queen’s globe.
Danika grimaced. “Boxing, yes. A bit of parting vulgarity for Nikodem during her last visit. She has a peculiar obsession with violence.”
“Does she?” Nyx said, interested.
“Why is it you are not taking notes?” Solome asked.
“I was trained as a bel dame,” Nyx said. “We don’t take notes.” What she didn’t say was that she learned everything by rote because she was dead dumb with books. It was why she could still recite the Kitab by heart nearly two decades after she’d last picked one up.
“Then this man is not your assistant? Is he a magician?” Solome asked, and Nyx watched her eyes. It was a hungry look, but not one of physical desire. She hadn’t looked at him much until now.
“I have some training with bugs,” Rhys said, “My practicing license is provisional.”
“On what?” Solome asked.
“On my being employed with a local hunter or bel dame,” Rhys said.
“I find this ability to manipulate organisms through will alone fascinating,” Solome said. “We have tried to replicate it in our system, but… The ability to alter pheromones, to… effectively reprogram insects at the cellular level, seems to be something innate, peculiar to this world.”
“It’s inherited,” Nyx said, “like shape shifting.”
“It was not something we carried with us from the moons,” Rhys said.
Nyx, startled, looked at him. “Where’d you hear that?”
He shrugged. “My father was a hobby historian.”
Solome said something in a bizarre syrupy language to Danika. Danika nodded and replied in the same language.
Solome said, “Perhaps you could tell us of your father. We’re much interested in those with knowledge of this world. Most Nasheenian libraries and records were burned or culled during one of your many wars.”
“My father is dead,” Rhys said.
“Ah,” Solome said, “a small tragedy, but not unexpected. How is it you tolerate living in the country of your enemies?”
Nyx watched him.
Rhys did not look at her but met Solome’s steady gaze. “I am a political refugee. Nasheen tolerates my presence because I am a magician.”
“Tirhan cherishes magicians and shifters alike, does it not?” Solome asked. “Surely that country, being one only recently estranged from Chenja, would have been a better fit for one such as you.”
“Nasheen was… closer,” Rhys said carefully. Nyx saw him start to play with his hands. Such a good liar, until he had to lie about himself.
“Anyhow, Tirhan split from Chenja two hundred years ago,” Nyx said. “The split isn’t exactly new. Don’t they speak some southern dialect?”
“They know Chenjan,” Solome said. “Chenja allows them passes to visit their martyr’s grave each year.”
Nyx had heard something about that at some bug party back in bel dame training. Rhys was still playing with his hands.
“Tell me,” Solome said, leaning in slightly now, suddenly a bit more animated. “This sixth prayer of yours, what is its purpose? No other followers of your book have a midnight prayer.”
“The midnight prayer—” Rhys began, but Nyx had had enough talk of religion.
“Tell me more about Nikodem and her love of violence,” Nyx said.
Solome settled back into her chair again.
“I wouldn’t call it a love,” Danika said, picking up for Solome. “Perhaps a peculiar obsession. In our country, on New Kinaan, we are born into our classes. Nikodem was born to a scholarly class, organic sciences. She wished she had been born one of God’s soldiers.”
“It’s overrated,” Nyx said.
Danika knit her brows.
“Never mind,” Nyx said. “You say she wanted to see the boxers?”
“Nikodem asked the court’s lead magician, Yah Hadeel, to arrange for her to see a fight before we departed. The only one that fit into our schedule was the fight in Faleen. It was a dull thing.”
“I was at that fight,” Nyx said. “I heard she talked to the boxers.”
Solome made a noise of distress.
Danika shushed her. “I let her speak to them.”
Solome snapped something in their language, and Nyx rearranged the women’s hierarchy in her mind.
“She spoke to both boxers before the fight,” Danika said. “She was very interested in why they would choose to get hit in the face.”
“There’s good money in boxing,” Nyx said.
“In our country,” Keran piped up, tugging at the fingers of her gloves, cutting off all the ends of her words with rolling “shhhh” sounds, “the State ensures that all are employed and cared for. One need not resort to violence.”
“Uh-huh,” Nyx said. The sand was always cleaner just over the next dune. These women were reminding her more and more of First Family matrons. “So if your world’s so sweet, what are the lot of you doing out here collecting bug tech?”
All three women stilled. There was an uncomfortable moment of silence. Then Danika looked at Solome, and Keran reached for her cold tea with her gloved hands.
“We have an interest in all of God’s worlds,” Solome said. “Nikodem more than most. Surely you trust the judgment of your queen—God’s appointed leader of your world?”
“I wouldn’t take her purported divine right to the title that far,” Rhys said.
“What about the magicians you met up with here at the palace?” Nyx said, before Rhys started derailing them again. “You sure Nikodem ran and wasn’t kidnapped? Not every magician on the Queen’s payroll is clean.”
Altruism. Shared resources. Catshit. It wasn’t only their intentions they were lying about. Some of the fact- by-fact reporting may have been because Danika had told the story so often, but Nyx wasn’t betting on it, not with some of the other answers they’d given her. Nikodem just “disappeared”? Went rogue? What kind of society trained and employed people based on genetics, had their own interstellar diplomacy school, and then “accidentally” lost one of their diplomats? Umayma was a long way to come for a couple of bugs and a boxing match.
But that’s none of your concern, she thought, and grimaced. She only needed the note. She needed Nikodem. It wasn’t her job to figure the intentions. That was for the queen and her security techs.
I hate this note already, Nyx thought.
“It’s true that the magicians understand the importance of our work,” Danika said. “It’s possible that one of them could have approached her once she left Mushtallah, but I don’t believe a magician would take such a risk. Those who were aware of her talents would understand her importance to your country and the disastrous consequences if she was acquired by your rivals.”
“So she disappeared from here, not from Faleen?”
“Oh yes,” Danika said. “Queen Zaynab’s security bugs recorded her departure.”
“Footage can be doctored,” Nyx said, turning to Rhys. “Right?”
“It can,” Rhys said. He looked back at Kasbah. “Can we view it?”
“I’ve had that footage uploaded to your globe,” Kasbah said from her place near the door, but she looked at Rhys as she said it, which was odd for a Nasheenian security tech. When you wanted to put black boys in their place, you talked to their owners—or employers—not to them.
“I would need to see the originals,” Rhys said.
“Can we do that?” Nyx asked.
“I can authorize that,” Kasbah said.
“Great,” Nyx said. She stood and nodded to the aliens. “Thanks. I can contact you here if I have any other questions?”
“Certainly,” Danika said. “A contact pattern has been designated for us and uploaded to your globe. Kasbah
