“Wakey wakey!” Alex opened the curtains to let the light illuminate Amia’s soft purple room.

Amia didn’t answer, so Alex padded over and sat beside her on her bed.

“Amia,” she said again.

The little girl sighed in her sleep, rolling over and away from Alex.

“Come on, sweetie, it’s time to get up!”

Alex felt a twinge of concern. It had never been difficult to get Amia to wake up, though getting her out of bed was another matter entirely. Alex pulled the comforter up over her feet, then tickled her lightly. Amia tucked her feet up, making an angry noise.

“Come on, we’re going to have fun today! We’re going to have breakfast, and then you’ll do your lessons, and…”

Amia groaned and sat up, her hair a tangled cloud over her face.

“I’m sleepy!”

“I know, honey, but you’ll feel better once you get up and moving. Come on now, let’s go brush out that rat’s nest on your head.”

“It’s not rats,” Amia said grumpily.

There was a gravely tinge to her voice which caught Alex’s attention, but she didn’t mention it. Experience had taught her that there was nothing worse than a kid who decided to be sick when they weren’t. It was probably just the dry air, Alex decided.

She dragged the reluctant Amia through her morning routine, barely getting her in her clothes in time for breakfast. Zaiman wasn’t there when they arrived, and Bassam’s seat was empty. A moment after she and Amia had taken their seats, Zaiman rushed in, a terse expression on his face.

“I’m sorry I can’t eat with you this morning,” he told Amia, kissing her head. “I have to get to a meeting. I’ll be home as soon as I can, I promise.” He extended the promise to Alex with a glance, and she smiled at the inclusion. He was gone quickly, distracted and absent, his mind already five steps ahead of his body.

As soon as the door closed behind him, Amia began to cry. Alex remembered what Zaiman had told her about Amia’s moodiness when he wasn’t available to eat with her, and she decided a firm, sympathetic approach would be best.

“He’ll be home soon, Amia,” she told her, gently rubbing her shoulder. “He’s never gone for long; you know that.”

Amia pushed her hand away and flopped dramatically on the table, burying her head in her little arms.

“Eat up now,” Alex told her. “You’ll feel better with some food in your system.”

“I won’t,” Amia said with a very distinct croak. “I won’t feel better.”

“Why not?” Alex asked in a reasonable tone.

“My throat feels like crying,” Amia wailed.

“That’s because you’re crying, darling,” Alex said gently.

“No! It feels like crying when I’m not!” Amia choked on her tears, coughing hoarsely. Frowning, Alex put a hand to her forehead, only to have it slapped away.

“Amia, stop that. I’m trying to see if you have a fever.”

“I don’t! I don’t have a fever, I don’t have Papa, and I don’t have friends!”

Alex pursed her lips as her eyebrows twisted in a wry expression.

“You don’t have your papa?!” she asked in mock horror. “Who was that man who kissed you goodbye?! We better inform the authorities, pronto.”

“I don’t have him here,” Amia clarified petulantly, dragging a fork through her untouched breakfast. “If he was here, my throat wouldn’t feel like crying.”

“He must be magic,” Alex said, injecting awe into her tone. Amia glared at her, but there was a glassiness to her fierce brown eyes which worried Alex.

“Hang out here for a minute, okay? I’ll be right back.”

“You’re leaving, too? Everybody’s leaving!” Amia sobbed, making herself cough again.

“Come with me, then,” Alex said, as exasperated as she was concerned.

“I don’t wanna,” Amia sobbed. “Walking makes me too tired.”

Still trying to sift the drama from the symptoms, Alex held out her hand.

“You can walk with me, or I can carry you, or you can wait for me here,” she said. “Which would you like to do?”

Amia sniffled for a moment, then held her arms out like a toddler. With the child’s head tucked over her shoulder, Alex indulged in a deeply satisfying eye-roll. Her sardonic humor was quickly displaced, however, when Amia’s little ear touched her cheek and felt as if it had left a scorch mark.

“Thermometer time,” Alex sang brightly as she carried Amia through the house.

The medicine cabinet in the walk-in pantry was well-stocked, and Alex nodded a greeting to Dabir as she marched through his domain. Dabir cast a suspicious glance after her, then peeked his head around the corner to watch.

Alex set Amia down on the countertop beside the cabinet, then quickly found the thermometer.

“It wasn’t the food,” Dabir said defensively.

“It’s not the food, Dabir, she hasn’t even touched it. She woke up like this, I’m afraid.”

Dabir didn’t look convinced, so Alex turned her full attention to him.

“Dabir, the food is good. You’re an excellent cook. She’s a little sick, that’s all. It’s probably just the dry air.”

Dabir nodded briskly, glancing at Amia. “Feel better.”

With that, he departed, leaving Alex to attend to the increasingly droopy Amia.

“All right, love, we have the good one. I’m just going to roll it across your forehead, okay? Sit still for me. Good girl.” She narrated her motion with a nonsense noise, checking the readout the instant it beeped.

“Well, that’s not too bad,” Alex said. “Only a degree off. That’s a helpful burn, so we’ll leave it alone for now. Do you want to eat your breakfast?”

Amia shook her head and rubbed her eyes.

“No, toast and eggs wouldn’t go down too well right now, would they?” Alex asked rhetorically. “Come on then, let’s get you to bed.”

“Rashad will be angry,” Amia croaked. “My lessons…”

“Rashad will not be angry,” Alex told her firmly. “I will tell him that you’re sick, and you’ll have to pick your lessons up another day.”

Considering the matter closed, Alex scooped Amia into her arms and carried her up the stairs to her room. As she was tucking her into bed, she heard the car return, and hurried down the hall to give Zaiman the news. She paused at the top of the stairs to wait, unwilling to stray too far from Amia’s side.

To her dismay, Bassam had returned alone. He noticed her distress immediately.

“What is the matter?” he asked.

“It’s Amia,” Alex said, wringing her hands. “It’s nothing major, at least I don’t think it is—”

At that moment, a terrible retching sound echoed down the hall from upstairs. Spinning on her heel, Alex bolted back toward Amia’s room. She found her huddled on the balcony with her head pressed against a pillar.

“Amia, darling, why are you out here?” Alex cooed, reaching for her.

She stopped short of pulling the girl into her arms, and Amia turned her pitifully pale face up at her.

“I made a mess,” Amia whimpered.

“You sure did. Better out than in, right? Come on, we’ll get you cleaned up.”

She led the wobbly girl to the bathroom and bathed her like an infant, cradling her head as she washed her body. By the time Amia was clean and dressed in fresh pajamas, she had nearly fallen back to sleep.

Alex tucked her into bed and pressed a cool cloth to her forehead. A light tap on the doorframe announced Bassam’s concerned presence.

“Oh, I’m glad you’re here,” Alex blurted gratefully. “I need medicine, and a thermometer, and she needs fluids, and…would you sit with her for a minute while I get what I need?”

“Happy to,” he said somberly. He lowered himself heavily into the chair beside her bed, looking particularly grandfatherly.

Alex squeezed her thanks into his shoulder as she hurried past. Down the stairs to the pantry in a heartbeat, she began rifling through the medicine cabinet. Fever reducers, thermometers, cough medicine, electrolyte drinks, and little cubes of chicken stock soon filled one of Dabir’s hampers. Hoping to heaven that she wasn’t forgetting something, Alex hurried back up the stairs.

“How is she?” she asked as soon as she stepped through the door.

“Sleeping like a baby,” Bassam answered in a low, soothing rumble. “But her fever is worse.”

Alex slid onto the bed, hamper in hand, and pulled out the thermometer. She rolled it along Amia’s neck, as her forehead was compromised by the cool cloth, and gasped at what it read.

“Her fever’s at a hundred and two,” Alex said, hearing the panic in her own voice.

She pressed her lips firmly together, and pulled the medicine she needed out of the hamper. She had just filled the oral syringe when Amia bolted upright with a terrible scream. Bassam, blessed as he was with children and grandchildren, reacted instinctively.

The little purple trash bin would never be the same, but Bassam’s lightning reflexes saved the duvet. Amia began to cry, and Alex cuddled close to her.

“Open up,” she said gently. “A little medicine will help.”

Amia reluctantly swallowed what she gave her, and to Alex’s relief, it stayed down. Slowly, over the next few hours, she and Bassam managed to coax enough fluids and medicine into her little body to bring a bit of color back into her face. By two o’clock, Amia’s stomach seemed to be cooperating again, and she had just begun to feel good enough to get bored.

Bassam sang her silly songs and played with finger puppets for her for a little while, which pleased her. She lay pale against the pillows and watched him with a weak smile as she held Alex’s hand. A few minutes into his show, however, his phone tittered at him. He glanced at it and sent a text, then gave Amia an apologetic look.

“I would stay and be a clown for you, sweet Amia,” Bassam said affectionately as he touched her cheek. “But I must fetch your father.”

“I want Papa,” she said pitifully.

“Yes, and I will get him. Rest now.”

Amia wiggled impatiently as Bassam left.

“How about a story?” Alex suggested. “You have a new fairy book we haven’t read yet.”

Amia nodded and snuggled close to Alex. Her little head was still hot, but her fever was no longer bordering on dangerous. Alex stroked the little one’s curly hair and opened the book.

“A long time ago, in a grassy meadow, far away, there was a kingdom of fairies. The king himself was an old fairy, as plump and sweet as a blueberry, but no longer as spritely as he once was. The kingdom knew that very soon, the old king would have to name a successor to rule on the throne.”

“He has to name them, or they’ll take it,” Amia said sleepily.

“Hm?”

“Like my throne,” the little girl continued. “The palace is my kingdom. Papa said so. But I have to stay inside it always, or the fairies will take it away, and then Papa won’t be sheikh and I won’t be princess and we will lose our throne and the fairies will take it. I don’t want them to take it.”

Amia’s pulse and breath quickened in a frantic burst of anxiety, and Alex rubbed her back.

“The fairies won’t take your throne,” she told her. “See, the book says the king is sweet as a blueberry. A sweet fairy wouldn’t take the throne from such a lovely princess, would he?”

“Even nice fairies will take it if I go away,” Amia insisted with a quivering chin. “Children have to watch and keep them away. Children are the only ones who can see them.”

“Have you ever seen a fairy?” Alex asked.

Amia shook her head.

“Then I think it’s safe to say that they aren’t going to try to take your throne any time soon. Do you want to hear about the fairy king who needed a successor?”

Amia paused, her brow furrowing. She seemed to be trying to concentrate, but quickly gave up.

“Yes, please,” she sighed, relaxing once more into Alex’s shoulder.

“All right, where were we? Ah, here. The old king would have to name a successor to rule on the throne. But there was a problem. The king had many sons, and all of them felt that they had earned the right to rule. They performed dazzling feats of bravery, traversing huge rivers and battling fearsome voles to prove their worth to the king. But none of his sons could force a promise from his lips, as none were his favorite—for his favorite child was, in fact, Lillibelle, his only daughter.”

Alex read the story faithfully, breathing life into the characters and drama into the narration. Amia listened with wide eyes, absorbing the beautiful illustrations as the words wove a fantastic tapestry through her fevered little mind. Through every page that Alex read, however, something bothered the back of her mind.

Had Zaiman actually told Amia that she could never leave the palace without losing her throne to fairies? Maybe she’d misunderstood, Alex thought. Or perhaps it was simply the fever, taking bits and pieces of Amia’s own life and muddling them up with the story.

That must be it, Alex decided. Just the fever talking.

Still, she couldn’t seem to get the little girl’s story out of her head. Something about it bothered her deeply, especially as she looked back over the short and lovely month she had spent at the palace. She realized—with a bit of a shock—that she had never once seen Amia play with another child, and she never referenced her mother.

For that matter, Zaiman had never responded to her diagonal inquiries into Amia’s infancy, or answered her direct questions about Amia’s missing parent, or indulged her not-so-subtle hints about adding to Amia’s nonexistent social life. All of these bits and pieces, taken together with the fairy story, added up to something; she was sure of it. She just couldn’t quite see what they added up to.

She was so preoccupied that she didn’t even notice when Amia fell asleep on her shoulder. She finished the story without retaining a word of it, and was still lost in thought when Bassam returned once more, this time, with a very concerned Zaiman in tow.