She heard splashing behind her, and turned.

Rhys came at her.

She half thought he meant to shoot her, and stepped back, pivoted left. But he slipped his arms around her and embraced her. He pulled away before she could figure out how to hug him back.

“I have always been happier without you,” he said.

“I know,” she said.

He released her, and then he was off and away, through the blinding sheets of rain.

Nyx stood there for a good long while, until Ahmed tapped her on the shoulder.

“You coming?” he said.

“What?” she said.

“Come along, cat gut,” Safiyah said. “Let’s find some breakfast while he runs along home. Your road isn’t as easy as his.”

“Don’t I fucking know it,” Nyx said.

45.

Isabet gazed long into the polished metal mirror in the room Inaya had given her. The Fourré headquarters was strangely quiet. Just a few others were left. If she did not move now, there would not be another chance. Using her teeth and her remaining hand, she knotted a black length of cloth around the stump of her upper left arm. She took the long dagger her mother had given her from its place beneath her bed. No one had thought to search her rooms when she first joined the Fourré. She had assumed they would, and hidden the dagger the first few months she lived among them. But after a time, she realized Inaya had swallowed her story whole cloth, and the deception was not necessary. So the dagger hid in plain sight.

She sheathed the dagger at her hip and drew on her long coat. With her weapon concealed, she crept out into the hallway and made her way to the storage rooms below. She did not have much time.

Her belly felt heavy and overfull, as it had for many months. But it had never been a child she carried. A child was a prettier story. She had seen just how lovely a story it might be written on Eshe’s face when he offered to marry her. She had believed, just for an instant, that together they could somehow change their fate.

But that was not what God wanted.

At the door to the prisoner’s room, she paused. Drew a deep breath. She pushed the door open.

The man was asleep. His wounded leg was mostly mended, but the hedge witch had obviously given him something for the pain.

Isabet drew her knife and stepped forward. Knife poised, she hesitated.