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arm around my waist from behind. “Come, Orasmyn. Your father waits for you.”
    Father, at last. I clasp Shahpour’s hand in both mine. “Where?”
    â€œIn the mosque.” Shahpour looks at me strangely. “Are you all right, my prince?”
    I free myself from his arm and hurry along the path.
    A servant girl walks by with a basket of fresh dates and figs sitting on slices of cucumber. I snatch a handful of the dates. I stare at them, momentarily off balance from my own sudden impulse. My fast should not end until tomorrow. But these dates lure me. And, yes, for good reason: Dates are a remedy against poisons and certain sorceries. Thanks be to the Merciful One for allowing me to take this path, topass by this servant girl. I bite a date, then shove all of them into my mouth. I can barely chew, my mouth is so full. The sugary juice shocks my tongue. My stomach constricts with the need for more — for a whole meal.
    The mosque has four iwanha — deeply vaulted arched portals. I wipe date juice from my beard with my open hand, then enter through the iwan closest to the palace. Father’s shoes are pushed neatly against the entrance wall. The basins of water that always stand at the ready for the faithful glow gold in a faint light. Father is seated on the carpet in the mihrab —the niche in the wall that faces Mecca. This is where the imam stands to deliver his sermon during the Friday prayer service. The curved walls of the mihrab help reflect his voice so that even the women in the mezzanine above can hear. Now, though, the mosque is empty, but for Father and me.
    A candle burns nearby and lights up Father’s face and the Arabic calligraphy on the wall behind him. Ants attack the dead body of an aqrab —a scorpion — in the corner. I hurry to the carpet and sit on my heels.
    â€œSpeak, Orasmyn.”
    â€œI am cursed.”
    â€œWho cursed you?”
    â€œA djinn,” I say, using the word of the Qu’ran here in the mosque rather than the word pari of my people.“I allowed a defiled camel to be sacrificed today. I brought the curse upon myself.”
    â€œYou had a reason for this?” Father’s voice is steady, but I saw his involuntary wince when I said the word djinn. And he cannot hide the small twitch of his lips.
    â€œI had a reason. But I was wrong.”
    Father sits silent for a moment. He never would have had the poor judgment I displayed this morning. He would have known the exact words of the Qur’an. He would have followed the ritual in every detail. He would have known what a Shah should know, what a Shah’s son should know. I look away in shame, as much as fear.
    â€œThe sacrifice is to the Merciful One, not to any djinn,” says Father at last.
    I turn back quickly to him.
    â€œIt is for the Merciful One to forgive, in his infinite compassion,” says Father. “It is for the Merciful One to quell the djinn ’s curse.” He leans toward me until his eyes are only a hand’s distance from mine. “What is this curse?”
    â€œYou will kill me tomorrow.”
    Fathers breath escapes with a groan. “I feared this. When you spoke so strangely today, I feared this.” He clenches his jaw, and I see a muscle ripple along the right side of his jawline. He takes the candleand holds it close to the carpet. “This was woven in neighboring Heriz.”
    My eyes follow the moving candle flicker.
    â€œThese canals abound with fish. These gardens are decorated with birds and deer and flowering shrubs and blossoms. A peaceful garden. One that you, my son, might have designed.” His fingertips run like animal feet across the weft of red and yellow cotton. “See here?” Fathers fingers trace the brocading of silver and gold silk on the thin wool pile. “Ducks lie in waiting for the fish to swim around the corner.” He looks up at me again. “But the fish never