And suddenly, the once-nameless boy knew he didn’t want a stolen name, tarnished with use. What he wanted desperately was a name good enough to give to this girl. But until he had that, he would have to use another.

‘I’ve come in the name of the Blue-Eyed Bandit.’

Chapter 21

I knew something was different when I was woken up by three servants instead of by the sun. I was being propped up to a sitting position and my kurti pulled over my head before I was even fully awake.

‘What’s happening?’ I made a grab for the hem, but something new was being draped around me already.

‘The Sultim has ordered that you will attend him in court today.’ The servant who answered was the same one who’d brought me into the harem. I’d never gotten her name out of her.

And here I thought I was off-limits. But I supposed that was only to being treated as a wife, not as a thing to be polished up and put on display. I yanked my arm back towards myself as a woman scraped something rough along my fingernails. She grabbed my hand back and started again, making me wince at the noise.

‘It’s a great honour.’ The servant gathered my long hair up, fastening a clasp behind my neck. Not a necklace, I realised; this was meant to pass for a khalat. It was fine blue cloth stitched with black that matched my hair. Except it left half of me bare. My arms, my shoulder, and half my back were exposed. I almost laughed. This would never pass for desert clothes, not in a place where the sun beat down on every bit of skin it could find. This was the luxury of a city. And the decadence of a harem. She pulled me to my feet so that the clothes fell over my loose shalvar. At least I seemed to be allowed to keep that on.

I could make this real difficult for them if I wanted to. I could resist and make the Sultan dictate my every movement. But the last thing I wanted was more orders.

And I got the feeling that, as hard as I could make things for them, the Sultim could probably make them a whole lot harder for me.

Besides, I was being permitted to leave the harem, even if it wasn’t out of the palace. It’d been seven days since I’d sent Sam to Shazad. Seven days of the same lazy indifference that marked every day in the harem. It wasn’t like waking up in the rebel camp. The tension in my bones wasn’t matched by anyone else’s. The restlessness of an impending battle, the fear of not knowing – they were mine alone. I’d even gone to the Weeping Wall once or twice and strung up the white cloth into the huge tree, hoping the signal would bring him back. Nothing.

Everything depended on a stupid boy who couldn’t even tie a sheema right and there was nothing else I could do except wait for news. Wait like Sabriya for Prince Aziz. Helpless and blind to see who would die in battle. I felt like I might lose my mind.

I’d be damn stupid to turn down a shot at getting a look outside.

*

The parts of the palace that they led me through now weren’t near so empty as those I had followed the Sultan through. Servants scurried past us, heads bowed, carrying platters heavy with colourful fruit or crisp clean linens. A small gaggle of Xichian men in what looked like travelling clothes sat in a garden that we passed. My neck craned their way instinctively as Jin dashed across my thoughts. A man dressed finely enough to be an emir and trailing three identically dressed women swept down the hallway ahead of us, disappearing up a staircase. A pair of foreign-looking men in strange uniforms stepped aside as we passed. My heart jumped at the sight of them. They looked Gallan. But no, their uniform was wrong. Albish, maybe?

We rounded another corner. I knew the Gallan on sight. Two soldiers flanked an unremarkable-looking man in plain clothes. Their uniforms were glaringly familiar, sending a twist of fear through me. But the soldiers weren’t the most unsettling ones. There was something about the plain-clothed Gallan man; his eyes cut right through me. I could feel them in my back as we continued on.

Two dozen curious faces turned my way the second the doors to the Sultan’s receiving garden opened. All of them belonged to men, seated haphazardly around the garden on cushions. The Sultan’s councillors. They were all soft-looking intellectual types. Like Mahdi. Pale from lack of sunlight, too many hours spent inside studying the world and not enough living in it. Servants hovered around them like a swarm, wielding fans and pitchers of sweet fruit juices.

There was only one man who stood apart from the circus. He was about of an age with Ahmed and Jin and wearing a spotless white-and-gold army uniform. He didn’t sit. Instead he stood, straight as a statue, arms clasped behind his back, eyes straight ahead like he was awaiting orders. There was a pang of familiarity as I looked at him that I couldn’t quite place.

At the head of the garden, raised above his court, was the Sultan. He lifted his eyebrows a tiny bit as he saw me. So he hadn’t known that his son had given me permission to leave the harem. Kadir sat at his right hand. Ayet was draped around her husband’s shoulders, wearing the same khalat I was, but in a glaring red with silver threads. She was there to be shown off and she knew it, too, twisting her bare back to the court, showing off the complicated henna designs that decorated her spine. At Kadir’s feet was Uzma, wearing the same garment in green across her tiny frame. I glanced around for Mouhna. She wasn’t anywhere to be seen.

Kadir pointedly rested his hand on the cushion to the opposite side of Ayet. I would’ve given just about anything to not have to sit there. But I didn’t have that choice.

An attendant busied herself arranging the long hem of my khalat around me so I was entirely covered. Kadir dismissed her with a wave of the hand. As soon as she was gone I stuck my bare foot out from under the hem. It wasn’t much, but it was the best I could manage, as small acts of defiance went. I caught the eye of the the man in military clothes as I looked up. He was watching me, hiding a smile behind his hand, pretending to scratch his eyebrow.