“The Queen is in there. You are the Lord Toni?”
Tony nodded. Abdul looked oddly uncomfortable.
“When you go back to Barkut,” said the woman, “do try to get them to send us some sweets! We haven’t had any sweets for months!” Then she said tolerantly to Abdul: “Not that you don’t try, of course.”
Abdul wriggled unhappily. “I will wait here, lord,” he said sadly. “It is not fitting for a djinn, of the most powerful of created beings, to be made mock of by a mere human. Perhaps I will go back and wait by the door.”
Ghail came out of the largest building—it would have no more than two or three rooms, and was of a single story—and regarded Tony with a deliberately icy air. She said:
“Greetings, lord.”
Just then the motherly woman said comfortingly to the short stout djinn:
“Oh, don’t go away, Abdul! I’ll watch your magic tricks for a while—if they’re good ones.”
Abdul wavered. Tony grinned at Ghail. He said critically:
“Of the two of us, you look most like you had a hang-over. Have you been crying?”