The following morning, Lagos greeted Iyi with one of its rare, perfect breezes — the kind that blew through the narrow alleys with enough gentleness to be mistaken for kindness. He stepped out from the tailor's stairwell and into the arms of the city again, satchel over his shoulder, sponge wrapped in ochre cloth inside like a silent guardian.
He walked without aim, letting his feet guide him, trusting the weight in his chest — that strange compass that had awakened the moment the fourth sponge had entered his life. His stall would wait. Kola could manage it for a few hours. There was something the city wanted him to see.
He reached the market by midmorning. Not his market — not the place where women shouted prices and tossed peppers into tin bowls — but a newer one, shinier, veiled in the kind of luxury that didn't shout, but whispered promises through imported perfumes and polished tile.
It was called Temitope Central Market, but most Lagosians simply called it "The Market of the Tempted."
Iyi had heard stories — of traders who came to sell charms that guaranteed wealth, soaps that made politicians call, powders that drew love faster than prayer. It was a haven of synthetic spirituality, every stall dressed like a shrine, every seller a preacher of prosperity.
He passed a row of vendors shouting blessings in foreign tongues. A woman held up a bottle labeled "Oil of Automatic Favour." Another waved an intricately wrapped bar of soap, promising "Cleansing from ancestral stagnation in seven days."
Iyi's heart quickened. It all felt too familiar.
At the center of the market, a wide stall gleamed beneath golden umbrellas. Unlike the others, it was silent. No shouting. No desperate haggling. The setup was too pristine — crystal glass bottles arranged by color, soaps shaped like cowries, mirrors without reflections.
And behind it stood a woman in a crisp white blouse and gele tied like a crown of light.
She smiled when she saw Iyi. As though she had expected him.
"Welcome," she said. "You've come far."
"I didn't come for anything," Iyi replied cautiously. "I was just walking."
"No one just walks into this market," she said. "The tempted are always called."
Her voice held that practiced calm — the kind Iyi had heard in scam calls, in street preachers who never blinked, in men who sold gods like perfume. And yet, something about her unsettled him in a deeper way.
She reached under the stall and brought out a soap — black as night, shaped like a mask, with streaks of gold powder etched into its surface.
"This one," she said, "was inspired by you."
Iyi froze. "What do you mean?"
She turned the soap slightly. Beneath the golden streaks, in faint lettering, was the name: Ọmọ Iyi.
He stared at it. His heart thundered.
"I didn't give anyone rights to use that name," he said tightly.
"You didn't need to," the woman said. "Names float, Iyi. Especially when whispered by the healed. Your story… it sells."
He looked around the stall again. Some of the soaps bore symbols eerily similar to the ones Agba Oye once carved into leaves. Others glowed faintly, powered more by suggestion than spirit.
"You're stealing rituals," he said. "Twisting them."
She didn't flinch. "We're offering them. But people don't want patience, or trials, or rivers that speak in riddles. They want answers now. And we give them that."
He felt rage stir inside him. Not fiery. Cold. Deep. "You took something sacred and turned it into… bait."
She smiled. "And yet they come. They pay. They believe. Tell me, is that so different from what you're doing in your little stall?"
"I'm not selling faith."
"No," she said. "You're hoarding it."
That stung.
She continued, softly now. "You think by staying small, you're keeping it pure. But maybe you're just afraid of what happens when the world hears your voice."
"I didn't ask for the world's attention."
"But it found you anyway."
Iyi stepped back. The gold-edged stall, the fake soaps, the smiling saleswoman — it was all a mirror. Not of who he was, but who he could become, if he stopped listening.
He looked down at the black soap with his name carved on it.
Then he looked at her.
"I'll ask once," he said. "Take the name off your soap. Stop using what doesn't belong to you."
She raised an eyebrow. "Or what?"
He didn't answer.
He reached into his satchel, pulled out the ochre-wrapped sponge, and held it gently in his palm. Its scent was faint, but it rose like smoke.
The woman's smile faltered.
The market seemed to hold its breath.
"You know what that is," she said, her voice lower now.
"I do," he said. "And I know it's watching you."
A gust of wind swept through the aisle. The gold parasol rattled. The mirrors on her stall cracked at the edges.
The sponge pulsed once in his hand.
She didn't speak again.
Iyi wrapped it once more and turned away.
As he walked out of the Market of the Tempted, he didn't look back.
Some battles weren't about winning.
Some were about walking away unchanged.