She slid neatly between Ahmed and Rhys. Put one hand out, beckoning.

“Your issue’s with me. Let’s finish it.”

“Goddammit,” Ahmed said, lowering the gun.

“I’ve got unfinished business,” Nyx said. “Put the gun away, and leave it be. You need to talk? We’ll talk.”

Nyx gestured for Rhys to come away from the others. They walked together down the other side of the rise. The view here of the moons was spectacular. The closer she was to dying, the prettier things got. The moons didn’t get much above the horizon out here, but they seemed bigger. They ate the sky.

“I know where he is,” Rhys said.

“We have a shot?”

“You have a good magician.”

“Ahmed is—”

“No, the woman.”

“Safiyah?”

“If that’s her name, yes. I saw what she did to the walls in there. Not your cell, but the hall. They’ve got a half-dozen magicians in there running around trying to figure out what happened.”

“How’d you know she did it?”

“What, that man do it? No. He’s… something else.”

“What do you mean?”

“There are magicians, and then there are people who play with bugs. He plays. You can just tell.”

“How is it you came out here, Rhys?”

“Came for a job. Stayed for the lovely scenery.”

“Seriously?”

“I’m indentured. Hanife, the leader here, hired me on as a translator. For all sorts of sordid stuff like what you saw in there. The pay was too good to give up. So I… left my family in the south and came here. I meant to send for them, but… well, things are different.”

“I don’t get it.”

“He bought out my blood debt. I defended myself from some of those Aadhya. The desert people. It’s complicated.” He sighed. “There’s a war brewing out here. Hanife and his ocean people are recruiting men from the clans, giving them weapons and status and having them fight the women-led clans. It’s really brutal out there. You’ve see what the sand can do.”

“That’s why those men attacked us in the hall.”

Rhys smirked. “Yes, not one of your best plans. But then, half your plans never turned out very well.”

“I even tried to stay the fuck away from you,” she said. “See how well I did with that?”

She saw the hint of a smile touch his face. “At least this time, there’s nothing you can take from me.”

She was going to ask him how sure he was of that, but thought better of it. It had been a long few years. Years without Rhys always felt longer.

“What about these ocean people?” she asked. “Why are they harboring Raine?”