It’s why she didn’t hesitate, now, to walk over the ruined wall and into the overgrown garden as the rain misted her face. She tracked each and every charge with her eyes, checking that they had blown successfully. From the look of the damage, every mine had gone off as planned. She had been a sapper, once. It was nice to know she was still good at it.

Nyx settled on the remains of the porch. The damp soaked through her coat. With the wall down, she had a good view of the ocean, and a bruising violet sunset that she had to admit was kinda pretty. The heap of rubble behind her that had once been her home was less pretty. That was all right. She never blew a place with the intention of it looking nice afterward.

Nyx pulled a bottle of whiskey from her coat pocket and broke the seal. Stared at the ocean. Drank.

She remembered Fatima putting that paper in front of her and telling her she could become a bel dame again. It had been tempting. Take up the old bel dame title. Throw it around like she really was somebody great. Somebody important. Somebody the world would remember. An honorable woman because she could kill well. But when she looked at that paper, she thought of all the other stuff that came with it. She thought of Radeyah’s scars, and her dead brothers, and how her mother had died in the breeding compounds. Being a part of the old world meant being a part of the system that created all that shit. In her own way, she had supported it all, hadn’t she?

Nyx took another pull on the bottle. Without God or the bel dames, she wasn’t so sure what she was anymore. Maybe that was all right.

In the end, she refused Fatima’s offer, then called Anneke and told her it was time to blow the place. But when Anneke and the kids ran, they couldn’t tell Nyx where they were going. Nyx knew that when she called. When she set it all into motion. She knew she’d give up her home, the kids, Radeyah, and everything she built, and kill a good many people besides, when she took this note.

But it wasn’t taking the note that was so bad. Or calling Anneke, or even giving everything up. Even trekking across the desert, bleeding out magicians, killing women, watching Eshe die, no… that was all just what you had to do to survive. The worst part of a fight was always afterward, when you could hear the screams of your injured opponent, and the snarling crowd; when you felt your own chest filling with fluid, and snorted great gobs of coppery blood. The worst part was when you realized it was all over, but you weren’t dead yet.

Nyx took another pull.