“They’re thugs, not angels. Call them what they are.”

“It’s what the people call them. It’s who will come for you if you don’t listen to sense.”

“It’s what Ras Tiegans call them,” Eshe said.

“Aren’t you Ras Tiegan?” She hated the way it came out—pleading. She had wanted to believe they were alike, in some ways. And more—she wanted to believe he could be saved. But her hardships were not like his. A dead brother, murdered parents, broken family—these were small things to a Nasheenian-raised street boy who had been grown in some coastal compound and farmed out to a dozen different house mothers as a source of cheap labor and cheaper sex.

“I wanted to be,” he said.

“Eshe….”

“You know how that priest died?”

“The one before the one you killed last night? Yes. You stabbed him. Repeatedly.”

“I walked in on him and Isabet. You know, the one you sent in to do some talking. One rich person to another. Trouble is, she’s just a girl to them, not anybody with clout, and they treated her like it. He was so fast on her she didn’t make a sound. When I got there he’d wrapped a bag around her head and started beating her. Tell me words would have fixed that, Inaya.”

Inaya felt something inside of her harden. It was a twisted game she played, and some days, she felt terrible guilt over it. “I have seen horrible things here too, Eshe.”

“Tell me words would have fixed it!”

“The right words would have.”

“You’re full of shit.”

“Maybe so. I just don’t think Nasheen’s way of doing things is going to work here.”

“We are Nasheenian.”

“I’m not,” Inaya said. She was many things, but not… like those women.

“Nyx got things done.”

“She’s just a killer.”

“So am I.”

Inaya slapped him.

It happened so suddenly she didn’t realize she’d done it until she pulled her hand away. The color drained from his face. He stared dumbly at her. She wasn’t certain which of them was more shocked.

“Go back to that bloody place then,” she said. “And see what mercy God will grant you.”

“You’ll lose your war if you fight it nice,” Eshe said. She saw his eyes fill.

Her heart broke.

He turned away, and opened the door.

She immediately regretted it. All of it. The words, the violence. “I’m sorry, Eshe. Don’t go. Let me explain.”

He rubbed at his eyes with his sleeve. His face was red and wet. “You’ll lose and you’ll all die here.”

“God bless you, Eshe.”

“Fuck you. And fuck your maggoty little parrot, too. You’re a married fucking woman, Inaya.”

He slammed the door behind him.