Sometime during the rubbing, she heard a low babble of voices. Then a grunt. It rose to a ragged scream. Then nothing. The sound was coming from beyond the door. She slid back down onto her side, and tried to peer underneath the door. She saw some kind of holding room. There were other doors across the dusty floor. More prisoners? But the air smelled funny for a cell, and a closer inspection of the patterns on the walls told her this had been a cellar long before it was a cell. A cellar meant she was underneath Bomani. Not a great place to be, for her. But a great place to muffle screams. She wondered if Ahmed would have approved of the space.

There were a few pairs of sandaled feet surrounding the table, but from the crack beneath the door, she couldn’t see who or what was on it. One of the desert women?

She heard the same scream again, high-pitched, biting. Like somebody taking a knife in the gut. There was some talking again, this time in some muddy language she didn’t understand. There was a brief moment of silence. Then a soft, strangely familiar voice said, in Nasheenian, “All they seek is the location of your sisters. We know there are more of you outside. How many?”

Silence.

Nyx kicked herself closer to the door. She shoved her face right into the spongy floor, mashed her nose against the door. That was a voice she knew. A voice she had not expected to hear again. And sure as hell not out here.

The feet moved around a bit. Nyx heard a scraping and chittering sound. Sharp intake of breath. Then full-throated screaming. Not just once this time, but over and over again, like water running over stones.

Nyx pushed against the door to gain some leverage. Stood on shaky feet. Her ribs were sore, and her face felt like it’d been mashed with a shovel. She wondered how long they’d beaten her before throwing her in this cell. She tried to find some kind of key hole or window, but there was nothing.

The screaming stopped.

The muttering started again. She heard someone moving closer to her cell door.

Nyx stepped deeper into the cell. There were at least four of them out there, plus the translator, and they would be armed. But there was nothing she could use as a weapon in here—not a rock or stick or bug—just dirt. They had stripped her down well for non-Nasheenians, and even her sandals were missing. About the only thing she had left were the needles in her hair. But with her hands tied behind her, they were impossible to reach.

The door opened.

A pale man wearing a bloody apron beckoned her forward with two fingers, as if she were a dog.

Nyx bared her teeth.