“That girl Flower-in-the-Night is a real marvel,” Princess Beatrice remarked as she sat herself between Abdullah and the soldier. “She came here knowing nothing unless she’d read it out of a book. And she learns all the time. Took her two days to get the measure of Dalzel; wretched djinn’s scared stiff of her now. Before she arrived, all I’d managed was to make it clear to the creature that we weren’t going to be his wives. But she thinks big. Had her mind on escaping right from the start. She’s been plotting all along to get that cook in to help. Now she’s done it. Look at her! Looks fit to rule an empire, doesn’t she?”

Abdullah nodded sadly and watched Flower-in-the-Night as she stood waiting for everyone to get settled. She was still wearing the gauzy clothes she had been wearing when Hasruel snatched her from the night garden. She was still as slim, as graceful, and as beautiful. Her clothes were now crushed and a little tattered. Abdullah had no doubt that every crease, every three-cornered tear, and every hanging thread meant some new thing that Flower-in-the-Night had learned. Fit to rule an empire indeed! he thought. If he compared Flower-in-the-Night with Sophie, who had displeased him for being so strong-minded, he knew Flower-in-the-Night had twice Sophie’s strength of mind. And as far as Abdullah was concerned, this only made Flower-in-the-Night more excellent. What made him wretched was the way she carefully and politely avoided singling him out in any way. And he wished he knew why.

“The problem we face,” Flower-in-the-Night was saying when Abdullah started to attend, “is that we are in a place where it does no good simply to get out. If we could sneak out of the castle without the djinns’ becoming aware of it or the angels of Hasruel’s preventing us, we should only sink through the clouds and fall heavily to earth, which is a very long way below. Even if we can overcome those difficulties in some way”—here her eyes turned to the bottle in Abdullah’s hand and, thoughtfully, to the carpet over his shoulder, but not, alas, to Abdullah himself—“there seems nothing to stop Dalzel from sending his brother to bring us all back. Therefore, the essence of any plan we make has to be the defeat of Dalzel. We know that his chief power derives from the fact that he has stolen the life of his brother Hasruel, so that Hasruel must obey him or die. So it follows that in order to escape, we must find Hasruel’s life and restore it to him. Noble ladies, excellent gentlemen, and esteemed dog, I invite your ideas on this matter.”

Excellently put, O flower of my desire! Abdullah thought sadly as Flower-in-the-Night gracefully sat down.

“But we still don’t know where Hasruel’s life can be!” bleated the fat Princess of Farqtan.