“Perhaps you can leave them, then. Or is your decision to leave people to die in the desert more personal than you pretend?”

Nyx walked a good arm’s length from Khatijah, wary of her reach. Weak she may have been, but Nyx wasn’t feeling ready to go three rounds in a ring with a bel dame, either.

“Eskander was falling apart. She wasn’t going to make it much longer.”

“It’s as I expected. Fatima sent us out here to die.”

“You’re still pretty close-mouthed about the whole thing for a woman who was sent off to die.”

“You don’t understand Fatima.”

“I’m afraid I do. She sent me to prison. Tortured me. She’s no friend of mine, Khat.”

“Khatijah,” she insisted.

Nyx stopped at the top of the hill. Below, a soft, scrubby valley spread before them. After so long in blinding desert, it was delightfully inviting. “If we’re going to keep on, I’ve got to know why Fatima was having Raine tailed. Since when do bel dames put security on a politician? Bel dames go after terrorists and deserters. We’re not order keepers.”

Khatijah sighed. She, too, paused at the top of the hill. “Now that you’ve used up the bug, I’m going to die out here, right? So what’s the difference?” She grimaced. “He was marked as a terrorist. We had a note all written up for his head, but the Queen stayed our hand. She felt it was more dangerous to kill him. We didn’t know what the boys would do. So she put us on watch, just to make sure nobody else decided to kill him.”

“Like who?”

“Anyone. Chenjans. First Families. Rogue bel dames. The boys are a perfect munitions shell, primed to burst. All they need is a catalyst. His death would be it.”

“Then why’d they kidnap him? Why not kill him and set it off?”

“I don’t know. I wouldn’t have come out here if I knew that. All I know is, I got sent off on a fool’s errand with the most hated bel dame in the fucking country. You killed a lot of friends of mine in Tirhan.”

“Not so friendly, I think, if you weren’t there with them,” Nyx said. She folded her arms. “What the fuck is Fatima playing at?”

“There,” Khatijah said, and pointed to a small figure making its way into the valley from the opposite side.

Nyx and Khatijah walked down to meet it.

As Nyx got closer, she realized that the black robe the figure wore was actually made of ravens’ feathers. The figure appeared to be a woman; small, dark, with a pinched little face that appeared almost Drucian and hands knotted up like claws, as if she suffered from some terrible arthritis.

Khatijah nodded when she met her; the closest a Nasheenian ever got to bowing.