“Let me tell you about your life, Inaya il Parait,” he said. The Angel still did not approach her. His voice was deceptively warm, and his gaze, very soft, as if he felt he were speaking to a particularly adorable child. “Your father was a shopkeeper in Nanci, selling mostly tea and spices. He was not a wealthy man, and married just once. A woman from a family of known terrorists. Your mother was a shifter, well-known for it in your neighborhood, and often caught fornicating with dogs in the street. She bore two children before the state sterilized her. You, and your brother Taite. Should I go on?”

“I do not understand why I’m here. I have never heard of this family.”

The Angel gestured to the woman. She opened the door and stepped outside. For a moment, Inaya was tempted by the open doorway. Could she find her way out? What was security like? All she had seen of this place were the hallways and the cells.

A moment later, the woman returned, ushering a young man ahead of her.

Inaya recognized Hynri almost immediately. Hynri, the leader of cell number seven. He had been scrubbed clean and dressed in a gray habit like hers. A snarl of fear gripped her. Oh, God, how much had Hynri told them?

“Do you know this man?” the Angel asked Inaya.

The words were easy. But she could not look at Hynri. “I’m sorry, no,” Inaya said. “Perhaps I have seen him around the city, but it’s difficult to say. Should I know him?”

“I told you,” Hynri said. When Inaya glanced up, she saw Hynri, triumphant.

“You are certain?” the Angel said.

“Of course,” Inaya said.

“Because if you cannot vouch for him, I’m afraid he has been sentenced to beheading.”

“For what crime?”

“Conspiring to overthrow the government.”

“This child?” Inaya watched Hynri’s face. His expression was coolly blank, but his eyes were glassy.

Hynri said nothing.

The Angel watched them both.

Finally, the Angel raised his hand, and the woman escorted Hynri out.

Inaya stared at her hands. She expected God to strike her dead.

The Angel moved toward her. She stiffened. He leaned into her. She felt his warm breath on her neck. “I don’t have to touch you. I don’t have to torture you. You have already given yourself away.”

And then he left her.

Inaya cried.

The woman came back for her and escorted her away, back through the winding hallways to the drab, dirty holding cell where she had originally been housed. But the woman who had been with her was gone.