She hissed and bared her teeth at the bel dame. “No. You want someone’s head. A bloody fucking impossible one, if you’re willing to wake me up.”

“It’s not yours I want. If anyone wanted your head, we’d have taken it a long time ago.”

“It’s not your kind that captured me,” she said. “I was far too clever for you.”

“Nor my kind who keeps you,” the bel dame said, cocking her head at the sisters. “So you’ve nothing to revenge yourself on with me. No… you have another group all together to revenge yourself on, yes?”

“Who do you want?”

“We’ll come to that. But first I need to know if you’re capable of protecting us again.”

“You know I am.”

“Good. I have a target for you.” The bel dame rubbed her hands together, opened them. A grainy blue-gray mist appeared between her hands, and took the shape of a woman. In that moment, she wondered if her impression of this bel dame was correct. There were no bel dame magicians. Shifters, yes, but no magicians. I still have no sense of her, she thought. The blindness was crippling. Like being half a person. Demimonde, the Ras Tiegans said. She had had a Ras Tiegan lover once, hadn’t she? A bitter girl with a fragile heart.

“You see this woman?” the bel dame magician said.

“I’ve seen many women.”

“I want her dead.”

“That’s all?”

“That’s all. She exiled herself sometime after her… retirement. Few know where, but with the pardoning of so many criminals, there are a good many powerful ones on their way back to Nasheen. They will have old scores to settle with her. I have it on good authority that she’s conspiring to make trouble for the Families.”

She laughed. “What is she, a mutant? A rogue conjurer?” She leaned forward, bared her teeth. “Tell me something nasty came down from the moons. One of those organic demons, or a blood djinn—”

The bel dame shook her head. “She’s just a woman.”

“You would wake me for… a woman? Just a woman?”

“There is far more than one head at stake. But I must see if your… rehabilitation has been effective.”

“To see if you can control me?”

The bel dame did not answer.

She laughed. “Does she have a name?”

“Do you?”

“I suppose I must.”

“And does it matter?”

“Not now.”

“I’m counting on it.” The bel dame slapped her hands together, and the mist cleared.

“I’ll get you more information after your deprocessing. You and her will have some things in common. Hard to catch. And powerful. Far too smart for your own good. You understand?”

“Send a monster to kill a monster.”