‘Dustwalk.’ He seemed to pull the name from the far reaches of his mind. ‘Tell me about it.’ It was an order. Whether he meant it to be or not.

‘It’s a small town at the end of the desert. I grew up there.’ It was the truth and it was obedience to his order. Even if it wasn’t what he was after. One wrong word about Dustwalk and I might give away everything. ‘I’d rather not talk about it.’

For all the size of the room, the table we were seated at was small enough that, if he’d wanted to, he could’ve reached across it and slit my throat with the long knife he was toying with.

I didn’t like being around the Sultan any longer than I had to. Not when he had so much power over me. Not when all it would take was one false word for him to find out who I was. Besides, it was after dark. Which meant I was already late to meet Sam by the Weeping Wall. I hadn’t told him about my plan to get out of the harem, seeing as I had no way of being sure I’d succeed or not. I sure hadn’t been expecting the plan to succeed so well that it would end with me sitting across from the Sultan. For once I had a whole lot more to tell Sam than he had to tell me. I just had to get back in time to meet him. And before I accidentally revealed the whole Rebellion to the Sultan.

He was watching me now. As if wondering whether to push the point of my hometown or release me from the order. But I was beginning to understand how the Sultan worked. If I gave him some truth, some weakness, on my own, he’d stop circling me. ‘I hated that godforsaken dead-end town.’ I gave him that admission. ‘Please don’t make me talk about it.’

He considered me slowly. ‘You hated everything about it?’

I was about to tell him yes, but it wouldn’t get past my tongue. Tamid, I realised. That was holding me back. I worried at one of the scars healing on my arm, feeling the little piece of metal shift underneath. I ought to hate him now. But I didn’t know if I could hate him back then. ‘No,’ I said finally. ‘Not everything.’

I thought he would press me. But he just nodded. ‘Help yourself to the food.’ Another order I couldn’t disobey. I had to make him order me to leave. I couldn’t last a whole dinner with the Sultan pulling little truths out of me one by one.

‘Why am I here?’ I started to spear the oranges off the duck one by one, putting them onto my plate. ‘You’ve got a whole garden full of wives and daughters – you could pluck one of them out to eat with you if you’re lonely.’

I knew I was crossing into dangerous territory now. But if I was going to get expelled back to the relative safety of the harem in time to meet Sam, I couldn’t mince my words. But the Sultan just sighed in resignation as he knocked my fork aside and started to carve a knife through the brown crackling flesh. ‘Perhaps I just enjoy your company.’

‘I don’t believe you.’ I watched the knife work its way through the skin, cutting a perfect round circle off the bone.

‘You’re right, perhaps enjoy is a strong word.’ He placed the meat carefully onto my plate for me. ‘I find you interesting. Now’ – the Sultan drew back – ‘eat something.’

I ignored the meat and leaned across the table to spear another candied orange straight off the skin of the duck instead. It hit my tongue in a burst of sweet and bitter like nothing I’d ever had. I leaned across again to take another one while I was still chewing the first. I caught sight of a faint smile on the Sultan’s face. ‘What?’ I asked, mouth full.

‘Nothing.’ The Sultan was still toying with the knife in his hand. ‘I just wish you could see the look on your face. If it could be bottled, it would be the elixir the alchemist Midhat was hunting for.’ In the stories, Midhat was an alchemist of great talent and great misery who lost his mind trying to make and bottle joy since he could not find it in the world. ‘Then again’ – the Sultan switched his grip on the knife, sawing at the meat of the duck I’d killed – ‘if I could’ve bottled the look on our foreign friends’ faces when you dropped this onto the council table, that would also give me a great deal of joy.’ He carved a leg of the duck and placed it on his own plate. Last time I’d eaten a duck, it’d been one Izz had caught in Iliaz. It still had the marks of a crocodile’s teeth through it, and the fat spat off it into the fire, making Jin curse when a bit sizzled and hit his wrist. Now I was taking food from the same hands that had held his mother down and claimed her by force when the Sultan was the same age as Jin. Probably in these same rooms.

‘Your Exalted Highness.’ The servant had appeared at the door so silently that I started. He was dropped into a deep bow at the door. ‘The Gallan ambassador has asked to see you. I advised him you were otherwise occupied, but he has been very insistent.’

‘The Gallan ambassador summons me to him in my own palace.’ The Sultan sounded more resigned than anything as he pushed away from the table. ‘Excuse me.’ My eyes followed him all the way to the door.

I was on my feet as soon as he’d disappeared.

I flung open two wrong doors until I found the one that led to his office.

Facing me, instead of a wall, was a huge glass window overlooking Izman. From all the way up here, in the night, the city looked like a second sky, windows dancing with lights like stars across an otherwise dark sea. The Sultan’s kingdom spread out below him. It was the closest I’d come to Izman since the day I woke up in Tamid’s workroom. I resisted the impulse to press my hands against the glass like a child.