Those were the ones she worried about most. The heroes. Heroes were unpredictable. They’d be the most likely to die in the desert, throwing themselves to some unnecessary death to save some damn fool. When you hired a mercenary, you didn’t want to hire a hero. You wanted men and women with guns who liked living enough to use them.

She took a break for midday meal, which suited the men in the queue just fine, as they dispersed for noon prayer. She ate up on the roof, watching the men wander off. She noted that one of them did not—a hunched beggar sitting against the cracked tile of the building across from hers. She resolved to keep an eye on him.

That night, discouraged, she settled into the bare office, and lay under the desk in case the bursts started again and the roof fell in. Habit.

Tomorrow would be a long day. If Fatima knew she was back in Nasheen, other people would too. They would come searching for her. She needed to move quickly, before too many people found out she was back in the country.

Nyx slept lightly.

When she heard a scraping at the door, she woke instantly. The pale blue dawn had turned the world gray. Nyx saw the light cutting through the slats of the shuttered windows. She listened.

More scraping, scrabbling at the front door, like somebody was trying to circumvent the security. Nyx came up in a crouch. She drew her scattergun and padded into the reception room. She waved her hand in front of the door before remembering it was the old-fashioned solid kind, not a smart door like her store in Mushtallah.

She unlatched the door and yanked it open. Pushed her scattergun out ahead of her.

The scattergun snapped a young man right in the center of his forehead. The man flailed back, grabbing at his face.

“Get going before I put a bullet in it!” Nyx said.

The man stumbled off the stoop, peering at her through splayed fingers. He snorted something. Like a laugh.

“You couldn’t hit a bakkie at that distance,” he said, and snickered again. She recognized him then—the petulant mouth, the slightly bent spine.

“Eshe?” Nyx said.

He pulled his hands away.

“Shame you didn’t get prettier,” Nyx said, holstering her pistol.

“You aren’t exactly beddable either,” Eshe said.

“I know some folks might argue that point.” She glanced left, right, down the misty street. The stink of munitions was still heavy in the air. “Get the fuck inside before some other old woman shoots you.”

Eshe woke to the pungent aroma of frying dog meat. The smell was intoxicating. Getting over the Nasheenian border meant shifting, and he was still starving for meat. There was never enough protein in the world after a few days in form.