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“Is she one of mine? It is so hard to tell, these days!”

“N… no, Father She is visiting the court for the wedding, like so many others”

“Then, welcome, child! Be sure to speak well of us when you return to your foreign court Tell thehter welcohtly, but so slightly no one would have thought it was anything but the good, sine, “tell them ere kind to you”

“I am sure she will, Father”

The Sultan leaned in to the two tre its scent of cedar and frankincense into their eyes “And,” he whispered, “look after et his head turned quite around on an evening such as this”

The girl nodded, her voice long having fled her throat The Sultan nodded their dismissal, and the boy led his scarlet friend onto the dance floor again, but the girl could not go on Her weeping and her shaking was too great, and the boy took her away from the crowds, away froain, where she thrust her hands down into it, watching it melt under her heat She looked up at the boy and he lifted her veil gingerly Her face was streaked with tears, her eyelids shining like ink

“If I weep long enough,” she whispered, “do you think the inkleft in the rain? Do you think I could walk a your drunken aunts, and your cousins, do you think I could sit beside your father and be called beautiful without my veil?”

“No,” he answered gently, “I do not think that”

She laughed shortly and wiped her nose “Neither do I”

He drew her cloak close around her and dried her tears with the corner of his sleeve The porphyry bracelet knocked lightly against her cheek She looked up at hiency, and closed her eyes

“Please,” she whispered “Please”

THE TALE OF THE

CAGE OF IVORY

AND THE

CAGE OF IRON,