The third time under, she started to struggle, but Rasheeda had the advantage, and the cold was starting to muddle Nyx's head. Black ate away at her thoughts. It felt like descending into the bowels of Umayma. She opened her mouth to breathe, and sucked in cold water instead.

It went on for a long time. They hauled her out fully once or twice, left her gasping in the chair like a spent swimmer, asked her some questions that didn't make sense anymore, and then forced her back under.

Finally, Rasheeda got tired, or Fatima got tired. Probably Fatima.

Rasheeda hauled Nyx out of the water and let her chair fall sideways onto the floor, so Nyx had a watery view of Fatima's sandaled feet.

"Kine's papers," Fatima said. "I want them. Where are they? They belong in Nasheen, not here. You've run black work before. You think I'm a fool? Who did you sell them to?"

Rasheeda bent over and gazed into Nyx's face, blotting out the light. Nyx coughed up cold water. She shivered uncontrollably.

Fatima wrinkled her nose, said to Rasheeda. "Give me a couple of her fingers."

Rasheeda licked her lips. "I want her eyes."

Nyx's thoughts were dark and sticky. Fatima thinks I killed my sister. But Rasheeda killed my sister. Why doesn't Fatima know that Rasheeda killed my sister? Why was Rasheeda only slowing me down, but Dahab wanted to stop me?

Sticky thoughts. Black thoughts.

Something congealed. Rasheeda had slowed her down so she could kill Kine before Nyx got there. Rasheeda didn't have leave from the council to kill Nyx. Rasheeda was running something on her own. Fatima was doing clean bel dame work, retrieving stolen Nasheenian information she thought Nyx had. Fatima had no idea Rasheeda was running black.

"Let's save the eyes for later," Fatima said. She pointed. "Give me those two fingers."

Rasheeda set Nyx's chair upright. The wire had dug into Nyx's flesh now, drawn blood. She couldn't feel it, though, just pressure. What she did feel were the bloodworms boring into her flesh. Her legs were on fire, and the rest of her was numb.

Rasheeda picked up a cleaver. She pressed the heel of her palm onto the back of Nyx's right hand, made her splay her fingers across the armrest.

They're just fingers, Nyx thought. She brought her head up so she could look Fatima in the face.

"I didn't kill my sister," Nyx slurred.

Rasheeda brought the knife down on her ring and little fingers. Nyx felt pressure, heard the crunch. Pain. Just pain. Pain is a message. That's all.

Fatima flinched.

Nyx didn't.

Rasheeda hacked at Nyx's hand again. She hadn't made a clean cut.

Nyx kept her breathing steady, not looking at her hand. Her fingers-or where she was supposed to have fingers-ached. She coughed up more water. She wanted to claw at her burning legs. She wished it was her legs they cut off.

Rasheeda wiped something onto the floor with the knife. Nyx heard a dull thumping sound. Her fingers. .h.i.tting the gritty floor.

Rasheeda licked the knife.

"Kine's papers. Or should I take the whole hand?" Fatima asked. "Another day or two and the worms will have your legs..."

The first time Nyx was tortured, Raine had done it.

She had been doing her own side work, her first contract with a gene pirate. She hadn't known what the woman was, at first, just knew she was paying well for an easy job-plug some organic material into Nyx's body and have Nyx drive it over to some shady dealer in a border town. The dealer had cut it out, no problem, and suddenly she had more money in her account than she'd ever seen in her life.

Raine had figured it out. How, Nyx never knew. Maybe he kept tabs on her account. He had beat her b.l.o.o.d.y, called her a traitor to her own country. He'd bound her and left her.

When he came back for her a day later, she lay in the dark, in a pool of her own p.i.s.s, hungry and dehydrated. He had loomed over her and cut off her ear with one quick slice of a sharp knife.

"A souvenir," he'd said, holding her b.l.o.o.d.y flesh in his hand.

He kept a collection of ears in his freezer from every bounty he took. She had thought the collection was funny, until he'd added a piece of her to it, like she was just another thing to be used and discarded. Another body. Like a boy at the front.

He had expected her to stay on with his crew. It was just a little discipline, he'd said, nothing worse than what had happened to her at the front, right?

She had bided her time for three days, then went into his room in the middle of the night after a long, heavy day of footwork and drinking; a coward's fight. She'd trussed him up and cut off his c.o.c.k. She considered the act her formal resignation.

"Just a little souvenir," she'd told him while he screamed and strained against his bonds.

The first notes she'd taken as a bel dame were for his sons. They had deserted from the front, following their father's radical politics. She had sent their ears to Raine.

Nyx was not a nice woman. She knew she didn't deal with nice women. But she also knew the worst sorts of things these women could do to her, and there was comfort in that.

There would be no surprises.

"You can take what you want," Nyx said, "but remember what I took from Raine. I'll take everything from you, Fatima. Your face, your license, your lover, your daughters."

Rasheeda snickered. "Such a funny woman! And what will you take from me, eh? Sitting there bleeding in your little chair!"

"Oh," Nyx said. "I'm going to kill kill you." you."

Rasheeda snorted.

"Bind her fingers," Fatima said, and stood. "Tomorrow we want Kine's papers. Or we take your hands. Then your eyes. Think about that. And the loss of your legs in thirty-six hours."

Fatima walked out. Rasheeda bound up Nyx's hand, then beat her until her face swelled and her ribs ached and she hacked up blood. Rasheeda left her, bruised and bleeding.

When the door closed, Nyx murmured, "Kine, you b.i.t.c.h."

She drooled blood and saliva into her lap and let her head hang. Telling them about Kine's papers meant telling them where Taite was. If they'd killed her team-and she had an image of the whole garret burning, of Khos cut into pieces, Anneke's face blown away, Rhys... she could at least keep them from Taite for a while. Just a little while.

21.

Taite listened to the results of the vote come in over the com. He ate from a carton of take-out food, spicy even for his taste, a Nasheenian imitation of Ras Tiegan food.

All the news was bad.

As the provinces reported in, his hopes sank. Eighty-seven percent of Abyyad district in favor of drafting half-breeds. Sixty-eight percent in favor. Ninety-eight percent in favor. Ninety-eight percent? That was from a district out on the coast, where they'd never even seen a male over the age of six, let alone a half-breed. What did they care if he got blown up at the front?

Taite was getting sick. He turned off the com.

Taite had gone through Kine's collection and gotten rid of everything but three recordings, which turned out to be her dictation sessions. It took a couple of days to break her personal security code, but once he mastered that, it was easy to loop them into the com and read them back. He was only fifteen minutes in, but the voting numbers had gotten to him, and he had opened up his bankbook instead of listening to transcriptions.

The only way to make it work was to move Inaya to one of the factory compounds in Basmah and have her keep her job there. It meant no recovery time after the baby came. It also meant living dormitory-style with no security. She wasn't going to be happy, but unless they collected this bounty soon, he was out of extravagant options. Mahdesh had already loaned him more money than Taite knew how to pay back, and though Mahdesh asked for nothing in return, Taite worried over it-spending his lover's money to help the sister who would burn them both if she knew.

He heard someone coming up the stairs and stopped his work. He grabbed his pistol.

Whoever it was knocked three times.

"It's Husayn."

He stood, and opened the door. Husayn had a haggard, wide-eyed look, as if death itself had clawed at her from the desert.

"What's wrong?" he asked.

"Someone's here, says she's your sister."

"What's she look like?"

"Half-breed, like you. Pale. Pregnant. Real, real upset."

"Send her up."

Husayn walked back down.

Taite put the gun in his belt. He'd told her not to come unless it was urgent. Had something happened, or was she still angry at being roomed with wh.o.r.es? She couldn't stay here. There was no way to get her to work from Aludra.

He went to the covered window and peeked out. It was dark outside. At least she'd waited for dark.

He heard her huffing up the stairs and ran back to the doorway.

Sweat pouring down her face, she stumbled on the last step, and he caught her.

She was crying.

"What is it?" he asked. "What's going on?"

They both sagged to the floor. He held her as she sobbed and clutched at him.

"What happened? Did somebody do something to you? Inaya?" If they'd touched her, if anyone had touched her- "Raine is looking for you," she said.

"What?"

"He came to the brothel. I don't know how he found me. The mistress screamed at him, and he shot her. He shot her in the head!"

"What happened?"

"He said he'd take you in pieces, Tat.i.te. He said... he said terrible things. I thought he'd cut me. I thought-"

"What did you say to him?" Taite started looking around the room for what he could grab and run.

"I said I didn't know where you were. I swear, I said it."

"Inaya," Taite said gently. He took her by her wrists and pulled her off him, looked into her red-rimmed eyes. "Inaya, thank you for that. But, Inaya, you've led him here." The sister he'd known in Ras Tieg would never have been so careless. What had become of her? Who had she become back in Ras Tieg, casting votes the way her husband told her to, turning away from her own kind, d.a.m.ning her own parents? He could understand her desire for protection. He could understand turning away from the movement that had cost them everything, but where was the woman he remembered, the one who could hack a com and retrofit a gun, the woman who had helped wash and soothe their mother after the worst of the attacks?

Her eyes widened. She looked over her shoulder at the door.

"We have to move," he said.

"He said he wanted you to tell him where Nyx was. He said... he said...."

Taite grabbed his pack, threw in some bursts, his wallet, and his bank book. He grabbed a couple of transceivers from the com and threw in Kine's dictation sessions.

He took Inaya's hand. "There's a back stair. Please, please hurry."

Inaya was still sobbing. "I can't. I can't get up. I'm so tired."

"You can. Come here. Get up."

Taite lifted her. He didn't know how he did it, picking up his older sister, this towering figure he had so admired before his exile. The strong one. The shifter. He dragged Inaya toward the hidden door at the back, opened it. He heard someone else on the stairs behind them. A lot of someones.

He was f.u.c.ked.

He looked into Inaya's tear-stained face and took it into his hands. "Go to Nyx," he said. "She's in a garret in Dadfar, in the Rihaada district on Lower Maida and Seventh. Are you listening to me? You need to cross the border. Do you understand? You need to cross the border."

"I can't go to Chenja! They'll kill me on sight, the bursts-"

"You can can," Taite said. He kissed her forehead, her lips, her eyelids. He had a memory of his mother doing the same to him, the last he ever saw of her. He could not remember her face. "You can... A bird can fly across a border."

"Don't ask me to do that. Never ask me to do that!"

He shook her. "Then you'll die here with me, do you understand?" He shouted at her, and his gut churned as he shouted. He sounded like their father. He threw his pack at her. "Take that. There's water in Husayn's bakkie, and a couple bucks in change in my pack. Get the f.u.c.k out of here! Right now. Right now!"

"Taite!"

He prodded her into the dark stairwell and shut the door behind her.

He pulled out his pistol and crept behind the com. In the sudden silence, the quiet dim, he looked up at his little saint, at Baldomerus, and he prayed.

When they walked in, Taite started shooting.

22.