“Protection? You mean Haj?”
Mahrokh looked up at him. “You know of Haj?”
Khos felt his cheeks flush. He tugged at the hood of his burnous in an attempt to hide his face. Why did he still react like that, after all this time among women? Haj, who knew something about Nyx and just enough about Inaya—and too much about him.
“I’ve met her,” Khos said. “How much do you know about her?”
“She’s quiet. Since she’s sympathetic to the cause, I assume she lost a man at the front. All of us have.”
“What do you know about who she runs with?”
“Those she uses to protect us?”
“Yes.”
Mahrokh shrugged. “Very little. Mostly Nasheenian women, as she is. They’re reliable, efficient, effective.”
“Could you ask around? Tell me what you can find out about her?”
“Certainly. Does she concern you?”
“I’m just interested. Thank you, Mahrokh.” Khos finished his tea and stood. “Would you like me to walk you to your street?”
“No, no. I know my streets far better than you do. I’ll finish my tea.”
He reached for the rectangular package, and tucked it under his arm. He bowed his head to Mahrokh. “Take care. And remember what I said about being cautious.”
“I am always cautious, my Mhorian.”
Khos walked back onto the street, through the cluster of children. They held out their hands to him as he passed and called to him in Chenjan. He had no money to spare, or he would have spilled it into their hands. Looked into every beaming face, and thought of his boy.
Tirhan. On the other side of the continent. The end of the desert.
The way to the safe house was long, and by the time he arrived, the package was starting to stink. His stomach knotted.
Khos went up the narrow stairs. As he climbed, the air got hotter and closer until he longed for a window, a breeze, a view of the ocean. When was the last time he’d seen the ocean? He pushed into the room.
Nyx sat on the divan with her feet curled up under her. Her cropped hair was loose. She had just washed it. She and Anneke sat over a set of what looked like blueprints for a residence. Anneke was scribbling things onto the margins.
Khos set the box down in front of Nyx, on top of the map.
Nyx stared at the box.
“What the fuck is this?” she asked.
“From the brothel mistress. Addressed to you.”
Anneke grimaced.
Nyx reached for the box and pulled off the brown paper. The stink coming from the box got stronger.
“Shit,” Nyx said, and yanked the lid free.
Inside was a severed hand lying in a pool of blackish congealed blood.
No note, this time.
Khos looked away. “What are you going to trade for him?”
“Throw that out,” Nyx told Anneke. She thrust the box at her.
Anneke frowned at it. “Better not tell Inaya.”
“She’s sleeping?” Khos asked.
Anneke nodded.
Khos looked toward Inaya’s door, and the worry crept up on him again. A stupid promise he’d made, to protect a woman who did not want his protection, but a woman who had nothing in the world now. He could buy her freedom, and his, but he feared that would cut her heart far worse than losing her boy to the front when he came of age. Khos wasn’t so sure he liked his solution either.
“I don’t give a shit about Inaya right now,” Nyx said. Anneke took the box outside. “We need Nikodem to trade for Taite. If we’re going together, we need to go now. I can walk well enough. I’ve waited too long.”
“You’re just going to let Taite die?” Khos asked.
“Nobody’s dead yet. Did you hear what I said?”
“He
Nyx regarded him as if he were an annoying insect, something she’d found plastered to the bottom of her sandal. “Have some faith.”
Khos clenched his fists. “In what? You? You don’t even have faith in yourself.”
“Remind me again, did I renew your contract?”
Khos walked away from her, and sat in a ratty chair. Too small for him. Nothing fit him in any country.
Anneke returned and squatted next to Nyx. “If he ain’t already dead, boss, we should bring him in like we brought you in. Fair’s fair.”
“Life isn’t fair,” Nyx said.
As he looked at Nyx, at her mutilated hand and scarred legs, Khos realized that Rhys, her shadow, wasn’t in the room. Unless Rhys had gone out for food, that made him late from his trip to Bahreha. Khos looked again at Nyx and tried to read her. Was she worried about her tardy magician? Or did she care as little for him as she did for the rest of them? They had risked their lives to go after her, pitted themselves against bel dames. But she sat here on the divan and refused to bring back Taite? It’ll be me who has to tell Mahdesh, he thought. Me who has to tell him his lover is dead.
And Khos would be the one left with Inaya.
“So lay this out for me again,” Nyx said to Anneke.
“Low security up front,” Anneke said, pointing to the hand-drawn blueprints on the table. She’d been running recon since Khos and Rhys came back from the waterworks. “The back has an emergency exit. The alarm’s working, so we can get out, but our getaway needs to be right outside the door, ’cause if security don’t know we’re there by then, they’ll know once that alarm goes. Nikodem has magicians with her. All the time. Mid week, all but one of her magicians goes out to socialize at the local boxing gym. That’s the best time to move.”
“When does she go out with the magicians?” Khos asked. “Just during fights, like when we saw her?” Nikodem would get them Taite. He needed to keep his mind on the fucking note.
“So far as I can tell,” Anneke said. “It’s not like I’ve had a lot of time for recon, and you’ve been… occupied.”
“So once we get past the security at the desk, we need to separate Nikodem from her magician,” Nyx said.
Khos ignored Anneke. “That’s a tall order,” he said. “We don’t have a magician.”
“No, but Anneke and I have firepower and some bug repellent. It could give us the time we need.”
“How do you want to get in the back?” Anneke asked.
“We’ll go in the front.”
Khos shook his head. “How we going to get past security?”
“Trust me,” Nyx said.
Khos sighed. Trusting Nyx never turned out well.
From the other side of the door, Inaya’s son began to cry.
Evening prayer came and went, and Nyx found herself standing at the window of the main room, looking out over Dadfar through the lattice. Looking for Rhys.
Inaya crawled out of her room for the first time all day and sat with Anneke and the kid. She looked skinnier—and paler, if that was possible. Anneke fixed her some condensed milk and force-fed her a roti.
Khos walked up next to Nyx. “See him?”
“He’s tougher to see in the dark,” Nyx said, and smirked, but something clawed at her belly. Rhys was late. Very late. How long until Raine started to send him back in pieces too? She’d been a fool to send that stupid magician out on his own. A bloody fucking fool.
“He’ll be all right,” Khos said. “He’s a magician.”
