“The dictation sessions,” Rhys said. “Taite told me he was keeping them to see if he could get any names you wanted.” Taite wouldn’t have known what Rhys had kept.
Nyx grimaced. “And I bet I have a real good idea where they ended up.”
Rhys pressed his hands to his face. There was only one person Taite would have given the dictation sessions to. Why else would he have sent her here?
“God be merciful,” Rhys muttered.
“Inaya better hope so,” Nyx said, “cause if He’s not, Raine is headed right for us.”
25
Nyx had Khos carry her into the bombed-out building he and Rhys had found on the south side of the city. She didn’t like being carried, but she didn’t like the idea of walking any better. She had him put her down on a tattered divan, and when Anneke was done bringing up the gear, they started playing cards while Rhys and Khos went to go pick up Inaya.
Nyx didn’t want to make any decisions until she could recognize her own face in a mirror. She needed to run a swap for Taite, she just didn’t know what kind. Raine wouldn’t have asked about transmissions unless Taite had told him they existed, and there was only one person Taite would give those to without ratting her out by name.
She heard them on the stairs before she saw them but didn’t look up when Inaya arrived.
Inaya came in yelling, quite a thing considering she had just come up four flights of stairs.
“You bring my brother back, you black bitch,” Inaya said. She was still pretty. Fat and dirty, yes, but pretty.
“Black?” Nyx said. “I’m not black.”
“—or I swear to every saint—”
“Cockroach brown,” Anneke said. She crowned her king, and swapped Nyx for an ace.
“—I’ll tear out your heart—”
“Cheap whiskey brown,” Anneke said. “We always end up with three extra aces. Who does that, huh?”
“—and strip out your bones—”
“I like being cheap,” Nyx said. “Anneke’s the black one. What’s this? Did you just steal my king?”
“—from your skin and grind them—”
“That’s an illegal move. What are you talking about?” Anneke said.
“I’m just saying you’re pretty dark.”
“—and grind them. You hear me? Grind them—”
“What’s this? I told you, look at it, that’s another ace. That’s five aces in this deck.”
“—into flour and pound you into bread!”
“Are you done making dinner?” Nyx asked Inaya. Bread sounded real good about now. Food of any kind sounded good. What sounded less good was getting yelled at by some dumb pregnant Ras Tiegan. She took back her king and swapped out another ace. “I win,” she said.
Anneke pounded the table.
Inaya’s face was flushed. It wasn’t often Nyx saw anybody that color. Inaya kept her fists clenched. “I swear—”
“I heard that already. Sit down before you bust something.”
“Nyx,” Rhys said. He moved protectively toward Inaya, which just pissed off Nyx more. He called Nyx godless, but Taite’s sister with her Ras Tiegan bastard of a kid was virtuous?
“It’s fine,” Nyx said.
Inaya didn’t sit, but started clutching at her belly. She clenched her teeth and started huffing through her nose.
“Yeah, hey, sit, would you?” Nyx said. A sudden sense of alarm sped through her. Pregnancy. Babies. Oh, fuck.
Rhys went over to Inaya and helped her sit. Her whole body went taut, and she cried out.
“Oh, shit,” Nyx said.
Rhys put a palm to Inaya’s belly. “How long?” he asked.
She thrashed on the couch, then went still, came back. “I don’t know.”
“That’s all right.” He looked at Nyx. “We’ll need a midwife.”
“With what money?” Nyx held up her right hand. “I’m still missing fingers and you think we can afford a midwife?”
“We won’t find a respectable Chenjan woman who would do it,” Khos said. “I could take her back to the brothel. It’ll be tricky, but they know about babies.”
“Don’t worry about it,” Anneke said, rolling up her sleeves. “I’ll do it.”
“What do you know about babies?” Nyx asked.
“My mom was a breeder, remember? Multiples are hard. Singles are easy.” She eyed Inaya over. “I gotta have help, and Nyx ain’t doing it.”
Inaya’s eyes widened, and Nyx remembered she was Ras Tiegan. Modesty and all that. Worse than Chenjans.
But the white girl grabbed Rhys’s hand, looked him in the face. “Taite trusts you,” she said. “Help me.”
“Sure then,” Anneke said, and started waving around her hands. “You and Khos wait outside, Nyx. Rhys?”
“I’ll heat some water,” Rhys said.
Oh, hell, Nyx thought.
Nyx and Khos sat in the main room and played cards and smoked a cheap cigar. They listened to Inaya shrieking. The room was stifling. The two of them swapped a sweat rag to wipe the damp from their faces. A swarm of flies circled at the center of the room.
At dusk, Khos went out and brought back food for everyone. Inaya was still shrieking when he got back.
Khos leaned toward Nyx over the remains of dinner, and whispered, “You think she’ll die?”
“No more likely than with any other woman who gives birth.” She traded one of her cards. “Kid might die, though. No inoculations.” She had promised Taite inoculations, she realized, back when she believed they’d all live to bring in this note. She looked at her mangled right hand. She already knew they wouldn’t make it out whole.
“But women still die doing it, right, even in Nasheen and Chenja?”
“Of course, yeah. What, you thought this was going to be a party?”
“What about Taite?”
“I don’t think he’s coming.”
Khos grimaced. “I mean, what will you do about him?”
“We don’t have anything to trade for him.” There was a lot going on with this note, and she was far enough behind to know that she was the player working with the least amount of information. It was a dangerous place to be. It got you mutilated. And dead.
“We know where to find Nikodem, or at least where to start,” Khos said.
“Yeah, but we don’t have her yet. I want you and Rhys to go to the waterworks tomorrow and ask around.”
“You want to get her first?”
“I think trading Nikodem for Taite is a safer deal.” And it would give her time to decipher the dictations and interrogate Nikodem when they found her. Trading Nikodem away without getting any information left her with exactly nothing…
Inaya let out a long, low sound of distress. It was worse than the shrieking.
“She sounds like she’s going to die,” Khos said.
“Well, it happens.”
“How can that be natural?”
