their master ceased growing older.

What they ate no one knew,

even as the children were found
with brains shucked from their skulls,
bodies splayed on the ground.
The vision she'd seen, the nightmare delivered by Iblees in the night—
The signs seemed clear enough now: the hooded man in the square; the boy who'd
never turned up at her kitchen door; the devil whispering riddles in her heart.
That face had belonged to the prince.
Who else could it be? It had to be the prince, the elusive prince⠀”and he was
murdering children. Or perhaps he was trying to murder children. Had he tried to murder
the child and failed? When Alizeh had left the Fesht boy earlier today he'd not seemed
in danger of killing himself.
What had the prince done to him?
Alizeh's feet pounded the slick cobblestone as she ran, desperately, back to Baz House.
Alizeh had hardly enough time to breathe lately; she'd even less time to solve a riddle
sent down from the devil. Her head was spinning, her boots slipping. The rain was
falling so hard she hardly saw where she was going, much less the hand that darted out
of the darkness, clamping down on her wrist.
She screamed.
KAMRAN DID NOT LOOK AT
Hazan as the latter approached through what was fast becoming a violent storm,
choosing to stare instead at a stripe of wet cobblestone shimmering under orange
gaslight. The rain had grown only more brutal, thrashing all and sundry while a vengeful
wind rattled around their bodies, unseating ribbons of frost from a stand of trees.
It was unlike Hazan to overlook Kamran's cold reception, for though the minister knew
his place—and knew that he was owed little of Kamran's attentions⠀”he relished any
opportunity to provoke his old friend, as the prince was easily provoked.
Theirs was an unusual friendship, to be sure.
The solidarity between the two was real—if varnished over with a thin layer of
acerbity—but the foundations of their comradeship were so steeped in the separation
of their classes that it seldom occurred to Kamran to ask Hazan a single question about
his life. The prince assumed, because they'd been acquainted since childhood, that he
knew all there was to know about his minister, and it had never once occurred to him
that he might be wrong, that a subordinate might possess in his mind as many
dimensions as his superior.
Still, the general effect of proximity over time meant that Kamran was at least well
versed in the language of his minister's silence.
That Hazan said nothing as he stepped under the battered awning was Kamran's first
indication that something was wrong. When Hazan shifted his weight, a moment later,
Kamran had his second.
“Out with it,” he said, straining a bit to be heard over the rain. “What have you
discovered?”
“Only that you were right,” said Hazan, his expression dour.
Kamran turned his gaze up at the gaslight, watched the flame batter the glass cage with
its tongues. He felt suddenly uneasy. “I am often right, Minister. Why should this fact
distress you tonight?”