He went to Mehmed instead of his sister, and put his arm around the sultan’s shoulders. Mehmed leaned gratefully against him. Radu looked up at Lada and held out his free arm. She considered it, eyes heavy with exhaustion and something that looked suspiciously like sorrow. Before she could move, the chief eunuch returned. Mehmed straightened and stepped away from Radu, and Lada resumed staring at the wall.

“Follow me,” the chief eunuch said, and Radu once again found himself in the back, the pool of light from the eunuch’s lamp not quite reaching him.

MEHMED’S MOTHER MOVED WITH a sensuous grace that terrified Lada.

Lada could not seem to get comfortable, no matter where she sat in the opulently perfumed and padded room. The valide sultan occupied too much space here, with her silks and her veil and her dripping jewelry, with her careful face and her calculating smile and the way she lay across several pillows with as much precision as any Janissary sword.

If Halima and Mara were different seasons, Huma was nature itself.

“Sit down.” Her voice was kind, but a narrowing of her eyes indicated that she would brook no argument. Mehmed ceased pacing and sat across from her. He seemed as out of sorts as Lada. He had never known his mother, not in any real sense, and now came to her from a place of weakness. It was not ideal.

Lada remembered the sensation of the dagger meeting the resistance of flesh, the unyielding bone that made it turn course, always seeking more, deeper, deeper….

Not ideal. None of this was ideal. She had bathed, her hair still wet, but her hands felt sticky and her mouth would not surrender the memory of the bright, metallic taste of blood.

Radu, however, seemed fascinated, even delighted by the valide sultan. He sat near her, a rapt, worshipful look on his face. As though sensing the weight of his admiration, the valide sultan turned to him. Her lips, so much like Mehmed’s, parted in a way that was almost like their nurse’s smile. A way her lips had not moved for Mehmed.

“You were very clever, to bring him here. Radu, is it?” She sat up, leaning forward and putting her finger under his chin to lift his face. “Beautiful,” she murmured. Her gaze flicked toward Lada, whose spine stiffened and jaw jutted out defiantly. She knew how she would compare. The valide sultan’s smile shifted into something less maternal, but Lada did not know what it was.

“Valide Sultan,” Lada said, scowling over the show they were being forced to endure, “we need to—”

“You may call me Huma. Both of you.” She turned back to Mehmed, settling back down and resting her lovely cheek on her palm. “And you may call me Mother.” A small laugh, like coins being dropped into a well, escaped her lips.

“We do not have time—”

Huma held up a hand heavy with gold, cutting off Mehmed. “We do not have time to panic, or to display weakness. We have all the time in the world to allow you to engage in your much-deserved holiday as you take full advantage of the pleasures of your harem. Indeed, were the new sultan to spend an entire week of debauchery and riotous celebration with his women, no one could blame him. Or interrupt him. Or access him. And no one could discover how tenuous his power truly was and how close he came to being murdered before he could rule.”

“But the assassin—”

“Did not exist. It never happened. No one would ever attempt to take the life of the sultan, because to admit an attempt happened and nearly succeeded is to admit that it is possible to imagine an Ottoman empire without you at its head.” Her darkly lined eyes narrowed. “Do you understand? You are not hiding here. You are reveling. You are enjoying your power.”

Mehmed nodded, one slight dip of his head.

Huma’s face returned to its cheerful, lovely mask. “I have already sent the chief eunuch notice to inform the pashas and viziers of your activities. Word will spread. We have all the time we need.”

It was a good lie. And in order to be a good lie, it had to be believable. Lada did not want to think about why it would be so easily believed, how much time Mehmed had already spent here, whether there was precedence. She did not want to think about any of this.

It made her weak, this avoidance of reality. And still she recoiled when her mind tried to settle on it.

Huma stood, a rustling of silks and a cloud of sweetness trailing in her wake. But there was an undertone to it, a sharp scent that made Lada’s eyes water and her head swim. “Now go to your rooms. Servants will be by to see to you shortly.”

Mehmed opened his mouth as if to argue. Huma raised a single perfect brow. “Let your mother take care of this, my precious son.” The soft and comforting words were spoken in a tone that pierced like a needle.