She saw Hazel-Boy. Stared at his naked chest, his spare heart, another heart to love with. Her gift to him. They had castrated him. Her Moses. That’s why he had disappeared from the Jewish Quarter and from her life. She had never questioned his loyalty. She pressed her palm on his henna-heart, the tattoo-heart she gave him to support his grief. In return, he had taught her to differentiate between good and evil, sadness and joy, the scent of flowers and the stink of iron.

He traced her brand with his fingers. “Will it still burn my eyes?”

“Not if you care,” she whispered.

“I’ll always care, wherever I go, whatever the future, but yours is with Raven. She wants you back and promised to protect you and Rouh’Allah.”

Rouh’Allah wrapped his cape around Gold Dust’s shoulders. “We should distance ourselves from here before daybreak.”

Gold Dust spun toward the man whose face brought back memories of a brick house with lace-framed windows, cherry trees, saffron rice, roasted pistachios, and baked chickpeas. The recollection of her mother’s face when she had left his home. Their lives had changed after that day.

Rebekah guided her daughter into the pine-choked woods. “We must reach the city gates before sunrise.”

It did not matter that in the layered darkness of the woods, branches scratched and insects stung; Rebekah hurried, Gold Dust at her side, the merchant, Hazel-Boy—now covered in one of the men’s cloaks—and the carpenters keeping pace. Rebekah thrust aside the branches that blocked her way and stabbed at her flesh.

The vegetation turned awash in a startling brightness. Light bleached the tree barks of color and painted the leaves a luminous sapphire. Rebekah’s brand, a beacon illuminating her path, impressed itself deeper into her flesh.

She followed the lucid glow of her chest that bounced ahead, on dirt tracks, over undergrowth, around wildflowers, on treetops. The sprig of mint felt heavy behind her ear, the throbbing between her chest unbearable. She longed to rid herself of both. She did not know how to discard the brand, the mint; she was afraid to. For too long she had associated it with safety, its scent capable of warding off evil.

Lightning streaked the skies, and the howl of wild animals filled the heavens.

“Open your eyes, sweetlove, devils are roaming among us.” Rebekah’s past words echoed among the branches. A message she had thought belonged to another time. She was wrong. Although she had witnessed many miracles, and would encounter more, none would erase the need for her sprig of mint.

The boundaries of the city scintillated in the first light of dawn; early sun bathed the gates amber. A breeze whistled among the ancient plane trees. The gardeners had unlocked the watering dams. Water lapped at the stout roots. The city was still asleep.

Soleiman leaned against the trunk of a cherry tree. The mask he had first worn in the harem covered half his face. Despite a few missing feathers, the mystery behind the disguise had not diminished.