She glanced down at his knee. It looked terrible. How he managed to natter on with a shattered knee astounded her. Always full of surprises, Raine. And now he thought he was some fucking prophet. Fatima wanted her to bring a delusional, self-proclaimed prophet back into Nasheen? One Fatima had already tried to kill once?
The hedge witch appeared in the doorway, saving her from further blathering.
“God’s grace, that’s a fine mess,” the hedge witch said in heavily accented Nasheenian.
“You have no idea,” Nyx said.
“It’s that bel dame,” Adeliz said.
Inaya sighed. “Bring tea, please. Perhaps that will dissuade her.” She stood in her communications room, wearing a long dark habit and coat. She had her traveling cap on the table, and a single pack at her feet. They would burn the rest down after them.
Nyx stepped in.
“Everyone lived?” Inaya said lightly. “That must be a first for you.”
“On this trip? Yes.” Nyx stepped up to the table.
Inaya tapped out the pattern that opaqued the information on the slide.
“We’re leaving,” Nyx said.
“And we will part right after you,” Inaya said.
Adeliz came back in, bearing tea. Inaya took her cup. “Tea?” she said.
“Rather drink piss,” Nyx said.
“Thank you, Adeliz,” Inaya said.
“And what have you decided to do with Raine?” Inaya asked.
“He’ll be staying here.”
“What, in Ras Tieg?”
“Best place for him.”
“I don’t understand. Weren’t you supposed to bring him to Nasheen?”
“That’s what we’ll tell them.”
“Who?”
Nyx picked up the tea. Sniffed it. “What is this?”
“Jasmine.”
Nyx sipped it. “Huh,” she said, and took another sip. “Anyway, I need a safe place for Raine for a while. Think your people could watch after him?”
“No.”
“Come on, Inaya. At least until the knee is better. He’s promised me he’ll stay out of your hair.”
“We’re burning this place after us. He can’t stay.”
“I know you can get people smuggled out of here safe. I can’t do that and get back to Nasheen. Help me out. One last time.”
“No.”
“What about Khos? You still in touch with him? He’d know how to get somebody over the border.”
“No,” Inaya said. She thought of the last time she saw Khos, and remembered the letters. Her children would never see them now. “You know, Khos came to me when I was in prison.”
“Did he? That’s quite a trip. Folks have been telling me your little rebellion thing here has gotten pretty exciting.”
“That’s why it seemed so odd. I expected he was there to retrieve me.”
“But that meant giving up your people, right?”
“Doesn’t it always?”
“Huh,” Nyx said. “And he didn’t say anything?”
“Just the usual nonsense about going home. But… well, there was one strange thing. Maybe you know something about it. You were close to him, weren’t you?”
Nyx shrugged. “We worked together.”
“He said it in Nasheenian. He said, ‘Look to what you devour.’ I thought maybe he was telling me something in code, maybe just telling me the food had saffron in it. It wasn’t terribly helpful.”
“In Nasheenian?” Nyx said, and laughed. “It’s slang, Inaya.”
“What?”
“It’s slang for when you go down on somebody, you know,” and she waggled her tongue.
Inaya grimaced. “You’re so crude.”
“That’s what it is.”
“Why would he say something like that?”
Nyx gnawed on that. “There’s a tavern in Punjai called the Licking Cat,” Nyx said. “Folks talk about it a lot using that phrase. It’s a joke. You know, look to what you eat because… Yeah, you wouldn’t get it. Anyway. There any taverns here called something like that? Make allusions to getting a good rub?”
“I wouldn’t know about that.”
“Oh, wouldn’t you? The rebel leader with an eye on every fucked up thing going on in her town?”
Inaya considered that. They had surveillance at most taverns in the area. “I’ll ask my operatives,” she said.
“Come on, Inaya, say you’ll take him. I promise, that tavern thing is a good tip.”
“Let him stay,” another voice said. Nyx knew it. Isabet.
Isabet stood in the doorway, dressed all in white muslin. Her hair was clean and brushed, bound in a simple white scarf. Even with her imperfect skin, she was a lovely thing, and Nyx could understand what Eshe had seen in her. A poor, unsuspecting little rich girl getting far too deep into matters she did not understand. Eshe always had a thing for those sorts. Nyx felt another sting of grief, and pushed it aside.
Inaya turned, and she and Isabet spoke in Ras Tiegan for a time. Finally, she sighed. “Isabet insists we help him,” she said, “though I have no idea why she should feel any desire to help you.”
“She’s not helping me,” Nyx said, “just finishing what Eshe started.”
Inaya narrowed her eyes. “I’m sure,” she said.
Nyx finished her tea. “As for me, I’ve got a bounty to bring home. Or say I’m bringing home. It’s going to be a terribly fun time. I can see you’re disappointed to miss it.”
“I’m sure we’ll have all the enjoyment here we can handle,” Inaya said.
44.
Nyx stepped out into the rainy morning. Rhys waited on the stoop of the old factory that Inaya’s compound was built beneath. There was a smell of smoke in the air. Nyx heard the sound of gunfire, far off.
“I’m glad this is a short trip,” Nyx said.
“I’m sure you’d love to stay longer,” Rhys said.
She looked off further down the lane, where Ahmed and Safiyah were buying food from one of the only open stalls. “Sure you’re not coming?” she said.
“I’ve had my fill of bel dames, thanks,” he said.
“You think you can make your way to the port?”
“Inaya’s always been precise with directions. I expect I’ll have little trouble finding any number of ships fleeing Ras Tieg right now.”
Nyx nodded. She pulled on her hat. The hats here were like cowls, covering the neck and face with a fitted sleeve, topped in wide brims. She hated them.
“We done then?” she said.
“Good luck with Fatima.”
“The words ‘luck’ and ‘Fatima’ should never be used in the same sentence. We’ll see what her reaction is when we say we’ve brought him back. I think I can get something out of her.”
“What are you going to do about the boys? The new government?”
“Raine’s agreed to handle that from here. He sent out some communications last night to let people know he’s alive. I had him put somebody in his place, too. Somebody to speak for him. Help with the politics.”
They stood for a while longer in the rain. Nyx heard more gunfire. She knew it was time to move. Her feet were already wet. She never bought the right shoes in these cold countries. Trouble was, her feet were going to take her in a different direction from Rhys.
“I should go,” Nyx said.
“Nyx?”
“Yeah?”
“When this is over, what happens?”
She shrugged. “Nothing.”
“Nyx?”
“Rhys?”
“Have you ever been happy?”
She thought of Radeyah, and drunk nights at the fights. Dinner with Anneke’s squalling kids. The stink of the ocean. And she remembered, during all those moments, of yearning for this one: the sound of gunfire, and Rhys’s body beside her.
“No,” she said.
She turned away, and started walking across the muddy street to join what remained of her team. Cutting everything up, cutti
ng everything away. And for what? A chance at saving Nasheen from blowing itself all to hell? Some days she wondered if it was worth it. She had killed a lot of people, for nothing. Given up everything she loved, for nothing. Saved nothing.
She heard splashing behind her, and turned.
Rhys came at her.
She half thought he meant to shoot her, and stepped back, pivoted left. But he slipped his arms around her and embraced her. He pulled away before she could figure out how to hug him back.
“I have always been happier without you,” he said.
“I know,” she said.
He released her, and then he was off and away, through the blinding sheets of rain.
Nyx stood there for a good long while, until Ahmed tapped her on the shoulder.
“You coming?” he said.
“What?” she said.
“Come along, cat gut,” Safiyah said. “Let’s find some breakfast while he runs along home. Your road isn’t as easy as his.”
“Don’t I fucking know it,” Nyx said.
45.
Isabet gazed long into the polished metal mirror in the room Inaya had given her. The Fourré headquarters was strangely quiet. Just a few others were left. If she did not move now, there would not be another chance. Using her teeth and her remaining hand, she knotted a black length of cloth around the stump of her upper left arm. She took the long dagger her mother had given her from its place beneath her bed. No one had thought to search her rooms when she first joined the Fourré. She had assumed they would, and hidden the dagger the first few months she lived among them. But after a time, she realized Inaya had swallowed her story whole cloth, and the deception was not necessary. So the dagger hid in plain sight.
She sheathed the dagger at her hip and drew on her long coat. With her weapon concealed, she crept out into the hallway and made her way to the storage rooms below. She did not have much time.
Her belly felt heavy and overfull, as it had for many months. But it had never been a child she carried. A child was a prettier story. She had seen just how lovely a story it might be written on Eshe’s face when he offered to marry her. She had believed, just for an instant, that together they could somehow change their fate.
But that was not what God wanted.
At the door to the prisoner’s room, she paused. Drew a deep breath. She pushed the door open.
The man was asleep. His wounded leg was mostly mended, but the hedge witch had obviously given him something for the pain.
Isabet drew her knife and stepped forward. Knife poised, she hesitated.
He was just an old man. How was it one old man had the power to change everything? She wished, again, that it had not all gone so wrong. Wished her mother would have lived longer, and not sold her to Genevieve Leichner as some virgin maid. But being a virgin maid had given her the backstory she needed to infiltrate the Fourré, and to do it at far less risk than Saint Genevieve’s real daughter.
Her grip on the blade eased. She wanted to turn back. Go to Inaya and cry on her shoulder and confess everything. Eshe always said that a single death could change the course of the world, if it was the right one. She had known that in her heart, but refused it until she was the last of Saint Genevieve’s maids, the only one who could carry out the final judgment.
She tightened her grip.
The old man’s eye popped open.
Isabet froze. Sheer terror. For one long blink they regarded one another, the would-be assassin and the old man. And then her blade came down in his throat.
Blood rushed up. He gurgled and thrashed. Grabbed her hand. She shrieked. He held her hand there at his throat, and stared deeply into her eyes. She tried to yank herself away, but his grip was firm, even as his life ebbed out over the bed. Isabet lost her resolve, then. She fell to her knees and began to sob and pray. Blood soaked her sleeve.
“I’m sorry,” she said. “I’m sorry. It’s the only way to stop the misborn, and what the saint has growing inside me.”
Finally, his grip began to loosen. She pulled her hand into her lap. Her arm was covered in blood nearly to the elbow, and it wet the front of her habit. She sobbed and sobbed as the body beside her went still.
“Oh God be merciful,” she said. “God forgive me.”
God could forgive anything. Surely he could forgive this. Was there any forgiveness to be had?
The body trembled.
Isabet clawed across the floor and dragged herself to her feet. She was unsteady, a little faint. She saw black spots at the edges of her vision. She wanted to retch.
“God have mercy,” she murmured. “Please, I’m sorry.”
She heard a strange sound, then. Like someone gasping. Was he still alive? Isabet stepped closer, cringing at the sight of her dagger thrust into his still oozing throat. She saw bubbles of blood around the blade, as if he were still breathing. God, would she have to strike him again? Her whole body began to tremble. She couldn’t do it again. She couldn’t.
As she watched, the bloody flesh around his throat began to shudder. Some kind of tiny… insect? Fear choked her. Was he being invaded by bugs already? Was he turning into one?
“Raine?”
Isabet looked up. Inaya stood in the doorway, hand to her mouth. “My God,” Inaya said. “What have you done?”
“He was meant for you,” Isabet said. “This was all meant for you.”
46.
“I know I’ve got an infiltrator on my team. If you’re it, let’s just get this done now,” Nyx said to Safiyah.
They stood just inside the roiling darkness of the magicians’ tunnels with Ahmed, the only light a faint glimmer from a glow globe Safiyah had spirited away from some inattentive trader. It was the safest place Nyx knew to talk about it, and the last place. Because the next stop was Nasheen, and she needed to know what she was facing back there.
“I am God’s hammer,” Safiyah said. “But I’ve not come for you. You’re just the bait.”
Nyx had been a lot of things, but never bait. It was kind of a letdown.
“Bait for who?” Nyx said.
“The Families want an end to the war. Your old friend Alharazad does not.”
“Fucking Alharazad,” Nyx said. Her fault, again, for not killing that scheming bel dame when she had the chance. How many could she have saved, with that one death? Eskander and Khatijah and Eshe, maybe Kage too. Who knew if Kage had made it across the desert on her own? Not to mention the Aadhyan women she killed. Or the men she shot and stabbed in Bomani. Or Mercia’s body guards. Bloody fucking.
One life. She could have taken one life, seven years ago, and spared them all of this.
My life for a thousand, the bel dame oath went, but she hadn’t sacrificed herself, had she? She’d chosen to live and eat and fuck and rebuild at the coast, the same thing she’d heckled Rhys for doing. And this is what came of it. This is what happened when bel dames went soft.
“Tell me truly,” Safiyah said. “If Alharazad was the catalyst for all this madness, where would we find her?”
“How the fuck should I know?” Nyx said. She remembered the desert, the murderous crows, hauling her team’s bodies across the sand. All that for nothing. All that because she had stayed her hand.
“I know you can find her,” Safiyah said. “I bet a great deal on it.”
“Then you’re a fucking fool.”
Safiyah sighed. “Child, where would you go if you sought to thwart the Queen’s plan of shooting the aliens out of the sky and ending the war? If you wanted to steal the aliens’ technology, and twist the bel dames against themselves, and seize power in the vacuum left behind as the Queen stepped down, the broederbond fought one another over Raine’s death, and the bel dames were implicated in that death? Where would you go? The last place anyone would look?”
“I knew the aliens were a part of this,” Nyx said. “Fuck.” She considered Safiyah’s words. As Safiyah had spoken things began to click into place, things she hadn’t been able to fucking p
ut together because she was so caught up in smashing into Rhys again. “I’d be in Amtullah,” Nyx said. “I’d make alliances with somebody who had some power. I’d get her on my side. Then we’d open up shop in Amtullah, and wait the Queen out.”
Safiyah raised her brows. “Would you really?”
It was like some map unrolling in her brain. “That’s why Fatima moved everyone to Amtullah,” Nyx said. “She could keep an eye on the Queen, and build up her following there. Strike when the moment was right. Seize power. Make nice with our old alien friends.”
“I don’t get it,” Ahmed said. “If Fatima was in on this, why did she try and protect Raine?”
“She didn’t,” Safiyah said. “She bet your friend here would murder him. And do it as a bel dame. Then the bel dames get blamed for the death, the broederbond in an uproar, etcetera, etcetera. Someone has to fill that vacuum. Alharazad has not been a bel dame in some time. In fact, she’s well known for speaking out against the current council. You colonials really are terrible at thinking through politics. I’m surprised you didn’t pick all this up weeks ago.”
“What, we’re just going to walk up to Fatima and ask her where Alharazad is so we can kill her?” Ahmed said.
“No,” Nyx said. “I think Alharazad will come to us.”
“Why?”
“I’ll tell her we have Raine,” Nyx said.
“You should contact your little diplomatic liaison,” Safiyah said.
“You did your homework,” Nyx said. “How’d you know about Mercia?”
“I wasn’t wandering around in the desert with you for pleasure,” Safiyah said, “though I admit I had a rather enjoyable time.”
“She’ll want to know what her people are doing with Nasheenians out here,” Nyx said. “Unless she’s already in on it.”
“A possibility. But worth the risk,” Safiyah said.
“So you intend to just walk into Amtullah without any explosives or weapons or… and what? Just… talk to her?” Ahmed said. “Is this the plan? Please tell me this isn’t the plan.”
“There’s more to it,” Nyx said, “but I need to figure it out first.”
“Fucking mad,” Ahmed said.
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