Nyx gave Raine’s face a good pat. He moaned. “Come on, you fuck. Enough people died to get you here. Wake up. I need some bloody fucking answers and we don’t have much time.”

“Nyx,” he said.

“At least you remember that much.”

“Where are we?”

“A reasonably safe place. For a while, anyway. I need some answers, Raine. I need to know what the fuck is going on.”

“If I knew that, I wouldn’t be here.”

“Who are they, the ones who took you? Those people we attacked weren’t Nasheenians.”

“I thought you knew.”

“I heard all sorts of stories. First Families, bel dames, Ras Tiegans…”

Raine snorted. “Oh there are all sorts. Ras Tiegans, yes. But there are bel dames involved here, too.”

“No, the bel dames sent me after you.”

He raised his brows. “Impossible.”

“It happened. Bel dames sent me after you.”

“Are you… one of them again?”

“I already told you I’m not.”

“Pardon, Nyx, but I’ve not known you to tell the truth.”

“You always said you could tell when I was lying, just like most folks. So why would I bother?”

Raine winced. His leg was still bleeding badly. Nyx sighed and crouched next to him. She unknotted and reknotted the makeshift tourniquet. He hissed. “We’ll have someone in soon to look at it,” she said.

“I haven’t been this gutted in a long time,” he said. He wheezed.

“Who is it, Raine?”

“My mother,” he said.

Nyx sighed. “Alharazad. That’s worse than I thought. Is Fatima with her in this? Why the fuck did she send us after you, then?”

“No, listen, it’s deeper than that. You should not have come for me. I’m infected.”

“You said that already. What does it mean?”

“I’ve been given some kind of… virus. They brought girls with us. From Ras Tieg. They were harboring some kind of… contagion. Some of them revolted, and were killed. But the rest came north with us, and they… mixed something, their magicians, in Bomani. It could all be so much catshit. I don’t know. I’ve been carted around a long time. It was my own fault. We were finally getting a voice, enough to put them all on edge. Alharazad invited me in to speak about the new government. I took it. And they took me.”

“The bel dames?”

“Yes, but they turned me over to those Ras Tiegans once we came into Khairi.”

“But why here? What the hell is going on?”

“They want me infected, presumably so you’ll kill me?”

“But I wasn’t hired to kill you,” Nyx said. “Maybe somebody in Nasheen can cure it.”

“You understand it will be triggered when I’m killed? I could take a city with me. Maybe more. I don’t even know what the contagion is.”

“Why the fuck would they do something like that?”