Hani hiccuped and her screen stopped recording. Carbon dioxide cured hiccups, or so Hani had been told, so she exhaled into her cupped hands and breathed in again, inhaling cinnamon-scented breath. She didn't really want to tell Ali-Din a story but she'd finished Golden Road III for the second time and she was bored. Or rather, the afternoon dragged more slowly than ever if she left it unfilled. And talking to herself kept the hurt at bay, mostly.

Hani clapped to get the computer's attention.

'And when the Djinn saw her, he unfolded his mighty wings, saying "Glory to the True God. This is a creature from paradise." And he flew heavenwards until he met the Ifritah and said, "Marvel at the poor child who sleeps here in innocence. For you will see none more brave ..."'

On the plate beside Hani's screen were a few cake crumbs, not really enough to bother with but Hani scooped them up crossly, squeezed them into a sticky mass and then pushed them into her mouth. She had heard the lift whine noisily as its wire dragged over the ungreased wheel at the top of the shaft. Aunt Nafisa had promised to get the lifts serviced. That was another thing which wouldn't come true.

'And the Ifrítah spiralled down from the star-studded firmament, alighting on the balcony of a marble palace in old Cairo and did as the Djinn bade. And, Glory to the True God, the child who slept in innocence in the golden bed was every bit as beautiful in loveliness as the tattered beggar boy asleep in the old graveyard by the grave of his father ...'

Hani knew he was there, but she didn't stop telling her story and she didn't look round. To do so would be to admit that a man had entered the haremlek. And that was something that never happened. So, instead, she kept telling her story to Ali-Din and the puppy told it secretly to her screen, which wrote it down in flowing letters, with ornate calligraphy for the names of God and less ornate but still beautiful capitals for the names of humans, locations, ifrits and djinns. She'd chosen the lettering herself from a database at the Library. Accessing the script had been easy; she'd just pretended to be a professor of literature from Cairo University. Cairo was Hani's favourite city. She'd never been there, but in The Arabian Nights that was where the most beautiful girl ever born was discovered, sleeping, by a djinn.

Lady Nafìsa hadn't liked Ali-Din and she hadn't liked The Arabian Nights. But then, Lady Nafìsa was dead. So that showed what she knew.

'Hani.'

Raf could have told her a story of his own. Maybe he would, one day. Maybe soon. On the red-tiled floor, beside the girl's small chair, a robot dog sat in what looked like a puddle of spilt tea. The dog was silver, leather and tattered felt, with floppy plastic ears and a long tail that ended in a blue glass button. Instead of eyes the dog had a black plate stretched over the top third of its head like a motorbike visor, behind which were twin video cameras.

What the dog saw she saw, in a tiny window open on one corner of her screen.

'Ali-Din's made another mess,' Raf said quietly.

Hani's eyes slid to the rag dog and she nodded doubtfully.

'He's not real.'

'I can see that,' said Raf. 'But then, nor is my fox.'

The glance Hani flicked at her screen was to check she wasn't dealing with a complete madman. Been there, thought Raf. Felt that ... 'We need to talk,' he said apologetically.

It took an effort, but Hani made herself turn round; made herself wait until she had Raf's whole attention; made herself ask the question, even though she already knew the answer... 'You're going to send me away, aren't you?' Her words were little more than a whisper.

'Hani, I can't ...'

'Knew it.' She almost stamped in frustration. 'I can help here. I won't get in the way.'

'It's not about—'

The girl didn't let him finish that sentence, either. She wasn't interested in his reasons any more than Raf would have been if he'd been her: adults could excuse anything. Even things they didn't really believe in. They both knew that.

'Why, then?'

'Because ...' He didn't have a because. Or, rather, he had dozens, from local tradition to his own convenience, all of which he could justify, in none of which he actually believed. But then, believing in things got you hurt. And if the thing you believed in was a person, that could land you in jail.

'We'll talk about it later,' he said. Remembering that that was what adults had said to him.

Next morning was Friday and the city was shut. Gathered together in the early-morning cool of the kitchen, Khartoum, Raf, Donna and Hani ate breakfast, before Raf and Hani started work cleaning up the rubble that Hamzah's builders had left behind. Hani insisted on cooking and gave Raf a plate piled high with flat bread and sticky chunks of comb honey. Her own she left empty except for a peach and a handful of grapes.

Only when Raf had finished did Hani pile up the dishes in the sink. After that, she made a second bodun of java, even though Khartoum and Donna drank only mint tea and Raf insisted he was wired enough already. Then she went to fetch a broom, the room echoing to her footsteps.

Outside the kitchen window Rue Sherif was almost empty, missing its usual heavy grind of traffic. And the few taxis that travelled moved unhindered along almost deserted roads that saw the trams stilled and most shops locked tight. Loudspeakers everywhere were calling the faithful to prayer, from minarets dotted like spindly rockets across the humid city. Raf ignored them.

'Isk wasn't always this quiet,' said Hani. She spoke with the absolute certainty of someone aged nine. 'But it all changed last year. Now you aren't allowed to drive unless you're going to the mosque.' She carefully swept a pile of crumbs from under the table into a plastic dustpan and, just as carefully, tipped the pan into a metal dustbin. Which was fine, except that blowback sent a swirl of dust and crumbs up into the girl's face and started her sneezing. 'Not funny,' she said fiercely.

All of the major rubble from the hall had already been removed by Hamzah's men who'd left behind only dust, grit, fist-sized chunks of brick and the fine white bones of dead mice and an unlucky kitten. No treasure, but Hani was getting to grips with her disappointment.

The wooden double door on Rue Sherif now opened onto a newly revealed entrance area, tiled in black. To right and left, running round the edge of the hall, an elegant split staircase hugged the wall, alabaster balustrades rising around its edge, the ever-increasing gap between floor and stairs filled in with what looked like a smooth fall of ice that turned out to be white marble.

The actual walls were bare, stripped of whatever paintings, tapestries and hangings had originally cut the monochrome severity of the black floor and white staircase.

The style was Third Empire, which was undoubtedly one of the reasons why it had been bricked away. At a time when Iskandryia's Nazrani contingent had been building ornate villas in the High Moorish style, Ottoman families were having their own ancient houses demolished to be replaced with buildings better suited to Faubourg St Germain. Two hundred years later both communities were still embarrassed by their earlier enthusiasm. The hall might be the only part of the Madersa al-Mansur to be reworked in Third Empire style, but its European influences would have been enough of an embarrassment to Lady Nafisa for her to have it bricked away. But then, this was a woman whose outward acceptance of inshallah, the surrender to God's command had been such that she avoided using the future tense in public, because it presumed on the will of God ...

At the top of the marble stairs, Hamzah's builders had unbricked another archway, one that led to an alcove. Without being asked, they'd demolished a wall between that alcove and the qaa. Of Lady Nafìsa's smoked-glass office nothing remained but a bad memory.