Perhaps he should have spat on her. He certainly would have done more than that if he knew the last remedy she’d given him was to deliberately inflame his symptoms, enough that it should be some time before he had the ability to partake in the activities that had resulted in the ailment to begin with.

Served him right, the rat bastard.

“We won’t get in your way,” Naari said in a cool voice.

“Better not,” Harlow said. “And don’t youse bother my workers none, either. I ain’t payin’ ’em to slack off.” He laughed suddenly, one hand clutching his barreled stomach as he arched his back and guffawed. “Payin’ ’em? Ha! Imagine that!”

Kiva shared a look with Naari, whose expression was equally repulsed.

“We won’t stay long,” Naari said, though whether that was to Kiva or Harlow, Kiva was unsure.

“Youse can stay as long as youse want, just not down in the quarry,” Harlow said. He eyed them both and licked his lips. “Youse can come down in my quarry anytime. In fact, why don’t we—”

“We won’t stay long,” Naari repeated firmly, her lip curling with disgust. She turned on her heel and, with a pointed look at Kiva to follow, strode purposefully away from Harlow. The last Kiva saw of the repugnant overseer as they crested the lip of the quarry was him scratching his crotch, and the image had her biting back a laugh.

“He’s a pig,” Naari said as she came to a stop to look down over the choppy, layered vista spread out into the distance.

“He’s worse than a pig,” Kiva said. Deliberating for a second, she quietly added, “But if it makes you feel any better, he’s suffering in silence as we speak.”

When Naari looked at her in question, Kiva shared about Harlow’s condition and the newest remedy she’d prescribed him. The guard laughed so hard that she had to wipe tears from her eyes.

“Remind me never to get on your bad side,” Naari said, still chuckling.

“He deserves it,” Kiva said.

“That he does,” Naari agreed. She waved at the view before them and said, “I don’t want to give him a chance to come and hassle us, so where to from here?”

Kiva chewed her cheek, considering. The topmost layers of the quarry had already been mined so that there was now a significant—and sheer—drop down to where the prisoners were chiseling away at the lower edges of the pit. The land itself was an arid gray, but shimmers caught in the light every so often, hints of the glittery luminium threading through the stone.

“Why don’t we just follow the path until we hit the bottom, and I’ll find some places to take samples once we’re closer to the workers?” Kiva finally said.