It was painful, coming back.

Inaya burned with the effort. She staggered into her body like a drunkard. Fell to her knees. Coughed up bloody mucus and dead beetles. She snorted air into new lungs. The ground beneath her was scorched bare. Every last scrap of organic matter had been eaten by the sand.

She raised her head.

There was another figure there across from her at the edge of the filter, a pale man. He coughed up a swarm of red beetles. They buzzed about his mucus-smeared head.

Inaya crawled toward him. Hunger stabbed her belly. She would need to eat soon.

He looked up.

It was the Angel who interrogated her—Pieter. The one from the prison. The one she had spared.

He met her look, said nothing. Then he was on his feet, running out past her, through the filter, and into the trembling jungle.

Nyx stared at the pile of bones where Alharazad and the dozen bel dames had been. “I’m… I can’t… what the fuck was that?”

“You asked once why I followed you,” Safiyah said. “It’s because I’m hoping they give me something difficult next time.”

“They?” Fatima said. Her voice was faint. The beetles had picked Alharazad clean, but left Fatima intact.

“You think you are the only power in Nasheen, child? Oh no. Yours is a very new power, and you only have as much as we permit you. Don’t get too comfortable, now.”

“The boys—” Fatima began.

“The boys will be just fine,” Nyx said, suddenly. It bubbled up from inside of her. “Because as I told you, Raine’s still alive. You don’t know any different, do you? There will be people here to corroborate that. He just checked in with them. Should be on the radio any minute. Raine isn’t going to be found. And nobody else is going to look for him. He’s retiring from politics. The bel dames are going to keep going on as they are until the new government decides what do to with them. No one’s going to kill anyone. How does that sound?”

“Bloody awful,” Safiyah said.

“Fatima?” Nyx said.

“I… need to think.”

“No thinking. Doing.” Nyx walked up to the table. “If there’s a new government in Nasheen, you can bet I’ll do everything in my power to make sure you’re not a part of it.”

“Then shoot me.”

“Why?”

“Because that’s what you do.”

“Is it? You really don’t know me at all, do you, Fatima? I’m not like you. Not anymore.”

“There is no place for you in the new world,” Fatima said.

“That’s what I’m hoping,” Nyx said. “If you had any goddamn sense, you’d hope so too.”

Nyx pushed past Safiyah into the hallway. She needed to get away. Far, far, the fuck away.

“Nyx!” Safiyah called. “Come now, darling, let me buy you a drink.”