The hall submerged under an expectant cloud.

“Gold Dust has been chosen,” the Bibi announced. “She was trained in Pari’s quarters.”

The Bibi’s spies hid in closets, behind screens and drapes. It had not taken them long to find out what had transpired between Gold Dust and Hazel-Boy.

Gaping mouths, glaring eyes, and bared fangs surrounded Gold Dust. Envy contorted their faces. Moon Face’s lips were a gash against the chalky powder she used to lighten her cheeks. She had let the seemingly innocent Gold Dust into her confidence, only to be betrayed. No other sultana had been allowed inside Pari’s quarters. For that privilege, Gold Dust would pay dearly.

“My son has honored you,” the Bibi Sultana continued. “The old Gold Dust is dead! Prepare the new sultana for the Shah.”

The black slaves lifted Gold Dust in their arms and carried her into the baths, into a dense sulfurous vapor laden with gossip, into the murmur, laughter, chatter—the rare freedom of hundreds of sultanas. The splash of water, running from brass faucets into marble sinks, echoed against walls inlaid with faience tiles. Slave women hastened to disrobe her so jealous jinns and evil ifrits that hid in the clammy recesses of the baths would not enter her pants and spoil her virginity. Rolling their eyes, the slaves murmured incantations to ward off the jinns. The sultanas click-clicked on stilt-like clogs, high wooden sandals that raised them from the wet floor where wicked spirits lived. A circle of naked women caged Gold Dust. Such hatred in their faces. Such darkness in their eyes. Where was her mother now? Seek power but don’t let it cloud your humanity. Empty advice. Words from a woman who had never seen these stone eyes and tight-pursed lips. How could she fight her enemies without becoming one of them?

They stretched her out on one of the platforms. Checking her for the slightest sign of body hair, they smeared vajebi, a depilatory mush of burning minerals, arsenic, and lime, on her legs, arms, pubis, and underarms. Before the paste corroded her flesh, they scraped off the hair with the sharp edges of mussel shells and washed off the residue with hot water from china bowls. They rubbed her with ginger and cloves to increase her powers of seduction and burned yellow Aleppo stone to perfume her skin.

The sultanas raised eyebrows lengthened with India ink and fluttered eyelids shaded with kohl and announced that she was ready for the Bibi.

Slaves mixed a sack of the finest henna, a preventative against perspiration, with ten egg yolks and half a cup of Turkish coffee. They handed the Bibi two brushes, one slim and the other wide with soft bristles. She slid her palm over Gold Dust’s flat stomach, firm breasts, and slender neck. A pudgy finger found the wild throbbing of her artery. “Don’t worry,” she said. “My son is a matchless lover.”