But in the dark, before anyone woke, Adaeze whispered her own name once.
“Adaeze.”
Daughter of a king.
That was what her father had named her.
She had no crown. No throne. No kingdom anyone could see.
But every morning before the mops, before the insults, before the endless work, she whispered the name so they could not steal it too.
Then she tied her wrapper, washed her face from a plastic bowl, folded her mat, and opened the storeroom door.
The house always waited for her like a sentence.
Sweep the sitting room.
Mop the marble floors.
Continue on the next page:
