“She did.” Touraine pointed to the food at her feet. The wicker basket steamed with the fresh grain mixed with vegetables and spices. It would have smelled delicious if her stomach hadn’t been knotted up with hurt and anger. “Do you even have a hundred people who can shoot?”
“We have enough who can teach.”
The Apostate’s raised palm silenced them both. “And if I recall correctly, you were an esteemed lieutenant in the Balladairan army. That should help.”
Touraine snorted. Good luck talking her way out of that treason, even with Luca’s help. “Where can I teach fifty people to shoot without accidentally hitting some poor shit in the foot?”
The Apostate looked between Sa?d and the Jackal. “We can find a place.”
“Then a hundred is more than enough. What about Luca’s part? She wants people who can teach Balladairans magic and anything you know about Balladaire’s old magic.” Touraine still couldn’t wrap her head around the latter.
As one, the rebels looked to the Apostate. The Brigāni woman smiled with an ironic tilt of her head.
“I’ll come to her when we have the guns and I’m certain she hasn’t trapped us with them.” Steady golden eyes limned with kohl studied her. “We still want to meet her. Personally. Before I tell her anything. We can outline the finer details then.”
Touraine snorted. “Good luck.”
“You said she wanted to know us. I want to see what kind of person she is. If she won’t meet us face-to-face, there’s no accord.”
“I’ll try.”
“I can’t help but wonder if this is all a scheme of hers. Theirs.” Malika’s words were philosophical, but her voice echoed retreat. She nodded toward Touraine. “The rebellion itself. If we rebel, they bring more troops. To aim for our throats instead of our heels. Maybe we shouldn’t do this.” Defeated.
Touraine was suddenly very aware of her breath. It sounded too loud, too quick.
“I see it as more of an assurance. Better to have them and not need them,” Sa?d said, his voice a reassuring rumble.
“Malika has a point.” The Jackal finally deigned to sit up, resting wrist and stump on knees. “Why trust the word of the conqueror’s favorite whore?”
Maybe the argument with Luca had frayed Touraine’s nerves too much. Left her a bit raw. And maybe it was that the sentiment was too close to what Pruett had said. Too close to the drawing on the broadside. Too close to guilty feelings that snaked across her chest when Luca made her laugh over the governor’s records.
“No.” Touraine pointed a trembling finger at the woman. “You do not get to put me down for working with her. Can none of you bastards think how sky-falling lonely it must be for me, for us? It’s a wonder I haven’t fucked my way through her household, just to have someone to talk to.” She kicked the cushion she hadn’t sat on at the Jackal. She scowled at the Apostate. “And you would abandon us to it, just as smug and self-righteous. Fuck your… goddamned rebellion. Fuck your guns. If you want them, send someone else, and more pleasure to you. Take a look around. I don’t see that you’ve got too many options, or we wouldn’t be having these little talks.”
Touraine would not be blamed for feeling lonely.
She stomped out of a room for the second time that night and, for the second time, was called back.
“Mulāzim.” The Jackal’s voice caught her, scraped her like a bayonet caught in the ribs. It was bitter, but soft enough that Touraine shook her head without turning. The Jackal’s boots scraped the floor as she stood.
In Touraine’s bones, in her blood, she knew what was coming. She started to laugh. “No. No, no, no, no, no. Not you.”
“Look at me.”
The Jackal held her scarf in her hand, her head and face bare in the candlelight. Her hair fell in finger-width dreadlocks. Her full lips were twisted with hate.
“Jackal, sit down. You don’t have to—”
“Enough, Djasha. Enough with the games. I want my daughter to see me, to know me, so that when she runs back to that woman’s bed, she knows exactly what she leaves behind.”
The Jackal—Jaghotai—stepped close. They could have hugged in desperate thanks, reached out hands to learn each other’s faces. Kissed cheeks, foreheads, all the little bits of love you take for granted when they’re common.
“You killed my brother, Touraine. You’ve made it clear that you want nothing of your own people, so I have nothing to give you. Get us the guns. Bring your princess. Let’s see how far this goes.”