“Obviously.” Nyx regarded them both again—lean, guarded, an army of two. “I feel so much better running off to retrieve a man with the women who lost him.”

“And I’m quite pleased to partner with a known traitor who slaughters bel dames and fucks Chenjans.”

Eskander said, “I told you—”

“Oh it’s fine, Khat,” Nyx said. “It’s all true. I murdered boys and babies, slaughtered my own brothers, blew up a hundred bel dames, and tried to fucking assassinate the Queen herself. All true. All but the fucking Chenjans part. That’s just a bit much, isn’t it?”

Nyx walked out. She heard Eskander speaking again, empty words about how much they needed to impress Fatima. Nyx had a lot more to chew on now. Fatima had been “guarding” Raine for some time, then. But why? And how the fuck did a bel dame lose somebody they were guarding? And why send this odd pair into the desert to find him with Nyx of all people? They weren’t top operatives, for sure, though Khat certainly had potential. No, Fatima wanted them out of the way. Or wanted to punish them. Any bel dame could hand over a schematic and tell Nyx to go north. This was something else.

Nyx met the others outside. She sat with Eshe and smoked a cigarette for a few minutes until Khatijah and Eskander joined them. Khatijah’s face was impassive again. Eskander was all smiles.

“Let’s get underway!” Eskander said. “We are ready.”

Nyx stepped into her own bakkie, one she had picked up for fifty notes from a hard-up former mullah with an addiction to military-grade sen. Eshe slid in beside her. Ahmed and Kage were in the back, separated by Kage’s big gun.

“Am I right in thinking that didn’t go well?” Ahmed said.

“Any time I step out of a room with another bel dame and my head’s still intact, it went well,” Nyx said.

Kage peered out the window, nose nearly touching the glass.

“Forget something, Kage?” Nyx asked.

“No,” she said, but did not move her head.

“Great,” Nyx said. “Let’s see how far we get before the road runs out.”

She put a lot of confidence in her voice, but she was still thinking about her dream, and the mangled, inscrutable faces of the women on her team. The job was simple. They always sounded so fucking simple. Find a kidnapped politician. Return him before the boys rose up against the Queen. Return him, alive, before the blood.

The sorry truth was, though—she couldn’t remember the last bounty she brought in alive. And she feared this one would be no different. She was getting the feeling that that’s why Fatima had hired her for the job, and that didn’t sit well with her at all.

Eshe turned on the radio.

13.