“What did I do?” Mehmed asked, brows knit together.

Radu rubbed the back of his neck. He was not certain why Lada had reacted so strongly, but he had not had an opportunity to talk with Mehmed, and he would not waste it. “We…saw you. Before we came here. At the harem.”

Mehmed’s expression revealed nothing.

“With…your child.”

Mehmed’s eyes fell shut, and he released a heavy breath. “Ah. Yes. My son.” He put a hand on Radu’s shoulder. All the greetings, all the dancing, all the friendly touches that pass from one person to another in conversation felt like a dream. Mehmed’s touch was like waking up. “It is strange, is it not?”

Radu lit up with relief. Mehmed understood how it felt when they were together! It was normal, it was shared, they could—

“I still forget that I am a father.”

A tiny exhalation escaped Radu’s lips, carrying with it all of his false relief. “Yes. That is strange.”

“I look at the baby and he feels so foreign, like sleeping in a bed not my own.” Mehmed’s hand dropped from Radu’s shoulder, and he lifted both palms up. “Still, as my father would say, it is my duty.”

“Like Sitti Hatun.”

“Yes, like Sitti Hatun. I will be happy when this is finally over, and we can go home and get back to how things were before.”

Radu nodded. That was what he wanted, too. That was the aching, the need, the wanting inside him. How things were before.

With a brief nod, Mehmed strode away, his expression distracted. Radu watched him, always aware of where Mehmed was in the room like he was of the sun in the sky. So when Mehmed slipped out a side door as everyone’s attention was focused on a poet beginning a recitation, only Radu saw.

He knew Mehmed should not be alone. Not ever. By the time Radu got through the door, he caught only a flash of Mehmed’s purple cloak as his friend turned a corner. Radu had not been invited, and Mehmed probably needed a moment alone if he was sneaking off. So he followed, quiet and at a distance. He was so intent on not losing sight of Mehmed and remaining invisible that he did not realize where Mehmed was going until he peered around a corner and saw him pounding on Lada’s door.

“Open it!”

“Take yourself to the devil!”

“We need to talk!”

“I need nothing from you!”

Mehmed put his head against the door and took a deep breath. When he spoke again, his voice was softer. Radu had to strain to hear it, as Lada no doubt had to do on the other side of the heavy wood door. “I did not know about the baby until I returned, after I met you at the pool. And then I did not know how to tell you. I still do not, I have no idea how to feel about it. It is…a duty. It is the same as sitting through endless councils, hearing the complaints of pashas and the petty disputes of Janissaries and spahis.”

Mehmed paused, as though listening to something, then shook his head. “She is detestable. And the harem, I— It is not real, Lada. I visit, and they flit about like phantoms, like paintings. None of them are real to me.” He paused again, placing a hand flat against the door. “You are the only real thing in my life.”

Radu gasped with the sheer physical pain the words sent through him. But the sound of his agony was covered by that of the door opening. Mehmed reached in and pulled Lada out to him, and then his mouth was on hers and his hands were in her hair and he was holding her so tightly, so tightly, and they stumbled back into Lada’s room and closed the door.

Radu tripped forward, feet dragging, until he stood outside the room. He wanted to be inside it. He wanted to be the only real thing to Mehmed, just as Mehmed was the only real thing to him.

He wanted—

No, please, no.

Yes.

He wanted Mehmed to look at him the way he had looked at Lada.

He wanted Mehmed to kiss him the way he had kissed Lada.

He wanted to be Lada.

No, he did not. He wanted to be himself, and he wanted Mehmed to love him for being himself. His question, the question of Mehmed, was finally answered, piercing him and leaving him shaking, silent, on the floor.

He did not want this answer.

THOUGH MEHMED HAD TO leave far too soon lest his absence be discovered, Lada could still feel the memory of his hands and lips.

She did not know what it meant or what they had set in motion. But Huma had been right, after all. Because the way Mehmed looked at Lada as he left made her feel as powerful as she ever had.

They would see each other again at a late-evening party. Until then, the men were attending a bathhouse, and the women were meeting for a more intimate meal.