the calabash toward me. “Drink it. And tell me what you see.”I didn’t want to. But my hands moved on their own.The moment my lips touched the water, the world turned blue.I saw Lagos. But not the Lagos with traffic and NEPA problems. I saw Lagos with glowing lines running beneath the ground. Like veins. Like blood.And something was trying to cut them.I dropped the calabash. The water spilled, but it didn’t hit the floor right away. It hung in the air for half a second, then fell.Aunt Ngozi nodded. “The Aje are waking up. And so are you.”*[End of Chapter 1]*