the same with mullahs and magicians in Chenja. However, the queen isn’t paying you to take care of her internal security issue. She’s paying for a head, preferably attached to a living body.”
“More body swapping. I’m not keen on getting cut up over this note, but you know how that is. Wish I had my original womb. Bet I could get Yah Tayyib out of retirement to come and deal for it.”
“Why?”
“He liked it. Said it was shaped funny.”
Rhys quirked an eyebrow. “Shaped funny?”
“Yeah, some big word. Biocurate. Biocarbonate. Bicoital. Something.”
“Bicornuate,” Rhys said. “A heart-shaped uterus.”
“What?”
“Most wombs are balloon-shaped. Bicornuate wombs are heart-shaped.” He used his fingers to draw a picture in the air of a stylized heart. “Makes delivery more difficult. It’s best you had it replaced.”
“No shit? I should have sold it for a lot more. I knew a kid who made good money selling mutant organs to magicians.” She moved her hand back over the menu. “What are you eating?”
Rhys looked down at the table and dithered over his choices. “Why doesn’t anyone in this country serve fish?”
“Unclean animals. All that water.”
“That’s the silliest thing I’ve ever heard. Fish farming is a highly lucrative business in Chenja.”
The bar matron finally came over, looking like she was trying real hard not to stare at Rhys. Nyx stared at her instead. The bar matron brought them beer—local stuff—without them asking, the way Nyx would have been served water at the coast. Nyx remembered some things from the coast, little snatches. She’d spent the first three years of her life there, but most of her memories were of inoculation regimens: blinking syringes, yellow fluid, the stink of sulphur.
“None for him,” Nyx said. “Can you bring him tea?”
The matron moved to take away his beer.
“No, I’ll drink that too,” Nyx said. “Can I get something with a lot of meat? Like a slab of dog and some curried sweet potatoes?”
Rhys grimaced. “Soup, please,” he said. “The curried noodle. Do you have protein cakes?”
“Do I have what?” the matron asked.
He asked for that Chenjan shit at every inn, cafe, restaurant, and cantina Nyx had taken him to for the last six years. In Chenja, they served that woodchip-tasting crap with rice and some kind of brown sauce. When she was passing time across the border or as part of Raine’s crew, Nyx had fed that stuff to the dogs.
“Never mind,” Rhys said. “Just the soup and some bread. Plain bread.”
The matron nodded and left them.
Nyx took a slug of her beer and kept her eye on the front door. This was bel dame country, and the war vets at the bar had moved off. Word of a Chenjan man in a cafe would get around.
“I need to have Taite hack Raine’s com,” Nyx said. “I want to see how far the old man’s gotten on this one.”
“Do you want me to find out who the other mercenaries are on this note? I’m sure there’s a record at the Cage.”
“Call up Taite once we’re outside the filter and have him send Anneke and Khos to do that. I want that information in a file when we get back to Punjai.”
“You think Khos will stay on?”
“I can’t afford to spend time looking for another shifter.”
Nyx heard the burst siren dying off. She felt her body start to unwind. Fucking siren.
Then she heard someone snicker.
It was a very familiar snicker.
Nyx had kept an eye on the front door, but the two women had come in the back.
Rasheeda was older—not as beautiful as Nyx remembered, though that wasn’t because of her age. Warm, crinkle-eyed, matronly women were some of the most sought-after bed partners in Nasheen. But Rasheeda lacked the warmth.
Rasheeda was still shrugging her shoulders, shivering, as if she had just finished shifting. Luce stood next to her, head just reaching Rasheeda’s shoulder. She had a grim little face.
Nyx leaned back in her chair. She saw Rhys’s hands twitch toward his pistols. It was illegal to kill a bel dame, but using whatever force necessary short of killing to subdue them in self-defense was all right. Bel dames were tough to kill.
Nyx knew.
Rasheeda kicked one of the chairs around and sat backward on it, folding her arms over the headrest. Luce slouched in the chair next to her and let her burnous fall back to reveal the ivory hilts of her pistols. Rasheeda didn’t usually wear weapons—it made shifting easier, and she didn’t have to worry about losing anything when she made a quick escape. Not that Rasheeda being unarmed was any comfort. Nyx had watched her claw out women’s eyes and eat them.
Rasheeda snickered again.
“Small town,” Nyx said. “You two had your fill of the local boys?”
Luce hadn’t bedded a boy in her life. They made her nauseous, as Nyx recalled. Rasheeda usually just ate them.
“You had business with the queen,” Luce said.
“I did. And that business is none of yours.”
“Funny woman,” Rasheeda said. “You know we know all business.”
“The council asked us to tell you that working on this bounty isn’t in your best interest,” Luce said.
“Well, then, let me hang up my guns,” Nyx said. “You know what high regard I have for the council.” And some fucked-stupid queen who couldn’t keep bel dame bugs out of her palace. If the council had bugs in the palace, it meant the animosity between the queen and the council was a lot deeper than Nyx realized.
Not your problem, Nyx reminded herself. But staring into her sisters’ faces, she had a hard time figuring out why it wasn’t her problem if what she didn’t know ended up getting her killed.
“Drop the commission and Dahab won’t drop you,” Rasheeda said.
“Sister, where’s your sense of subtlety?” Nyx asked. “How about
The matron brought Rhys’s tea.
“Can I get a little green drink?” Rasheeda asked.
“What kind?” the matron asked.
“A Green Beetle,” Rasheeda said.
“That’s not their best drink,” Nyx said. “I recommend the Holiday Beetle. I’m sure you know it.”
Rhys sipped his tea. His other hand stayed near one of his pistols.
“Just drop the fucking bounty, Nyx,” Luce said. “The last time you pissed the council off, you lost everything, and you have a lot more to lose this time.”
Nyx took a pull of her beer. “I don’t drop notes.”
“It’s not a note,” Luce said. “You aren’t a bel dame. It’s a bounty. There’s no honor in bounties.”
“I know what I am. Does the council have you working actual notes, or are you just here to bully like a couple of border toughs?”
“We’re always working on notes,” Rasheeda said. She snapped her teeth at Rhys. “I ate a Chenjan just yesterday.”
“I hope you choked,” Rhys said.
“Keep your mouth locked, black man,” Rasheeda said. “My business isn’t with dumb bags or baby stealers.”
“Try to close it,” Rhys said.
Nyx grinned at that. She wanted to see Rhys shoot an organic target. He was a good shot.
“I heard you were fucking Chenjans,” Luce said, “but I didn’t believe it.”
