By noon, the sky turned gray. The river widened, and so did the silence. Then she saw it: a slick of rainbow sheen curling around a cluster of floating roots. Her jaw tightened. She uncorked a glass bottle and dipped it into the water, sealing it like evidence.

That night, far from Bonny, she sat in a cramped room in Port Harcourt, across from a lab technician who frowned at her samples.

Someone started clapping. Then another. Then the whole jetty.

Eteima smiled — a sharp, quiet thing. “I’m not asking them.”