I shrugged the tea-gold gown off and stood still as she drew a black undergown over my head. Its sleeves were cinched tightly at my wrists, but the rest of it flowed down to my feet. When I shifted this way and that, thin threads of gold glittered in the light. Over it went a gown of ivory lace, studded with tiny champagne-colored beads and silver thread. Its sleeves were wide and its neck was low, so that one saw the black-and-gold gown beneath it. Around my waist was a leather belt, a hand wide, stitched with a tesleet, its wings spread to wrap around my waist.

“There,” Tala said. “I will collect you when it’s time.”

The garden was an orange orchard. I recognized the trees—their fruit was perennial and its scent was sharp in the air. It reminded me of my majority night. There were lights strung through these trees and somewhere in the garden a fountain flowed, babbling cheerily into the silence. There were no birds—no animals at all, and it gave the orchard a still, hushed feeling. I breathed deep and lifted my face to the sky.

When I lowered my face, there stood Idris, framed by the trees and the light of the setting sun. I knew it was only my heart that made him appear more than he was—not just a prince for this moment, but a prince out of legend and antiquity. A man who belonged at the immortal center of the world.

“Amani,” he said softly. He’d crossed the orchard without my hearing, and now slid a hand beneath my chin and raised my face so that he might look at me. The breath I took lodged itself beneath my breastbone like a knife and I couldn’t stop myself from covering the hand now pressed against my cheek with my own.

“You look well,” I said at last, meeting his eyes.

“As do you,” he replied.

A thousand words lodged in my throat. What did I say to him? That I loved him? That I thought of him always? That of all the possible futures I would have chosen—

“You’re safe,” he said, and it was as if some spell had broken. His arms came around me and drew me against his chest. I laid my head against his shoulder, and my hands clung to the back of his jacket. “Dihya—I’d thought—Nadine is a terror, she would not have balked at killing you for so small a slight.”

I choked out a laugh. “I think she considered, before realizing that my family was a better target.”

He drew back, his eyes wide. “Are they safe?”