Swift pauses, but when she speaks, it’s the word I know she wants to use. “Magnificently,” she says, and there’s so much sick pride in it that I start to feel a little nauseous. Of course the attack on the Nereid was about killing Durga. But more than that, Swift’s essentially confessed that Durga’s illness was arranged. That suffering, that inhumane end to her life—it was all orchestrated under Santa Elena’s command. A fury alights in me, but there’s nothing I can do about it with the kids watching.

Pima chooses that moment to wake. She stirs in her sling and lets out a vicious, piercing cry. Saul’s attention immediately shifts from the money to the squalling baby, and I feel a twinge of sympathy. I got off easy with Bao. He only took a month or so to mature to the point where he didn’t need my supervision. I can’t imagine years in that situation.

Saul bounces her up and down, lifting her from her sling so that he can cradle her closer and croon soft words against her head until she calms. I wish that worked with Reckoner pups. It’s such a pity they aren’t cuddly.

I don’t realize I’m staring until Swift tugs the cuffs, snapping my attention back to her. “So, uh,” she starts.

“I … ”

“This … this is where I come from.” She shrugs. “It’s not much, but y’know. It’s home.”

“It’s nice.”

“Bullshit.”

“Heard that,” Saul warns. “Teresa, Eva, you two get gone. You’ve gotten a chance to greet your big sister, now give her a chance to rest. Be back for dinner, okay?”

The two girls nod and scamper off, banging the corrugated metal door shut behind them. The sound startles a mound of blankets in one of the hammocks that shifts to reveal the wizened face of an elderly woman. She lifts her head, peering suspiciously from her nest. “Oh,” she croaks, her lips twisting. “You’re here.”

“I’m here, Oma,” Swift says, spreading her arms. My wrist goes along for the ride.

“Thought you’d run off for good this time and left us to starve. Like your mother.”

“Mom, let her rest,” Saul mutters from over by the stove as he prepares a bottle for the baby.

Swift smirks. “You know I’d never do that. If you got it in your head that I wasn’t coming home, you’d get up out of that bed and do something useful with yourself.”