The few hours after the arrival of Theo's clan are a blur of draining adrenaline, nagging pain, and too many new faces.

  We're taken back to their camp, which is not dissimilar in basic appearance from the Sworn camp. A connoisseur might notice subtle distinctions, though: fewer spikes on everything, more attention paid to basic maintenance, and the lack of a giant cauldron for draining blood from your enemy's corpses. There's a lot less metal and a lot more roach-derived products: roach leather, roachwing fabric, roach jerky, roach-eye jewelry. The humble sand roach, clearly, is the basis of these people's lifestyle, and indeed a herd of the things is being driven to the outskirts of camp as we approach. The adults are as high as my shoulder and twice my weight, with a swarm of little roachlings in every size down to only a few inches long.

  Once the cutter stops, we're surrounded by a crowd of people in colorful silk robes, and I just have time to instruct Mercy go along and not to murder anyone. I find myself taken off with Theo and Agni into what turns out to be a medical tent, where a plump older woman strips us all down to our underwear for an examination. Theo receives her initial attention, and a younger protégé of the doctor is soon set to work sewing up the long wound on her back, which thankfully seems shallow. I get only a cursory look, the doctor running her fingers through my matted hair until she finds the scalp wound, then giving a snort of disgust that I would complain of anything so minor.

  Agni, by now barely conscious, receives a more thoughtful look and a tongue-click of disapproval. By the time her assistant is done with Theo, the doctor has Agni lying on a table and is busy unpicking Quarter's crude stitch-work. Another assistant hands me and Theo a sealed waterskin apiece and shoos us into an adjoining tent. To my surprise, this contains a large tub full of water, big enough for several people sit in up to their shoulders. Theo shimmies out of the last few pieces of cloth protecting her notional modesty, and I politely avert my gaze. She looks confused for a moment, then cackles.

  "Get in the fucking bath. Are all you Dextrals such children?"

  "We have certain standards, that's all."

  But the prospect of a bath does sound enticing, even if it means stripping down in the presence of a near-stranger. A not entirely unattractive stranger, I must admit, though skinnier than I usually like them and not in the best state; her breasts are modest bumps and her ribs are clearly visible, along with the layers of bruises to match the one around her eye. She hisses as she sinks into the water. Gingerly I remove my own unmentionables, which will probably have to be burned, and climb in beside her. The water is only lukewarm, with an oily skim of soap across the top, but it feels like bliss on my cracked, dusty skin.

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  "Drink," she says, holding up the skin. "It's roachwater."

  I open the stopper and take a cautious sip. To my surprise, the liquid has the characteristic fizz of rockwater, like tiny particles of pure energy dissolving as they hit your tongue. A gentle warmth spreads through me, and the pain of my cuts and bruises recedes. My anxiety for Agni recedes a little too; if these people have enough rockwater to spare for the likes of me, they should have plenty to treat her wound.

  Theo drains her own skin and gives a happy sigh, sinking lower into the water. She ducks her head under, rubbing vigorously at her scalp, then straightens up with a gasp.

  ". Not many baths when you're a prisoner in a Sworn camp. I must look awful." She shoots me a sidelong glance. "Or are you still staring at my sad excuse for a chest?"

  "Trying not to," I say stiffly.

  She laughs again. "Dextrals. Just go ahead if you like them so much."

  "Where I come from, it's not considered polite."

  "I can ogle your sausage, if that would help ease your mind." She swishes her hand through the water, threatening to part the scum of soap and dirt that's protecting my modesty. At my expression, she gives another cackle and rolls her eyes. I sink a little lower in the water.

  "Really thought I was done for," she says after a moment. "Thought I was going to have to off myself to keep my brother from doing something fucking stupid. If you hadn't come by …" Her expression goes thoughtful. "I guess I should thank you."

  "Your signal to your family saved everybody," I offer.

  "And you saved me on the ship, and I saved you, blah blah blah." She shoots me another look. "Though I was sure you were going to pitch me and that fucker over the rail. Probably should have."

  "Didn't seem …" I hesitate, not sure of the right word.

  "Polite?"

  My turn to laugh. "Maybe. Plus I don't think your family would have given us quite as warm a welcome if we'd showed up without you."

  "Maybe." She shrugs, a bit uncomfortably. "Thank you regardless. I think --"

  I don't find out what she thinks, because at that moment the curtain in the tent doorway is violently pushed aside, and someone yells, "!" in a voice more appropriate for shouting orders on a battlefield. I turn to see a big man, broad-shouldered and dressed in leather, with long hair the same dirty-blond color the water is gradually revealing Theo's to be. At the sight of me, his eyes widen, and for a moment I have that caught-in-a-girl's-bedroom feeling. Rather than turn angry, however, he gives a delighted cry.

  "Kal! Savior of my treasure! Here and now I name you brother, for all to witness!"

  "There's no one to fucking witness, Trax," Theo says, flicking dirty water in his direction.

  "There will be tonight!" He snatches her out of the water like a toy and spins in a circle. "We will have a feast to celebrate your return!"

  "Lovely, but can you , my bruises have fucking bruises."

  Looking abruptly stricken, the big man sets her down. Theo grabs a towel and starts drying off, gesturing in my direction.

  "Kal, this is my brother Atrax. He's head of the clan, for some reason. Trax, apparently you know Kal."

  "Only by name and deed," Atrax says. "But I aim to improve on that!"

  He picks me up out of the tub, too, and pulls me into a bone-crushing hug, regardless of the water that gets all over his leathers.

  "He's always like this," Theo says with a sigh.