THE THREAD BENEATH THE THRONE

"Zainab," Mallam Yusuf said slowly, "you thought Raven was the enemy. He was only a design… not the designer."

They sat under the tamarind tree, two generations of rebels joined by stitches and scars.

He handed her an old folder—weathered, fragile, blood-stained.

Inside:Black-and-white photographs.Scanned government memos.Names of shell companies.Signed agreements between ministers and a shadow body called: "The Bureau of Custodians."

"What is this?" she asked.

Yusuf looked toward the sky.

"The Bureau was formed before independence. A secret council. They placed leaders, buried dissent, and funded war behind smiles. Raven worked for them. I refused. That's why I disappeared."

Zainab turned pale. "They're still active?"

He nodded.

"And you've already shaken them. That's why they're watching again."

That night, Zainab couldn't sleep.

She kept seeing threads on the ceiling.Each one a life. A truth. A secret.Each one tangled by unseen hands.

If Raven was just a needle…Who is holding the machine?

She returned to Lagos in silence.No words to Obi.No updates to Fatiha.

Just one thing on her mind:

"How far am I willing to go?"

The next day, a letter arrived at her shop.

No sender.Handwritten.Sealed with wax.

It read:

"We warned you once. You sewed louder.Now you stand before the Bureau's eye.Close your shop, end your whisper,Or we'll silence every soul you've stitched with."

Zainab folded the letter.

No tears.

Just resolve.

She stood before her team.

"Pack everything," she said.

Obi panicked. "We're leaving?"

"No," she replied, "We're going mobile."

Two days later, The Atelier Van rolled through Lagos.

A mobile tailor shop. A training center on wheels. A storytelling lab.

If they tried to shut her doors, she would take the doors with her.

Zainab posted one line on her Facebook page that night:

"They think I'm a thread they can cut. But I've become the fabric."