“Catshit,” Nyx said. “There have been ceasefires before. One of them lasted twenty years. The war’s not ending. No such thing as peace. Somebody’s paying for my head. Who?”

“There’s no bounty, Nyx. And the war is ending.”

Anneke grimaced. “Ease off. Eshe sent a message and vouched for her.” Anneke reached for an empty glass sitting on the sandy stone of the yard and poured a drink. Nyx hadn’t noticed the drinks before. How long had this sweet-tongued diplomat been lapping at Anneke’s ear?

“Oh, Eshe the Ras Tiegan rogue called, did he?” Nyx said. “Well, let in every wandering creeper who caught his eye, then.” Then, to Mercia: “Who sent you? Bel dames? Queen? Your slick diplomat mother?”

“My mother’s dead,” Mercia said.

“Well, sorry about your mother,” Nyx said. She wasn’t sorry at all, in fact. She had never liked Mercia’s mother, but the old cat bitch’s death likely put Mercia next in line on someone’s hit list.

“You don’t listen to the news?” Mercia asked.

“Not if I can help it,” Nyx said. She hadn’t sought out news of home in three years. All the news was the bloody same. “I’m not in Nasheenian security anymore. I don’t give a cat’s piss for politics. So tell me why you’re here or go home.”

“I’m Ambassador sa Aldred until my mother’s replacement is appointed,” Mercia said. “Things in Nasheen are very bad.”

“Things in Nasheen have always been bad.”

“And there is good money to be made when things are bad.”

Anneke thrust a glass of whiskey at Nyx. Nyx considered it. She eyed the bodyguards again. “You want to talk? Send them back outside.” She nodded to the guards.

“No way in hell,” the smaller of the two guards said.

“I could shoot you now,” Nyx said.

“Please wait in the bakkie,” Mercia said.

“I have to respectfully—” the bigger one began.

“I said wait there.”

The bodyguards mulled for a bit. Then started for the gate. Nyx kept her gun trained on them. The bigger one eyed Nyx as she passed, said, “We’ll burn this place down you do anything to her.”

“It’ll be a little late then, won’t it?”

The woman bared her teeth.

When the gate was closed behind them, Nyx lowered her gun.

“Nasheen is on the brink of revolution,” Mercia said. “There are discharged boys with nothing to do but start fights and steal bread. Women are running raids on their own into Chenja, in defiance of the ceasefire. The bel dames… I have never seen them so openly hostile to their own people. The streets are bloody. Bloodier than I’ve seen them, and I spent half my life in Nasheen. I’ve had three bodyguards murdered in as many months.”

“What does this have to do with me?”