“Hmm,” said the soldier when Abdullah had done. Musingly he put more spicy bushes on the fire, which was now the only light left. “Quite a life. But I must say it makes up for a good deal, being fated to marry a princess. It’s something I always had a fancy to do myself—marry a nice quiet princess with a bit of a kingdom and a kindly nature. Bit of a daydream of mine, really.”

Abdullah found he had a splendid idea. “It is quite possible you can,” he said quietly. “The day I met you I was granted a dream—a vision—in which a smoky angel the color of lavender came to me and pointed you out to me, O cleverest of crusaders, as you slept on a bench outside an inn. He said that you could aid me powerfully in finding Flower-in-the-Night. And if you did, said the angel, your reward would be that you would marry another princess yourself.” This was—or would be—almost perfectly true, Abdullah told himself. He had only to make the correct wish to the genie tomorrow. Or rather, the day after tomorrow, he reminded himself, since the genie had forced him to use tomorrow’s wish today. “Will you help me?” he asked, watching the soldier’s firelit face rather anxiously. “For this great reward.”

The soldier seemed neither eager nor dismayed. He considered. “Not sure quite what I could do to help,” he said at last. “I’m not an expert on djinns, for a start. We don’t seem to get them this far north. You’d need to ask some of these damn Ingary wizards what djinns do with princesses when they steal them. The wizards would know. I could help you squeeze the facts out of one, if you like. It would be a pleasure. But as for a princess, they don’t grow on trees, you know. The nearest one must be the King of Ingary’s daughter, way off in Kingsbury. If she’s what your smoky angel friend had in mind, then I guess you and me’d better walk down that way and see. The king’s tame wizards mostly live down that way, too, so they tell me, so it seems to fit in. That idea suit you?”

“Excellently well, military friend of my bosom!” said Abdullah.

“Then that’s settled, but I don’t promise anything, mind,” said the soldier. He fetched two blankets out of his pack and suggested that they build up the fire and settle down to sleep.