Despite the circumstances, and the blood, and the body, and the mumbling men, she realized she had missed him. Missed him more than she had any right to miss him. He’s lived this long without me around, she thought. Now that I’m here, how much longer does he have? She glanced over at Khatijah’s corpse. The bodies were piling up. She had to get away from him.

One of the men shoved her again. She rounded on him, teeth bared. There was more than one way to claw your way out of a hole.

The man smashed her in the face with the butt of his gun. She was fast enough to turn away as he did it, and avoided a broken nose. The butt struck her jaw. Black, hot pain seared her vision. She tasted blood.

They nattered on. She watched the one nearest Rhys drag Khatijah’s mutilated body away and pile it up near the door with a wet, fleshy sound.

“They’re asking one last time if you want to share the location of your desert friends. They know you didn’t come alone. They want to know what you’re here to do,” Rhys said. “You can understand their… concern.”

“I understand that they’re already illegally squatting here,” Nyx said. “They’ve got no more claim on it than I do.”

“What are you here for, Nyx?”

“They really going to let me go if I say?”

“Probably not.”

“Then what’s the point?”

“They would have me tell you that you might live.”

“We both know otherwise though, don’t we?”

He nodded.

She shrugged. “Then let them do their worst.”

Rhys sighed, and spoke to the men in their language. She was hoping it was about what she said, but he rambled on for a good long time—long enough to start making her nervous.

The men argued. They weren’t happy with whatever he was saying. But Rhys kept talking in that soft, calming way he did. Eventually, they relented.

Rhys said, “They’ve agreed to give you a few hours with the body of your friend. To… think things over. I told them it would be very effective, since Nasheenians have an aversion to blood.”

“You said that, did you?”

“They’re from very far away,” he said. He gestured to the men.

One of them grabbed the hook and chunked it into Khatijah’s body. Hauled it back into the cell. The others escorted Nyx inside with it.

They shut the door.

Nyx let out her breath.