The night after, Gulf Lily entered Gold Dust’s quarters. His eyes rolling in a hate-induced trance, he ordered Allah to end the life of the creature inside its mother’s womb. He vowed to stack Allah’s altar with sacrificial sheep and aromatic spices—but only, he begged, only if you keep Moon Face’s eyes blind to my true emotions. Although I can’t bear to see her in the arms of another, I could never look her straight in the eye if she found out the nature of my love.

Gold Dust grew round and chubby, craving sherbets with rosewater and ices with ambergris, enjoying long naps in the daytime and sleeping deeply at night. The Shah came to visit. He did not dare call her to his chambers.

The hakim had warned, “The favorite must bear this fruit to a ripe term or she might bear a mangled child unworthy of the throne.”

Gold Dust listened to the hakim, to the Shah, to her mother, but primarily to her child. She would protect her son with whom she had formed a bond. She, too, knew it was a boy. In her dreams, she had seen the prince grow to become as handsome as his father, with dark hair and olive eyes. But her son would inherit her own fire. He would not need to hide behind mocking laughter and arrogant words. Her son would be brave and kind. His strength would lie in his sound judgment and the realization that the power he possessed was rightfully his and could not be snatched away. She would make sure of that.

Days dissolved into months and eunuchs kept their nighttime vigil, dark figures blending with the shadows, almost invisible next to the velvet drapes, always muttering lethal words, sometimes rocking on their flabby bottoms, often motionless onyx statues.

Then came Narcissus’s turn. The seraglio caught its breath.

On the first day of the month of Mordad, when the skies suffocated under the lingering heat, Narcissus slapped his book of magic shut, raised the lid of his opium box, and prepared to pass the night in the favorite’s chambers. He broke a piece of opium from the chocolaty tube, rolled it between his thumb and forefinger, and dipped it in melted butter. He inserted it into his rectum. Despising the taste and pungent smoke of opium, he had discovered a way of enjoying an extended euphoria without experiencing the bitter tang. By the time he had passed the Courtyard of Horses and entered the harem, the delirious effect had seeped into his head. His eyes seemed loose in their sockets. His lust gland throbbed.

He exchanged places with the eunuch guard, tarried next to the door to collect his opium-tainted fantasies, unlocked the door, and approached Gold Dust’s divan. The blush of her nipples stood out against the ivory of her skin. With her eyes closed, she revealed no sign of the arrogance he detested. Narcissus called upon the spirits of the dead to help him overcome the yearning to creep next to her, savor the touch of her fresh skin, the breath of youth. The wrath of Rebekah and the Shah was a dangling ax above him.