“Would you believe me?” I asked softly. “I want to see my family. I have debased myself for it. What more would you ask of me?”

“You think yourself very clever, don’t you, Amani?”

I trembled and my eyes closed as she trailed a hand over my cheek, her nails gentle against my skin. The threat was clear: she would gouge my skin if provoked. I said nothing, but a tear rolled down my cheek. I had come too close to my end today. My fear was real.

“What do you imagine you have discovered for me today?”

I blinked rapidly and forced myself to focus.

“I want a promise—”

“Remember your place,” she snapped. The droid whirred, its two lower arms widening.

“You’re threatening to kill me,” I said, my voice still low. “I need to be alive if I’m to see my family.”

And just like that, some of the tension eked out of her.

She doesn’t know, I could see her thinking. How could she know when she is foolish and young and too Kushaila to be clever?

“It is impossible to take you to them,” she said carefully.

“I only want a recording,” I replied, voice soft. Let her see, then, the demure and frightful village girl.

A nod, sharp and hard.

“The information, girl.”

“Izaara bint Brahim,” I said. “A spy in the hills of Qarmutta.”

Every meeting I’d waited with the small gel-like tab pressed against my thumb, waiting to connect it to the tablet. It was not a thing anyone would expect a handmaiden—kidnapped victim of the Vath or not—to have. It was a hacker’s tool. As far as Nadine was concerned, there was no reality where I might procure such a thing and use it against her. When she withdrew the tablet from a clip on her waist I remained perfectly still, waiting. She held it out, then pulled it back before I could reach for it.

“You understand,” she said, her voice severe. “If your information is wrong, your family will pay for it. You will pay for it.”

I looked up at her from under my lashes. She wasn’t bluffing. I thought perhaps if she found my information to be wrong that she would hunt my family down, no matter the cost. All to make a point to me. And then … then the droid would return.

“I understand,” I said softly.

“Next time,” she said, and my eyes widened.

“Next time?” I said, unable to control my rage.

“This is your fault, girl,” she said, smiling. “Had you not meddled I would not need to barter. And I will not give you what you want only to lose what I need.”

Her hand trailed over my cheek.

“Another name, girl,” she said. “Who can say what will happen between now and then.”