Inaya spared a glance upward as she walked. Inside, the light of the lamps along the aisles was low, so above, the stars were visible. This far south, the sky was as crowded as it ever got, with bold pinpricks of light from far-off places. She wondered, sometimes, what would happen if she truly let go. Just how far and fast she could travel when she broke her body down to its smallest parts. What were all of them, really, but bits of something else? Bits of stars?

She wanted to build a better world. So why did so many others want to keep it just the same?

She stepped into the humid night air. A drizzling rain fell, and scattered clumps of rotten leaves clotted the drains along either side of the cobbled way. Two more priests with drawn swords stood outside. As she passed, both murmured, “Go with God.”

“God bless,” she said. She closed her long coat over her habit, tightly binding her body against the rain, and the stares from passersby, and stepped out onto the muddy street, alone.

12.

Nyx dreamed of bloody bel dames storming her seaside compound in Druce. She saw Anneke’s children’s faces mutilated, Anneke’s twisted body broken in the courtyard, and a blood-spattered trail leading upstairs, to Nyx’s bedroom. And there, at the top of the stairs, lay not the body of her lover, not the woman she had kept from Mercia and the bel dames, not the woman she was murdering blameless bodyguards to protect—the woman who loved the sea and tolerated Nyx and her monstrous history—but beautiful Rhys, his handless arms reaching out to her, the expression on his face a strange mix of horror and recognition.

“You can’t hide from them. They’ll come for everything you love,” he said. “The way they came for me.”

And she woke up.

The world was still dark. It was at least an hour from morning prayer. She was covered in a thin film of sweat, and every part of her body was taut, alert, flooded with adrenaline. There would be no more sleep for her.

You’re a bloody fucking fool, she thought. The world will trash everything you care about. She had to let them go. The way she’d let everything else go. The way she’d let Rhys go.

Nyx rolled off the cot she kept in her office and walked into the back where Eshe had his pallet. He was still there, sleeping soundly, one arm thrown over his face. But the pallet opposite him—Ahmed’s place—was empty.

Nyx found Ahmed in the kitchen, already awake, his com gear carefully laid out on a blanket on the floor. He was packing each item neatly into his pack.

“Thought you might be gone,” she said.

“Where would I go?”

“Right,” Nyx said.

“Is everything… all right?”