Dalzel stepped toward her. Now that he was not so anguished, Abdullah saw with surprise that Dalzel was beautiful. Apart from his fungoid ears and taloned feet, he could have been a tall, angelic man. Golden curls grew on his head, and his wings, though small and stunted-looking, were golden, too. His very red mouth spread into a sweet smile. Altogether he had an unearthly beauty that matched the strange cloud kingdom where he lived. “Pray take the child away,” he said, “and comfort her, O Princess Beatrice, most excellent of my wives.”

Downright Princess Beatrice was gesturing to the other princesses to take Valeria away anyway, but she turned back sharply at this. “I’ve told you, my lad,” she said, “that none of us is any wife of yours. You can call us that until you’re blue in the face, but it won’t make the slightest difference. We are not your wives, and we never will be!”

“Exactly!” said most of the other princesses, in a firm but ragged chorus. All of them, except for one, turned and swept away, taking the sobbing Princess Valeria with them.

Sophie’s face was lit with a delighted smile. She whispered, “It looks as if the princesses are holding their own!”

Abdullah could not attend to her. The remaining princess was Flower-in-the-Night. She was, as always, twice as beautiful as he remembered her, looking very sweet and grave, with her great dark eyes fixed seriously on Dalzel. She bowed politely. Abdullah’s senses sang at the sight of her. The cloudy pillars around him seemed to sway in and out of existence. His heart pounded for joy. She was safe! She was here! She was speaking to Dalzel.

“Forgive me, great djinn, if I remain to ask you a question,” she said, and her voice, even more than Abdullah remembered it, was melodious and merry as a cool fountain.

To Abdullah’s outrage, Dalzel reacted with what seemed to be horror. “Oh, not you again!” he trumpeted, at which Hasruel, standing like a dark column in the background, folded his arms and grinned maliciously.

“Yes, it is I, stern stealer of the daughters of sultans,” Flower-in-the-Night said with her head bowed politely. “I am here merely to ask what thing it was which started the child crying.”

“How should I know?” Dalzel demanded. “You’re always asking me questions I can’t answer! Why are you asking this one?”

“Because,” Flower-in-the-Night answered, “O robber of the offspring of rulers, the easiest way to calm the child is to deal with the cause of her temper. This I know from my own childhood, for I was much given to tantrums myself.”

Surely not! Abdullah thought. She is lying for a purpose. No nature as sweet as hers could ever have screamed for anything! Yet, as he was outraged to see, Dalzel had no difficulty believing this.

“I’ll bet you were!” Dalzel said.