“Fools all of you. You arrest me, when I am just a messenger from a foreign land. I was duped into this. It was all a plan for my downfall. Me, the printer of Salonika”

Bilhah takes the note between her fingers. Then, she crushes it in her palm. Her cheeks burn, everything feels like it is tipping onto its side. She clutches the note as she walks outside.

He is here.

He is here and she is a fool, for why did she ever leave the palace?

She stumbles over the tufty grass and crouches down by a copse of rocks a short distance from the work tent. She grazes them with her fingers. As if they will protect her.

In Istanbul, the iron gates were her protection. Her veil was her protection. She may not have changed her name, but no one knew who she was. Just a girl in the room of words. Friend of Aisha. Protégé of Yasemin.

Yasemin. Her letter still lies on Bilhah’s desk. You seem unhappy in your new surroundings. I can speak to Hurrem Sultan and have you returned to the palace, if you would like, or ask if you can be discharged from your duties.

She blinks, dizzy. The Imperial gardens. Peacocks with turquoise-silver feathers with green eyes. That great wall. A wall. No one could have hurt her.

He cannot hurt you.

A great black raven lands on the grass just in front of her. It shakes out its wings and looks at her with steady black eyes.

She closes her eyes and looks down, gulping in air. You may not be in Istanbul, but you are still under the protection of Hurrem Sultan. You are her eyes and ears in the holy land.

Write to her. Tell her to hang him.

Hang him.

A strange excitement wells up inside her. She could do it.

But then it comes, a piercing pain in her chest, and she does not know if she can really feel it or if it comes from her head and her heart.

How? How could she think such a thing? She looks around. Did someone see her? Could someone bear witness? Sense her thoughts, prepare to punish her. Could he — Papa — feel what she thought, even in the prison cell?