You can die now… the thought tugged at the edge of the shroud. The bug in her head was all used up. She’d die just as easily as anybody else in Nasheen. And fuck knew plenty of them died in the desert. What did she care for another dead politician? Truth was, she didn’t. But she wanted to know the real reason they risked summoning her from exile, and she’d only know that if she had Raine. Until she knew, she couldn’t be safe. Nobody in her life would be safe.

Somebody was wailing. She stopped. Let Isabet down off her shoulders. Tried to catch her breath. Turned.

Eskander had fallen in the sand. Far behind her prone body, Kage was still moving, but Eskander, the Nasheenian, the one who should have been able to take this desert best, was already down.

Nyx waded past Ahmed and Khatijah and crouched next to Eskander. The woman’s eyes were sunken. When she took Eskander’s wrist, the skin was dry and loose. She was mouthing some words, but no sound came out.

They had not given Eskander a pack, or weapons, just a burnous to cover her ruined body and a single water bulb. Nyx’s movements were slow, uncoordinated, as she reached behind her for a dagger. She concentrated very hard at each little thing. It was like being drunk. She took Eskander’s water bulb and pocketed it, then removed four empty water bulbs from her bandolier.

She heard Ahmed stumble up behind her, asking, “What are you doing?”

Nyx pushed Eskander’s head back with one hand and jabbed open her throat with the dagger. Blood spurted over her hand and started pumping out rapidly, in time with Eskander’s heartbeat. Nyx shoved the water bulb against the wound to collect the blood.

“The fuck you doing?” Ahmed said.

“Can’t piss,” Nyx said. “Blood’s got more salt than urine. Still, might keep us going another couple kilometers.”

“You’re fucking mad as she is.”

“Was,” Nyx said. She finished filling the bulbs and attached them to the bandolier again, all but one. The last, she offered to Ahmed. White static juddered across her vision, and she blinked rapidly.

On the sand in front of her, Eskander shuddered.

“What are you doing?” Khatijah stumbled, fell, just short of Nyx’s arm. Nyx shrugged her away.

“What the fuck are you doing? What the fuck!” Khatijah howled.

Ahmed shook his head.

“We’re just about fucked,” Nyx said.

“I’d rather be fucked,” he said.

“Bloody traitor!” Khatijah said. “Monster! Oath-breaker!”

Nyx brought the warm blood to her mouth, and drank two swallows of salty, coppery blood. It was enough to wet her mouth and throat and trick her body into anticipating—for the barest of moments—that water was coming. With any luck, it would make her urinate, and that, at least, could gain her another day.