“They’ve taken him south,” Rhys said.

Ahmed sighed. He was getting really tired of listening to this Chenjan. First, he wanted to go back into that hive for Nyx. Now he still wanted to push her to pursue the politician. Nyx had stumbled back into camp an hour before, much to everyone’s surprise. But Kage wasn’t with her. Safiyah turned up a few minutes later, shaking flesh beetles from her robe and talking about how it’d been a decade since she’d last been shot.

Ahmed had to admit he was disappointed that after all the death he’d seen out here, not one of them had keeled over. And he’d lost Kage. At least Kage had been good company.

“That’s all I could find out,” Rhys said.

“What does south mean? Back across the bloody desert? We came all this way just to run back after them the same way we came?” Ahmed said. “Is this a joke?”

Safiyah sat on a rocky wall above them. They had left the camp overlooking Bomani and retreated further south, to a tumbledown stir of ruins near one of the massive rock pillars that soared to the sky.

“Do you know who took him?” Nyx asked.

“The same people that brought him,” Rhys said.

Nyx sighed. “Of course.”

Ahmed watched her stare off into the distance. She had not been the same since she limped back into camp without Kage. He had demanded to know what had become of the Drucian, but Nyx just waved him away and said she’d left of her own volition.

He half believed her. He’d been telling Kage to leave for weeks. Now every time he looked north, he wondered if he should have gone with her. Then he wondered if Nyx had actually just killed her.

“The men said they were headed south,” Rhys said, “to the tunnels. I don’t know what that is. Some hiding place?”

Safiyah slid off the wall and landed neatly on her feet, like a cat. Ahmed shivered. Sometimes the way she spoke, and moved, troubled him. It put him in mind of someone else he’d known a long time ago, though he couldn’t say who.

“I know where they’re going,” Safiyah said.

“You’re kidding,” Nyx said.

“I wish I were,” Safiyah said. “But all together, I think the lot of you will much prefer this mode of travel to the one you used to come up here.”

“Oh, this’ll be good,” Nyx said.

It was good.

Safiyah handed Nyx the specs. “And that, my precious tidbit, is the closest inlet to the Abd-al-Karim. Better known to your colonial ears as the magicians’ tunnels.”

“Fuck me,” Nyx said.

“You’re not my type, darling,” Safiyah said.

“They don’t go this far up,” Rhys said. “They only connect key Nasheenian cities. How did you know about this?”