from Damascus was hard to find. Malek finally tracked him down to an area on the other side of the encampment that smelled like the opening to Hell. Fires burned under bubbling cauldrons, and a young man in a leather apron and gauntlets stood over one of these, watching intently as the liquid inside changed colour. When Malek explained that the sultan had requested his presence, his widely spaced black eyes regarded Malek with anguish. “Can it wait for twenty minutes? I’m at a critical point in the experiment.” “I think not.” It was with great reluctance that he was persuaded to go with Malek, but once he had removed his protective gear and turned his back on his experiment it was as if he had stripped away his alchemist persona and become just an ordinary person. He was a year older than Malek and also, he ascertained as they made their way back across the encampment, a distant cousin on Baltasar’s side of the family. It seemed at first a ridiculous coincidence, but by the time they had the sultan’s pavilion within sight they’d worked out that the closest they were related was at six removes.
