“We had an assignment. One with clear goals. Those goals did not involve killing a priest. Or attending his wake. It would have gone more smoothly without you.”

“And you’d be dead,” he said. “Sounds like a success all around.”

Isabet pursed her mouth. Though he resented the soft, pale skin she presented to the world, he admitted that it gave her a striking appearance. Someone only got skin that soft by spending most of their life behind a filter, away from the harsh light of the suns. He hadn’t spent enough time around rich people to get used to it. Seeing her wealth in her face was… distracting.

As he gazed at Isabet now, Eshe wondered if anyone had ever forced her to do anything, or if she’d just run off to join the Madame’s little shape shifter rebellion to get back at her mother for refusing her some trinket. No one had asked her to join the war for God. Or farmed her out to strange women to raise. Or sold her body to war vets.

Memories of his less than pleasant Nasheenian childhood stirred. He tried hard to focus on the present. The present was always better than the past. He thought of Corinne again.

“Would you stop staring at me?” Isabet said. He saw her cheeks color.

Eshe turned away. “I can’t help it if you’re distracting,” he said. He would have never looked at a Nasheenian woman the way he often looked at Isabet. He would have gotten a fist in the face, or a lewd offer.

“Perhaps I should wear a burqua like some Chenjan. Would that dissuade you? No, I’m sure. You’d mishandle a Chenjan woman just the same. I know your type.”

“Don’t insult me.”

“It’s no matter. The half-formed opinions of half-breed boys do not concern me, no,” she said.

“You get that mouth in etiquette class?”

Her look was all oily fire. He wondered if that was the look he’d get for asking her to bed. He half-thought to find out, but saw movement from the corner of his eye.

A wave of black roaches burst from the lip of the grave and streamed into the crowd. Mourners clutched at one another. They joined the priests in a new prayer, one about being nearer to God. The priests took up positions around the grave and raised their hands. The sword-bearer jerked out of his doze and stepped forward.

An ear-piercing scream came from the grave—too high-pitched to be human. It was something bordering on the edge of a cicada’s whine.