Excerpt from Children of Blood and Bone by Tomi Adeyemi, plus links to reviews, author biography & more

The girls nod, but all I can do is stare at the floor. Once again, I've almost ruined everything. Once again, I've let people down.

"Alright," Mama Agba sighs. "That's enough for today. Gather your things. We'll pick up where we left off tomorrow."

The girls file out of the hut, grateful to escape. I try to do the same, but Mama Agba's wrinkled hand grips my shoulder.

"Mama—"

"Silence," she orders. The last of the girls give me sympathetic looks. They rub their behinds, probably calculating how many lashes my own is about to get.

Twenty for ignoring the exercise … fifty for speaking out of turn … a hundred for almost getting us killed …

No. A hundred would be far too generous.

I stifle a sigh and brace myself for the sting. It'll be quick, I coach myself. It'll be over before it—

"Sit, Zélie."

Mama Agba hands me a cup of tea and pours one for herself. The sweet scent wafts into my nose as the cup's warmth heats my hands.

I scrunch my eyebrows. "Did you poison this?"

The corners of Mama Agba's lips twitch, but she hides her amusement behind a stern face. I hide my own with a sip of the tea, savoring the splash of honey on my tongue. I turn the cup in my hands and finger the lavender beads embedded in its rim. Mama had a cup like this—its beads were silver, decorated in honor of Oya, the Goddess of Life and Death.

For a moment the memory distracts me from Mama Agba's disappointment, but as the tea's flavor fades, the sour taste of guilt seeps back in. She shouldn't have to go through this. Not for a divîner like me.

"I'm sorry." I pick at the beads along the cup to avoid looking up. "I know … I know I don't make things easy for you."

Like Yemi, Mama Agba is a kosidán, an Orïshan who doesn't have the potential to do magic. Before the Raid we believed the gods chose who was born a divîner and who wasn't, but now that magic's gone, I don't understand why the distinction matters.

Free of the white hair of divîners, Mama Agba could blend in with the other Orïshans, avoid the guards' torture. If she didn't associate with us, the guards might not bother her at all.

Part of me wishes she would abandon us, spare herself the pain. With her tailoring skills, she could probably become a merchant, get her fair share of coin instead of having them all ripped away.

"You're starting to look more like her, did you know that?" Mama Agba takes a small sip of her tea and smiles. "The resemblance is frightening when you yell. You inherited her rage."

My mouth falls open; Mama Agba doesn't like to talk of those we've lost.

Few of us do.

I hide my surprise with another taste of tea and nod. "I know."

I don't remember when it happened, but the shift in Baba was undeniable. He stopped meeting my eyes, unable to look at me without seeing the face of his murdered wife.

"That's good." Mama Agba's smile falters into a frown. "You were just a child during the Raid. I worried you'd forget."

"I couldn't if I tried." Not when Mama had a face like the sun.

It's that face I try to remember.

Not the corpse with blood trickling down her neck.

"I know you fight for her." Mama Agba runs her hand through my white hair. "But the king is ruthless, Zélie. He would sooner have the entire kingdom slaughtered than tolerate divîner dissent. When your opponent has no honor, you must fight in different ways, smarter ways."

"Does one of those ways include smacking those bastards with my staff?"

Mama Agba chuckles, skin crinkling around her mahogany eyes. "Just promise me you'll be careful. Promise you'll choose the right moment to fight."

Excerpted from Children of Blood and Bone by Tomi Adeyemi. Copyright © 2018 by Tomi Adeyemi. Excerpted by permission of Henry Holt and Company. All rights reserved. No part of this excerpt may be reproduced or reprinted without permission in writing from the publisher.