“Many people know Scheherazade’s fables, but they haven’t heard the tale of the storyteller herself.” She let her words out smoothly, slowly, softly, making Ally lean closer, drawing her in. “Scheherazade told all those stories, one after the other, because if she stopped, her husband, King Shahryar, would have killed her.” Rania paused to milk the drama. “He’d already murdered one thousand women—virgins he deflowered in the royal bed, and then strangled the next morning, because he didn’t trust they’d stay loyal.”

Rania took the bundle of dinar from Ally’s hand and handed over her painting.

“Scheherazade had no choice,” she said. “She told her king those stories to stay alive.”

“I never knew that.” Ally glanced at Miriam Pachachi’s statue again, like she was seeing it for the first time. “I assumed she created those stories of her own accord.”

Rania felt an overwhelming urge to confide in her about the portrait waiting in her own studio. The young woman had a generous heart. She might lend her the money to get Hanan to safety. Even as Rania thought it, a voice inside her whispered, Don’t act rashly. Don’t lose your head.

Ally was the last person she should confide in. The mukhabarat were monitoring her. The cleric and Kareem seemed to have an interest in her too. And there was Huda. It was hard to keep secrets from her. Even if Ally swore secrecy, Rania knew from experience that Huda might worm the truth out. No, for now, it was safest to send Hanan to the farmhouse under the sheikha’s protection. A tinny buzz swept through the garden. Rania cast an anxious glance at Hanan’s bedroom.

“Ally, can you excuse me a moment,” she said, then hurried to the front of the house.

“Rania?” Her cousin Hala’s voice floated over the top of the gate. “I’ve been trying to call but your phone is down.”

“I know.” She pried the gate open. “It’s been playing up for two—” She broke off.

Hala’s face was ashen.

“What is it?”

“Your mother suffered a stroke last night. They’re transferring her to a hospital in Baghdad. It doesn’t look good.”

* * *

It was not the slap of the orderly’s mop against the concrete floor that woke Rania. It was silence. She lurched from her chair and scrambled toward her mother’s hospital bed. The heart monitor was dead: no beep, no hiccupping red line.

“Don’t be alarmed,” said a nurse at Raghad’s bedside. She brushed a strand of long gray hair away from the old woman’s face. “The power cord was caught around her arm. I’ll switch it back on after I turn her. We don’t want her getting bed sores.”

“What time is it?” Rania’s mouth was dry as bark.

“Five in the morning.”