The interrogation room was a bare room with two chairs. There was a camera set up opposite the chair that Kuwin was asked to sit in.

"Who's that for?" he asked, pointing at the camera.

"We have people following the interview."

Feeling more self-conscious than ever, he adjusted himself in his seat.

"Who?"

"Your family," she said, taking the seat in front of him. "Izeh, Elheji and Usop clan heads. We informed Oseki but we've heard nothing back from them."

He could feel that she wasn't giving him all the information.

"Who else?"

"The Prime Minister," she said with a shrug like she hadn't dropped the heaviest of bombs.

He'd always known his interviews were monitored. By his family. By Clans Authority. But he'd never thought Dr. Marsa Elheji herself would check in to watch him. If he'd been nervous before, it was nothing compared to the jittering of his fingers.

When the door opened, a man walked in, pushing a wooden trolley on four small wheels. It carried a bunch of small calabashes, all with varied colored powders and liquids on each shelf of the trolley.

"Yes," Laura said, getting to her feet. "Thank you," she said to the man as he left, and she took the trolley and pushed it over to where Kuwin was sitting. "This is why I wanted to interview you face-to-face."

"What is this?" he asked as she picked a bowl from the trolley and put it on the highest shelf. "What are you doing?"

She opened one bottle after another, emptying them into the bowl. When he peeked inside, he could see the powders, different colors, and textures falling against each other as they waited for her.

"No one has ever bought the spiel you've been spouting for months," she said, pouring a cup of water into the bowl. "We know you've been lying. But this time, you reached out to us. For whatever reason. The Prime Minister wants results. She wants the truth, this time."

With her hands murky from the mixture she was mixing, she came towards him, holding three small calabashes in her hand.

"Which fragrance do you prefer?" she asked, as she raised one calabash to his nose for him to sniff at. The first two were pungent and unpleasant, but the third one reminded him of hoboturin: milk and coconut.

"This one," he said.

She nodded and took the calabash with the fragrance that Kuwin preferred and sprinkled bits of it into the mixture. A sizzling sound emitted into the room as smoke began to rise from the bowl, enhancing the smell, and causing it to fill up the room as Kuwin's vision blurred.

He shook his head to clear it.

"What is this?"

"Give it a second," Laura said, assuredly. "It'll clear in a moment."

True to her word, his head, and his vision began to clear like cobwebs falling from doorways. Before he could fully recover, she approached him, rubbing a very cold, muddy mixture onto his throat, massaging it round and round, into his skin.

"It will wash off very easily once we're done."

"Is this supposed to make me tell the truth?"

"No, Kuwin," she said with a smile. "This will not compel you to tell the truth. It will only tell us if you are telling the truth or lying. For example," she said, lifting a wooden totem from the trolley, along with a slightly bigger bowl of water. The totem was a slim, round pole with a gaping hole on the end. "I'm going to ask you a question. Please lie."

"Okay?" he said, unsure what was going on.

"What is your name?" she asked, pressing the round end of the totem with the hole into her bowl of water. "Lie."

"My name is... Stephen."

When she brought out the totem, a bubble of water collected at the end of the totem, hanging low from the hole like it was about to burst.

"This time," she said, putting the totem back. "Tell the truth. What is your name?"

"My name is Kuwin."

When she pulled out the totem, it was completely dry.

"Okay, now we can begin." She took her seat, holding the totem beneath the water. "Do you know who set the witness free?"

He nodded. "The Oseki."

She frowned at him as if she didn't believe him. When she pulled the dry totem from the water, she said, "The Oseki had one key. Every other clan had a key bearer. How did they get yours?"

Kuwin fought down a bout of shame that was threatening to erupt in his chest, as soon as her question was uttered.

"They targeted us. My key was stolen because I got close to an Oseki girl who I thought was in love with me."

"It's immoral to mix blood with another clan," Laura stated, unable to hide her disdain.

Immoral. Illegal. Unsafe. The clans had made it obvious how they felt about cross-clan interrelations. No one knew why but they just knew that it was wrong to cross that line.

"I didn't know she was Oseki. I thought she was just another commoner."

"You also went back on your celibacy vow, as the key bearer. Tsk, tsk, tsk, Pastor. How many rules did you break for this woman?"

"I thought I was going to die because every other key bearer in my family had died before me, but then I met her and..." he sighed. "I wasn't trying to go back on my vow. I thought I had nothing to lose. Not until she stole my key and ran away."

"And when she took the key, what happened next?"

"The witness came after all of us," he said, his mind flashing back to that night when the front gates of his building were thrown clean off, revealing the naked woman covered in blood, who'd marched from Osekoni to Usobo, looking for Osa and her sisters. "She was going to kill us so we had to think fast."

"What did you do?"

Kuwin adjusted himself in his seat.

"Enechi said he knew how to make a witness."

"I'm sorry," she said. "Can you speak louder? Did you say you were going to make a witness?"

"Yes," he admitted.

"You've never admitted that before," she said, pulling out the dry totem. "You told us that you tried to put the old witness back in her cage."

"I lied."

"We know that. There was evidence of burnt offerings at the Izeh custody. A big container of congealed blood. Stumps of the erkanara tree all over the premises. It was obvious that you weren't trying to trap a witness but create one."

"We knew that the old one would be impossible to trap, but Enechi figured that if we could make one, she could fight for us and then we could trap her."

"Sounds like a solid plan. What happened?" she asked, leaning back in her seat. "How did it go from that to the entire custody being burnt to the ground?"

He'd promised to tell the truth but he knew that there were things he could avoid. Truths he could conceal so that he didn't end up locked up for his part in all this. As it stood, all four key bearers were culprits. If anyone wanted to blame Kuwin, then their clans would be dragged in as well. To keep it that way, Kuwin had to be careful.

"The witness showed up before the ritual was finished. She attacked the custody, and the new witness was released to fight her."

When Laura brought out the totem, there was a small bubble at the end. Her eyes rose to meet Kuwin's.

"Maybe you want to rephrase your answer," she suggested.

"She attacked us. She didn't even look at the security guards. She came right for me, but the new witness emerged and decapitated her. On the spot."

Laura raised a dry totem.

"Where is the new witness now?"

"What are you going to do with her? It's not like you can lock her up."

"We have the keys," she said. "Recovered from the witness's cavern in Osekoni."

"The new witness knows about the keys. You'll never lock her up."

"We're not planning to lock her up. The keys have other uses than sealing up a cage for a witness."

"Like what?"

"I'm not the one under interrogation here, Kuwin."

"I've answered your questions."

"Where is the new witness?"

"I don't know," he said honestly, reminding himself that he had no idea where Osa was.

"Who is the witness?"

"The Oseki key bearer."

"I'm sorry, what?" Laura asked, blinking repeatedly, as if unable to compute what he'd just said.

"Oseki was the witness."

She pulled out the totem to verify that he was telling the truth.

"Are you telling me that you, Enechi, and Ahimad sacrificed a fellow clans-blood?"

"Yes," he replied, choosing to be scarce with his words.

Osa's very existence depended on this bit of information.

"So, if we go to Osekoni right now, we can find the new witness in one of the isolation units?"

"Please do."

This would send the clans to Osekoni. They would be looking for a clans-blood. Never in a million years would they think to search for a commoner, now that Kuwin had shared this bit of information with them.