Lada remained where she was, standing stiffly by the table. “I want nothing you can offer.”

“Oh, but you must have questions! Do not be afraid. You cannot embarrass us. We are wives, after all.”

“That is exactly the fate I am trying to avoid,” Lada muttered.

“Then you are a fool,” Mara answered.

“Oh, be kind, Mara! She does not understand. It is a wonderful thing, being a wife! Murad is so attentive, and we are taken care of better than we could ever hope for.” There was no hint of furtiveness or secrecy in Halima’s tone. Her statement was as honest as her big, stupid eyes.

“You are married to Murad?” Lada asked, the sultan’s name foul on her tongue.

“We both are.” Halima smiled brightly. Lada looked in horror toward Mara.

Mara’s smile was the bitter winter to Halima’s brilliant spring. “Yes. We are both his wives, among other wives and many concubines.”

Lada recoiled. “That is an abomination.”

“If I recall correctly,” Mara said, “your father has another son, from a mistress.”

Lada did not answer, but her face was confirmation. They never spoke of the other Vlad, but Lada knew he existed.

Halima gestured eagerly, as though she could pluck the thoughts from Lada’s mind and smooth them out into more pleasant shapes. “That is how it is done here. Men are allowed to have more than one wife, if they can provide for them. And the sultan has a tradition of keeping a harem. We are all loved and cared for. It is such a privilege to be a wife!”

Mara took a sip of tea from a delicate teacup, unlike any Lada had seen. When she spoke, she spoke in Hungarian. “Halima is an idiot.”

Halima tilted her head to the side. “What?”

Mara continued. “She is a child. She fancies herself a princess in a tale. Murad choosing her as a wife from among the harem was the biggest thing a girl like Halima could ever accomplish. I do not know whether to strangle her or to do everything in my power to keep her in her glittering fantasy.”

Lada answered in Hungarian, intrigued by Mara’s honesty. “What about you?”

“I am here for the same reason you are. My marriage to Murad was the seal of a truce with my father and Serbia. My presence here keeps Serbia free.”

Lada scoffed. “But Serbia is not free.”

Mara raised a single eyebrow. “What do you think freedom is?”

“The right to rule yourself! Not to be beholden to a foreign nation for safety.”

“Every country is beholden to other nations for safety. That is what treaties and borders are.”

“But this is different!”

“How so?”

“You! You should not be forced into a marriage! It is not fair.”

Halima coughed deliberately, her lips turned down. “Perhaps we could speak in a language everyone understands? So no one’s feelings are hurt by being left out?”

Mara continued without acknowledging her fellow wife. “Hmm. And what do you think would have happened to me if I had stayed in Serbia? I would have been married to another man not of my choosing. I despise my husband and this entire empire, but at least here I have accomplished something. Halima’s marriage to Murad keeps her safe and taken care of. My marriage to Murad keeps all of Serbia safe and taken care of. It is not fair, no. But it is more important than fairness. Do you love Wallachia?”

Lada scowled at the trap of the question. She knew where it would lead, but she had to answer truthfully. “Yes.”

“Just as I love Serbia. I serve my country and my family by being exiled. We must all do what we can, Ladislav. This was my contribution.”

Halima cleared her throat prettily. “Are we ready to speak in Turkish now? I thought of some advice I would like to give Ladislav!”

Lada picked her way through the meal, observing the two varieties of wife before her. She could never be like Halima, grateful and naive. But could she be like Mara—resigned to a fate she did not choose, in defense of her country?

Halima kept up a chirping discourse, talking of nothing of substance with such dreamlike joy Lada almost understood Mara’s protectiveness of her. There was something comforting about the mindlessness of it all. And Lada enjoyed Mara’s wry, biting comments, often delivered in a language Halima did not understand. Maybe Lada would ask to meet with them again. It would be nice to have someone to talk to besides Radu and their hated tutors.

Halima was in the middle of a lengthy story. “…and Emine, she is my dear friend, you know she joined the harem on her own! It was quite the scandal. She left her family and walked right in! Of course they had to take her then, her family would not have her back, and so—”