“Let’s pray,” he said, kneeling in front of the Fountain of Crystal.

She knelt next to him and bowed her head.

He noticed the leaves of mint hidden under her hair. “Remove this ridiculous thing. Leave this kind of behavior to common people like your grandmadar.”

Raven pressed her hands to her ears to shut out his words. The herb was sacred, a symbol of her love for her grandmadar. She rose and dusted herself. “Grandmadar is not common people. You discuss important matters with her.”

The Shah plucked the mint from behind her ear and tossed it into the fountain.

She fought to stop her tears from flowing in his presence, whirled on her heels, and rushed into her mother’s quarters.

Gold Dust was stringing ruby beads on to gold wires, coiling them into buds, and holding each against her hair to create the illusion of a blush. Raven would like that. Last month, Gold Dust had discovered a new trick. On her private terrace, she had scattered ash berries to dry under the sun, then pounded them into a fine crimson powder to color Raven’s face. The week before, she had sewed scarlet and lavender veils to toss over Raven’s head to reduce the intensity in her eyes.

The bonfire in Raven and her feverish eyes caused her such agony, the eyes of a happy mad child. Her effort to make Raven up, so her startling beauty would seem more conventional, invariably failed. She darkened her brows and lashes, painted her cheeks, streaked her hair. But Raven would run to the fountain and wash her face, reappearing pure as nature and as if sprinkled with silver dew, and Gold Dust would again blink at this exotic stranger.

At the sudden appearance of her daughter, Gold Dust stabbed the needle into the carpet.

She controlled her urge to hold Raven in her arms. Raven would free herself again and race to the gardens to chase the peacocks, ride the ponies, or admire her image in the pool.

Gold Dust wiped off her daughter’s tears. She brought her fingers to her mouth and tasted salt and water and anger and a multitude of feelings trapped in a single teardrop. Did every tear encapsulate a distinct emotion? She touched her lips to Raven’s wet lids and once again longed for that time before Raven’s birth, before her bones had stopped playing music, even before she had lost her ability to cry.

Freeing herself from her mother, Raven whirled around the room hurling objects into partitions, tearing the covers off the divans. “I want my mint! Just like my grandmadar.”

“But even she follows her elders’ advice,” Gold Dust pleaded, helpless against this kind of outrage.

A hookah pipe came flying over her head.

Gold Dust shared her concerns with the Shah. “Raven’s anger is some kind of a lunacy. One day it will destroy her.”

The Shah smiled. “My dear, what you call lunacy is the natural process of growth and the strength to break away from female inhibitions.”