Infidel Read Free Page B

more expensive sort, the type Nyx saw when she used to work with proper magicians in Faleen and on Palace Hill. Yahfia had done well for herself during the years she’d been back in country—better than Nyx; maybe better than anyone on Nyx’s old crews.
    “Sorry you had to wait so long,” Yahfia said. “I had a bel dame come in ahead of you. Injured very severely by a deserter she was trying to bring in. Whole face taken off, can you believe it? She couldn’t make it back to Bloodmount for care.” She wiped her hands on her apron. Her green silk robe was stitched in gold and silver. Magicians did all right in Mushtallah.  
    “I used to be a bel dame once,” Nyx said.  
    “So you’ve told me—many times,” Yahfia said, and sighed. “I don’t want trouble with bel dames, Nyx.”  
    “Yeah, nobody does. So what the hell’s wrong with me?” Nyx eased off the marble slab.  
    “Besides your deviant moral flexibility and severe phobia of emotional commitment?” Yahfia asked.
    “I consider those virtues,” Nyx said. She fastened the stays on her breast binding and buckled on her baldric.  
    “What made you finally come in?”  
    “Passed out today on a job. Eshe found me crawling around the alley looking for water. Felt a lot better after I got some water, but he started blubbering. Wanted me to come in. I humor him when I can.”    
    Yahfia moved a couple of empty jars into the bowl of the freestanding sink and pumped water over them. “I can’t blame him for being concerned. He’s grown into quite the young man since you took him in.”
    “You say that like being a man’s a good thing,” Nyx said. “Men get carted off to the front to die. I’d rather he stayed eight forever, same as when I got him.” She folded her arms. “You think it’s cancer?” Getting cancer was like getting a cold. Everybody had a tumor or two taken out now and again. Most folks got malignant melanomas scraped off at least once a year.  
    She watched Yahfia. Yahfia was a head taller than Nyx, and that made her a tall woman, though she was slender in the hands and shoulders and thickening up in the hips. The age showed now in the set to her mouth, the spidery lines at the corners of her dark eyes. She had pretty eyes, big and long-lashed, like a girl dancer’s.  
    “When was the last time you had your breasts out?” Yahfia asked.  
    “Couple years ago. Wanted to take them out all together, but I like my profile.”  
    Yahfia smiled, but did not look at her. When a magician wouldn’t look at you, it meant there was something about you she didn’t like—or was afraid of. Never a good sign. Yahfia had never approved of her, certainly, but nobody did. Just because they didn’t approve didn’t mean they didn’t like her.  
    “How old are you now, forty-five?” Yahfia asked.  
    “Thirty-eight,” Nyx said. Saying it out loud made her feel even older.  
    A faint smile touched Yahfia’s face. “I’m curious, Nyx. When did you go to prison and become exiled from the bel dame order?”  
    “I don’t know. A while ago.”
    “How old were you?”
    Nyx frowned. “Twenty-four.”  
    “That was nearly fourteen years ago. Yet every time you come into my office, you introduce yourself to my staff as a bel dame.”
    Nyx shrugged. “It gets me in. I’m more concerned about what’s wrong with me than about how I get an actual appointment.”  
    “I didn’t find any evidence of cancer,” Yahfia said. “But there’s certainly something wrong. I’m worried about the weight loss, and the dizziness.”
    Nyx grunted. “I need to eat more and lay off the alcohol, that’s all.” But she hadn’t had a drink in two days, and she ate like a starving woman all the time now. Sometimes magicians weren’t good for anything but replacing something you already knew was missing.
    Yahfia turned away from the sink and wiped her slender hands again. Nyx had always liked magicians’ hands. Yahfia did all of her