Abdullah was looking up at them, wondering if they were magical devices, when he happened to notice a black four-legged shadow stealing along the roofs beside him. It could have been any black cat out for a hunt on the tiles, but Abdullah knew it was Midnight. There was no mistaking the way she moved. At first, when she vanished into the deep black shadow of a gable, he supposed she was after a roosting pigeon to make another unsuitable meal for Whippersnapper. But she reappeared again when he was halfway down the next alley, creeping along a parapet above him, and he began to think she was following him. When he went through a narrow court with trees in tubs down the center and he saw her jump across the sky, from one gutter to another, in order to get into that court, too, he knew she was certainly following him. He had no idea why. He kept an eye out for her as he went down the next two alleys, but he saw her only once, on an arch over a doorway. When he turned into the cobbled court where the Royal Wizard’s house was, there was no sign of her. Abdullah shrugged and went to the door of the house.

It was a handsome narrow house with diamond-paned windows and interwoven magic signs painted on its old irregular walls. There were tall spires of yellow flame burning in brass stands on either side of the front door. Abdullah seized the knocker, which was a leering face with a ring in its mouth, and boldly knocked.

The door was opened by a manservant with a long, dour face. “I’m afraid the wizard is extremely busy, sir,” he said. “He is receiving no clients until further notice.” And he started to shut the door.

“No wait, faithful footman and loveliest of lackeys!” Abdullah protested. “What I have to say concerns no less than a threat to the King’s daughter!”

“The wizard knows all about that, sir,” said the man, and went on shutting the door.

Abdullah deftly put his foot in the space. “You must hear me, most sapient servant,” he began. “I come—”

Behind the manservant a young woman’s voice said, “Just a moment, Manfred. I know this is important.” The door swung open again.

Abdullah gaped as the servant vanished from the doorway and reappeared some way back in the hall inside. His place at the door was taken by an extremely lovely young woman with dark curls and a vivid face. Abdullah saw enough of her in one glance to realize that in her foreign northern way, she was as beautiful as Flower-in-the-Night, but after that he felt bound to look modestly away from her. She was very obviously going to have a baby. Ladies in Zanzib did not show themselves in this interesting condition. Abdullah scarcely knew where to look.