Ten years later, Malik is an emancipated minor after spending several years in foster care. He met a girl, Alexis, who could also use magic, but she was adopted after only a few months. He was eventually adopted by the Hudson family along with 12-year-old Taye, who he considers his little brother. However, while Malik is now out of the Hudson household, Taye is still there. Malik plans to steal a car, take Taye from the Hudson home, and drive to California.

Malik chooses a car and uses his magic to unlock the doors. As he tries to start it, the owner comes outside with two of his friends. They pull Malik from the car and beat him until he uses his magic to push them away. He gets back in the car and drives through several towns before stopping.

The magic exhausts Malik, giving him a headache. While he rests, he sees a church letting out. The flood of Black people—including a little boy with his mother—brings back memories of Malik’s mom. He vividly remembers the night she disappeared before passing out. He wakes up several hours later.

Malik drives to the Hudson house and sneaks in the kitchen window, where Taye greets him. The two hug, and Malik notices new bruises on Taye’s arm. He tells Taye to get his stuff, so they can leave.

When Taye comes back downstairs, Carlwell and Sonya Hudson come home. Malik tells Taye to leave, but Carlwell tries to stop him. When he reaches out to touch Taye, Malik becomes enraged. He calls on his magic, causing Carlwell to back down.

Carlwell threatens Malik, but Malik uses his magic to shatter all the lightbulbs and windows in the house. He pins Carlwell to the wall. As he loses himself in the magic, he starts to choke Carlwell and can feel the man’s heart stopping. However, as Sonya screams, Malik has a flashback to the night his mother died. He forces himself to stop and lets Carlwell fall to the ground.

A few hours later, Malik and Taye make it to the border between Mississippi and Louisiana. Malik notices that Taye is moaning in his sleep and realizes that Taye, who is diabetic, must not have taken his insulin. Malik desperately searches Taye’s bag for his insulin pen, but it is not there.

Malik pulls into the next gas station. As he searches the aisles for food with sugar, he notices a Black man smoking a cigar, dressed in a purple suit, who sings quietly as he walks down the aisles.

Malik takes his food and orange juice to the front counter. He asks for gas as well but is $5 short. He begs the white man at the counter to give him a break. When the attendant refuses, Malik uses his magic to throw the man into the wall, then takes his purchases and runs out the door.

As he speeds down the road, Malik tries to get Taye to eat, but Taye is unresponsive. Malik pulls over and desperately tries to get Taye to respond. As he does so, a knock on the car window interrupts him. The Black man in the purple suit is standing there.

Malik rolls down his window, ready to use his magic on the man, but the man calls Malik by his first name. He tells him to heal Taye. Confused, Malik tries, drawing magic and begging for Taye’s recovery. However, he is overwhelmed by the effort and fails. The man chuckles, then puffs on his cigar, blowing smoke into the car. Malik hears Taye start to snore and realizes the man has healed him.

Shocked, Malik demands to know how the man knows who he is. He introduces himself as Bawan Samedi. He gives Malik a letter with his name on the front. It is a letter from Mama Aya, who tells Malik that she is his grandmother—his mother’s mother. She apologizes to Malik for not being there for him sooner. She asks him to come to Louisiana so that she can answer all his questions.

Samedi tells Malik to go to Louisiana. Malik angrily tells him that he has no gas, but Samedi simply blows out more smoke and then the gas tank is full.

Malik considers what to do. He touches his name, written in gold, on the letter. Something in his gut is telling him that he needs to go, so he gets on the freeway toward Louisiana.

Malik and Taye arrive at Dessalines Parish in Louisiana. Taye wakes up, and Malik tells him that they are going somewhere that he can be healed, and then they’re going to continue to California.

As they drive up to the address on the letter, they see a giant tree with blue bottles hanging from the branches. They get out of the car and walk up to a large, old home. Samedi is dancing outside with a woman whom he introduces as Brigitte.

An older woman comes out of the house and introduces herself as Mama Aya. Malik confronts her, asking why she wrote him a letter and insisting that she can’t be his grandmother. He feels his magic tingling in his hands. Mama Aya invites him inside.

Mama Aya sends Taye to eat with Brigitte. Malik initially resists, demanding that they get more answers, but Taye assures them that he will be fine and goes with Brigitte. Mama Aya takes Malik further into the house.

Malik starts asking questions again. He feels bitter that Mama Aya—if she truly is his grandmother—did not save his mother or come back to him sooner. However, Mama Aya assures him that she did everything she could. When Malik was a baby, his mother took him away after she got into a fight with Mama Aya. Mama Aya shows Malik one of her memories of the day his mother left to reassure him that she is telling the truth.

Mama Aya explains that 10 years ago, she stopped being able to feel her daughter. Mama Aya thinks that she is still alive because her soul never came home, but she does not know where she is.

She then asks Malik to use his magic. He calls on it as Mama Aya does, her hands revealing the same blue sparks that Malik has. As their magic grows, the room disappears around them. They are outside in a sugar cane field, then the world goes dark. He can see the stars in the sky. People in white robes gather around them, chanting. Malik sees himself as a boy, just before his mother died, smiling and happy. His younger self reaches out and takes Malik’s hand, walking him toward the water. One of the robed men puts Malik in the water as if he’s being baptized. Malik is calm as he sinks deeper into the water. His memories flash before him, his childhood, his mother’s death, and even his foster homes.

After several moments, Malik sees himself looking down into the water, smiling. The surface ripples, and he sees his mother with a necklace hanging from her neck, dangling over the water. Malik reaches for it, but the water rushes into his lungs. Just as he feels as though he is drowning, the vision vanishes, and he finds himself back in Mama Aya’s sunroom.

After leaving Mama Aya, Malik still isn’t sure he trusts her. He checks on Taye, who is excited to have his own bedroom, then goes to his own room. He realizes that it used to be his mother’s when he finds one of her sweatshirts with the words “Caiman U” on it. He then finds a box of old photographs and notes. One is a note someone wrote to her to “be careful,” with his mother’s response that she needs “help” because she is too tempted by “bane magic” (69). The idea of bane magic troubles Malik, but he falls asleep hugging his mother’s sweatshirt.

The next morning, Malik goes downstairs. He stops on the stairs when he hears Mama Aya talking with a man. They are discussing what Malik has done, with the man explaining that he had to erase the gas station video footage and several people’s memories. The man points out that Malik’s magic is extremely strong but uncontrolled, so Mama Aya suggests that they send Malik to Caiman University to learn. The man says that Malik will be too far behind, as the term has already started. He also says that the school is dealing with children who have gone missing. Mama Aya hears Malik on the stairs, and they stop talking.

Mama Aya introduces Malik to Taron Bonclair. Malik is immediately dismissive of Taron, assuming he is a school authority figure and the type of person who typically dislikes Malik. However, he is curious about Caiman because his mother went there. Taron explains that it is a historically Black university where children learn to control their magic, and she scolds Malik for being reckless with his magic. Malik insists that he can control it, but in his anger, he opens all the kitchen cabinets and breaks several dishes. He tells Taron that he is not interested in going anywhere that he isn’t wanted.

The next morning, the sound of trumpets wakes Malik up. He looks outside and sees dozens of Black people gathered, with Samedi singing and a jazz band on a stage. Taye bursts into his room and tells him that they are having a party for Malik.

Malik goes downstairs and meets several people, including his Aunt Caroline and several cousins. Seeing everyone happy and calling him “family,” Malik becomes overwhelmed with anger. He thinks of how he was left in an orphanage and different foster families for years, while none of them came to get them. He snaps, angrily yelling that they’re not his family, and storms outside.

Mama Aya finds him standing outside on the porch. He looks out at the yard as people gather, dancing to the band. He tells Mama Aya that he is sorry for being disrespectful, but he can’t understand how no one came to save him. He spent years trying to better his own life so that he could help Taye, but no one did the same for him. He leaves Mama Aya standing on the porch.

Malik goes back to his room. He pulls out his mother’s sweatshirt and a box of belongings. As he flips through the photos, Mama Aya comes into the room. She tells him that he is welcome to leave the next morning, but she wishes that he would change his mind. When she sees that he is looking at photos, she joins him, and they look through them together.

Looking at a photo of his mother at Caiman, Malik asks Mama Aya if she has any idea what happened to his mother. She apologizes but says that she doesn’t. Malik decides that he must go to Caiman to get answers about his mother.