“Peace, most serene sorceress,” Abdullah reassured her. “It does but circle to gain height as birds do.” Privately he was sure the carpet had lost the trail. But as the lights and domes of Kingsbury went by underneath for the third time, he saw he had accidentally guessed right. They were now several hundred feet higher. On the fourth circuit, which was wider than the third—though quite as giddy—Kingsbury was a little jeweled cluster of lights far, far below.

Sophie’s head bobbed as she took a downward peep. Her grip on Abdullah became even tighter, if that was possible. “Oh, goodness and awfulness!” she said. “We’re still going up! I do believe that wretched soldier has taken Morgan after the djinn!”

They were now so high that Abdullah feared she was right. “He no doubt wished to rescue the Princess,” he said, “in hope of a large reward.”

“He had no business to take my baby along, too!” Sophie declared. “Just wait till I see him! But how did he do it without the carpet?”

“He must have ordered the genie to follow the djinn, O moon of motherhood,” Abdullah explained.

To that Sophie said again, “What genie?”

“I assure you, sharpest of sorcerous minds, that I owned a genie as well as this carpet, though you never appeared to see it,” Abdullah said.

“Then I take your word for it,” said Sophie. “Keep talking. Talk—or I shall look down, and if I look down, I know I’ll fall off!”

Since she was still clinging mightily to Abdullah’s arm, he knew that if she fell, then so would he. Kingsbury was now a bright, hazy dot, appearing on this side and then on that, as the carpet continued to spiral upward. The rest of Ingary was laid out around it like a huge dark blue dish. The thought of plunging all that way down made Abdullah almost as frightened as Sophie. He began hastily to tell her all his adventures, how he had met Flower-in-the-Night, how the Sultan had put him in prison, how the genie had been fished out of the oasis pool by Kabul Aqba’s men—who were really angels—and how hard it was to make a wish that the genie’s malice did not spoil.

By this time he could see the desert as a pale sea south of Ingary, though they were so high that it was quite hard to make out anything below. “I see now that the soldier agreed I had won that bet in order to convince me of his honesty,” Abdullah said ruefully. “I think he always meant to steal the genie and probably the carpet, too.”

Sophie was interested. Her grip on his arm relaxed slightly, to Abdullah’s great relief. “You can’t blame that genie for hating everyone,” she said. “Think how you felt shut in that dungeon.”

“But the soldier—” said Abdullah.