A/N Thank you for the follows and favourites and my reviewer, Fairiel - it means a lot to me. Happy New Year, everyone, bring on 2014! (Anything recognisable is adapted from the Kay Novel).

Part III

Ashraf, 1852

On the third night in the house in Ashraf, he slipped into a coma, lying still and silent on the bed, his face covered once again by the mask. Zítra sat beside him, her fingers woven through his and that blanket still wrapped tightly around her body, her mind numb from tiredness.

"Will he wake up?" the door opened, and the little boy, the Persian's son, was sitting there in his wheelchair, pushed by his tired father.

"I don't know, Reza," Zítra whispered, the tear tracks shining golden on her smooth cheeks. "I hope and pray for him, but I don't know."

The little boy's thin fingers searched tremblingly for the masked man's wrist, and Zítra took his frail hand, guided it to touch the magician's arm. Blind eyes fixed on the magician's covered face, the child forcing the slack muscles of his mouth to form slurring words.

"I want you to wake up, Erik," he said. "My music man's broken and no-one else knows how to mend it."

At his words, Zítra began to cry.

On the fourth night, she curled up at his cold side, draping his lifeless arm over her body. "You wanted to know where I'd been," she told him, listening to the faint beat of his heart in his chest. "I wasn't talking to the little princess. The Shah…he…he took advantage of your absence. Forced himself on me. I'm so ashamed, Pan, that I didn't stop him, that I didn't scream, but he was stronger than me and I couldn't move…" her shoulders shook with sobs. "And I just wanted you to know that…that it wasn't the way I'd imagine my first time doing that to be…and I'd wanted it to be you, but now you're not going to wake up, and I'll never be able to kiss you and tell you that I'm here, and that I care for you so much, my poor, beautiful, broken magician…"

On the fifth night, she was bathing his forehead when his eyes fluttered open. "Why didn't you tell me Reza's music-man was broken?" he murmured with quiet clarity.

Zítra burst into tears, embracing him tightly. "Oh, Pan, you're alive! Awake! I've been so worried, so terribly worried and thinking you would die you awful man! Don't ever do anything like that ever again."

"I don't think anyone's ever worried about me before," he rasped. "It's quite the novel feeling."

His arms very cautiously wrapped around her back, trembling and tentative as she cried.

The Persian watched from the doorway as the two embraced, smiling to himself. Zítra might be young in years, but she was certainly suited to his moody, unpredictable, violently wonderful friend. He'd watched her mature from a lively, innocent girl to a woman in a matter of days, and whilst some did not cope with such a change, Zítra had flowered with it.

She raised her head and beamed at him, gesturing for him to come in. "And look, here's the Persian," she said cheerfully. "Look, I'll get you a glass of water, and you two men can talk. I know you have a lot to say to each other."

Days passed and the summer approached with blazing sun and flowers blooming in the garden. The magician spent his time at the palace worksite and at the bedside of little Reza, and Zítra danced on the grass, body swaying to the sound of the birdsong. It was odd, to miss a man who lived in the same house, but she missed the way things used to be, the arguments and the needling each other unnecessarily. Since he recovered, cold, icy walls had been slammed up and he no longer smiled faintly when he saw her, or made any attempt to speak with her anymore.

It was late one evening, and she could hear the Persian and the magician's voices conversing in the room, the older man's voice breaking on a sob. She stood in the doorway as the magician emptied a glass vial into a clay cup of sherbet, took it in his elegant, long-fingered hand.

"This is no longer your burden," he said gently to the Persian. "Wait for me here."

He crossed the room and she waited in the doorway, her body frozen as the clock ticked away. Five minutes passed, and then he was back, the limp body of Reza cradled in his arms. He laid the boy in his father's lap, and stepped back, head bowed.

Her hands came up to stifle her gasp, and when his head jerked up, his amber eyes meeting hers, she turned and began to run blindly through the house, throwing herself on her bed. He killed the little boy. He killed a child, no more than nine or ten years old. Had he no pity?

The door creaked open after a while, and there were footsteps crossing the room, a weight on the end of her bed. "Go away," she said fiercely. "I don't wish to speak to you."

"Zítra." His beautiful voice echoed in the air between them, and she buried her face in her pillow.

"Go away," she snapped.

"It was quick," he told her quietly. "If I hadn't have done it, he would have suffered terribly for weeks and months, and how fair would that have been to him?"

"The Persian…"

"Nadir has known for some time now, that the option was there if he wished it to be," he paused. "It was a kindness, Zítra. It is the one thing I do not feel guilty for."

She was silent for several seconds, and he sighed.

"What do you feel guilty for, if not for killing a little boy?" she asked after a time.

Shutters went down over his eyes. "I will not speak of it to you."

"Pan…"

He stood. "I will see you in the morning."

But in the morning, he was gone. Zítra found the Persian sitting and staring into space, his hands twisting a piece of string over and over again. "Where is the magician?" she asked, her voice croaky.

"Back to court," he said, staring straight through her. "I suppose I shall have to return, too."

Zítra shuddered. "I'm coming with you."

"That would not be a good idea," the Persian blinked. "The Shah…"

"I'm not frightened of the Shah anymore. I have my magician," she lied. She was still frightened of the Shah, of the lustful gleam in his eyes and her utter powerlessness to resist him.

"He is not yours, Zítra," the Persian chided gently. "Though to say the truth, he cares for you more than I think he's cared for anyone."

Zítra twisted her key between her fingers. "I'm still coming to court."

The Persian gave up all attempts to dissuade her, returning his eyes to the place where his son was buried. "If you wish."

Upon arriving at the court in the warmth of the late afternoon, the Persian went straight for an audience with the Shah. Zítra found the magician in their apartment, sitting on the divan with his head in his hands. "What's happened?" she asked.

"Nothing," he snapped. She sat down beside him, laid a hand on his arm. He flinched.

"Tell me," she pressed, tucking her legs up underneath her. "Please. You can't keep bottling all the bad things up inside you."

"No," he glared at her. "Don't you understand, you insolent child? No means no."

"I'll get it out of one of the servants," she threatened.

"You have no money to bribe them with," he growled. "Drop it, Zítra Flor."

Furious at the walls that had gone up around him since his recovery, she stood, tossing her hair to one side. "I'll break my key if you don't tell me," she said spitefully. "Then when it's my birthday, I'll turn into a doll and I'll stay as a doll. You'll never see me again."

The visible side of his face paled, and he let out a snarl. "Damn you, stupid girl."

"Tell me," her hands found the key, bending it between her fingers.

"They brought a harem-girl to me," he pushed the key out her hands, and it fell against her chest. "She refused, when I told her that she'd be free and provided for life if she came willingly. The khanum had her killed. She was only a year older than you, and her only crime was being terrified of me. Everyone is terrified of me. No-one looks at me and thinks I'm normal. That's all I ever want sometimes. To be normal."

"I'm not terrified of you," Zítra said quietly as he turned to face the balcony window, pacing up and down in front of it, his shoulders set in a tense line. Jealousy dampened down by his anger boiled in places inside her that she didn't even know existed.

"Look upon my face and tell me that," he snapped.

"I've seen your face," she fisted her hands in the green silk of her dress.

He tore off the mask, turning to face her, amber eyes blazing out of a corpse-like face, twisted lips and missing nose. Zítra didn't even flinch.

"I'm not frightened of you," she repeated. "Well, sometimes when you scream and shout, but otherwise, no. You've been nothing but good to me."

"Fuck," he swore, turning away and burying his face in his hands. "You don't know what you do to me, Zítra Flor."

She crossed the room, wrapped her arms tightly around his thin body. "Pan…"

"My name is Erik."

"I know," she said. "Erik. I know. I've seen the way you look at me and…"

"Doesn't that make me the same as the Shah – a lecherous man leering after a young girl? I heard what you said that night." His voice sounded broken, a man reaching for something he could never have.

"You're not the same as him. You never could be. He's bad, you're good. He's greedy, you're not. And he wants what he can't have, you want what's already in your hands."

He prises her arms from around his waist, turns to face her, gripping her wrists tightly. "You mean it?"

"Yes," she went up on her tiptoes, her face inches from his. There was a moment of indecision, and then he groaned, wrapping his arms around her body, and kissed her fiercely. Her lips parted eagerly beneath the mass of twisted flesh he called a mouth, her delicate fingers clawing through his thinning hair. Her body arched under his exploring hands as they slid down her back, her stomach, the inside of her thighs, and all she could think was how right this felt, to be held in the arms of her magician.

He jerked away suddenly, breathing heavily, a terrified look in his amber eyes. "I can't do this. You're too young," he shook his head. "Still a child."

She gripped his shoulders tightly, her cheeks flushed and her hair falling about her face in waves of chestnut. "I'm old enough to make my own choices, Erik."

She pushed the silk sleeves of her dress off her shoulders, shivering at the cool, evening scented air from the balcony. He swallowed, his arm tightening around her waist.

"I've never done this before," and for a second he was not arrogant, or scornful, or aloof, he was just frightened, and she'd never felt as old as she did in that moment.

She kissed the hollow of his throat, the skin of his deformed cheek. "Don't be frightened. It's only me."

With a groan, he pulled her face back to his, kissing her like she was the only thing keeping him from drowning, pulling the skirt of her dress away from her legs, undoing the clasps at the back with trembling fingers.

She unbuttoned his shirt, kissed the scars left by things melting into history, leaving kisses that burned against his skin. He gathered her into his arms, his little clockwork dancer, carried her into his bedroom, and laid her down on the bed, kneeling over her. She reached up to stroke her fingers along the hole where his nose should be, wrapping her arms around him, and pulling him down on top of her, their bodies becoming one in the dying light of a painted sunset.

In the morning, when they did not answer the Persian's knocks, he walked in to find clothes scattered by the window, and the sound of laughter coming from the bedroom. Sighing, and shaking his head, he settled on the divan to wait for them to emerge.

She trailed her thumb along his scars, her skin cream against the red-velvet covers. "I want to know trivial things about you," he said, winding her chestnut hair around his long, slender fingers.

"There aren't many trivial things to know," she sighed. "I have a weakness for dance-shoes, and I favour the night hours to the day."

"You are like me, then," he might have smiled. "The night is infinitely more beautiful than daytime. Any more light than that given off by a candle is garish."

"When the nightingale sings, everything stops to listen," she paused. "I used to dance to the sound of the nightingale, until the Enchanter made me come inside, and sleep. He never really understood me."

"My mother didn't understand me, either," he found himself confessing. "She was frightened of me. Like everyone. Not like you."

"There was a room in the Enchanter's House," she smiled. "It was where all the toys that didn't work out went. The ones with funny paint-jobs, or creepy smiles, who never got a human self. He called it his room of misfit toys. And I guess, to humanity, that's what we are. Misfit toys."

"You are wise," he said.

"You are a genius," she brushed his hair away from his face.

"The Daroga is waiting outside. He's not pleased with us," Erik told her.

"Let him be angry," she tossed her head. "I don't care, and I know you don't."

"What are you thinking?" the Persian stands, his green eyes blazing with an uncharacteristic anger as the two appear in the bedroom door, Erik's too-large robe slung over Zítra's shoulders, trailing on the floor like a ceremonial robe.

The magician adjusts his shirt, giving a carelessly fluid shrug. "We weren't thinking of anything, Daroga."

"You fools," the Persian hisses, raking a hand through his hair. "I thought you said…"

"What I said then does not matter now," the magician settles himself in the space on the divan left by the Persian, Zítra pacing over to sink into an armchair, her arms wrapped around her small waist and her hair cascading over the deep red of the robe. "Would you care to elaborate why you think we are fools?"

"You cannot do things like this. The khanum…"

"May be interested in my bedroom activities, but there's nothing she can do about it. Or will she know about it."

"Allah, you can be so stupid! She has spies everywhere! She'll have one amongst your servants. I have one amongst your servants."

The magician raises an eyebrow at this revelation. "There were no servants in the apartment last night and there is nothing you, nor the khanum, can do to stop affairs that are entirely my business. Now leave, before I grow angry with you."

"If you won't listen to reason, you'll listen to the sound of the sword whistling above your head," the Persian mutters mutinously, his robes swirling around his feet as he walks towards the door. "But for Allah's sake, be circumspect about how you conductyour affairs in future."

"I don't need advice from you," the magician's parting shot rings over the Persian's shoulder, and the door slams behind him. He sighs, gets to his feet.

"Where are you going?" Zítra asks, unfolding herself from her chair.

"I have an audience with the khanum this morning," he answers, raking a hand through his hair. "Then, I'm afraid, little dancer that I have to go back to the palace site. I will be back by tomorrow night, and you will be perfectly safe."

"Do make amends with the Daroga," she reaches out and grips his arm. "And, Erik, I've…"

"Hush," he said, one hand touching her face for the briefest of caresses. "I will see you soon."

She was left alone in the sitting room, cradled in the smell of his robe as she heard his footsteps retreating away down the corridor outside.

It was late when he returned. Zítra had been pacing, wearing the pattern of her footsteps into the rug, his robe swishing from her shoulders in a swathe of black silk. One of the Shah's cats was curled contentedly on the couch, purring, and for a moment the girl envied it its confidence and peacefulness.

The grandfather clock struck midnight as the door opened and he entered, the Persian in tow. The two were arguing, but there was a bantering air to the way they spoke, the hostility of their past exchange dissolved into thin air.

The magician glanced at her and there was a look in his amber eyes that made heat burn in her stomach and between her thighs. "You may leave, Daroga," he said, and the Persian looked between the two of them, shaking his head.

"I give up," he muttered, and the visible part of the magician's mouth twisted up in a sardonic smile.

"As you should, when the matter is none of your business," he turned away, and the Persian quietly left the room, shutting the door behind him. She padded over to him, her hair cascading loose about her shoulders, sliding the silken robe down to let it puddle at her feet.

"I missed you," she said, her hands reaching up to pull away his mask, dropping it to the floor with the robe.

"I shall have to take you with me when I go to the palace again," he takes her in his arms, and she sighs as his lips graze hers, his elegant, long fingers spread across the white linen covering her back.

Unbeknownst to them, a servant stood hidden in the shadow of the kitchen door, a broom in her hands and her green eyes narrowed, watching as clothes fell to the floor like petals, as her master took the girl in his arms, kissing her with his horribly deformed lips. The woman shuddered in disgust as his hands moved under the skirt of her nightgown, the girl's head falling back as she cried out, her hands clinging to his shoulders.

The khanum would pay well for such information.

The days moved like the pages of a book, turned by idle hands. They spent hours in each other's arms, memorising the lines of each other's bodies, talking and laughing and making love when the stars shined their cold light through the windowpanes. Whenever he looked back on that time, the magician would always call it the halcyon days of his life, when he came home to Zítra's smile and her ready embrace. He wondered whether falling in love was like this, the utter contentment whenever he was around her, and the desperate longing whenever they were apart.

Several months passed, and it was the height of summer once again. He returned from the almost-completed palace of Mazanderan, hot and irritable and ready to sleep with the weight of Zítra's head resting contentedly against his chest.

Letting himself into the apartment, he looked around, hanging up his cloak and hat. "Zítra?" he called.

No reply. Maybe Nadir had taken her to the food-market in the centre of Tehran. She had mentioned it. Disappointed, he sank down upon the divan, pulling a piece of paper towards him and absently beginning to draw. Zítra's face took shape beneath his pencil, the curve of her cheekbones and the sweep of her eyelashes, the straight lines of her nose and the stubbornness of her jaw.

Anyone else would have thought that idle sketch was a masterpiece, but after looking at it for a few seconds all he could think was how it did not capture the hopeful blue of her eyes that was like the top layer of a sunset.

He sat there for a long time, staring into space, and it was there that he was when the nervous summons came from a slave of the khanum, a boy with eyes flickering everywhere except on the magician's face.

"The Majesty of the Sun wishes you to attend upon her," he trembled, and the magician, jerked out of his peaceful trance, glared awfully at the messenger.

"She told me you must come with utmost haste," the boy ventured, and the magician growled, pushing past the terrified child, and flinging on his hat and cloak.

It did not take long to reach the harem, where eunuchs bowed him into a courtyard with glass-paste mosaics glinting in the floor and flowers spilling over balconies in waterfalls of colour. The khanum waited at one end, surrounded by her ladies, and at the expression on her face, dread snaked cold tendrils around his heart, like ivy around a tree, slow, inexorable, unescapable.

"Ah, Erik, there you are," she approached him, the colours of the ladies clothes parting like the Red Sea. "I have a gift for you."

He stayed silent. Was she trying to torture him? Whatever it was, it wouldn't work.

Something was clasped in her hands. A hint of gold sparkled through her fingers. She smiled, cruel, like a cat toying with an unfortunate mouse. "Don't you want to know what it is?" she asked languorously.

He didn't reply.

"I said, don't you want to know what it is?"

"If it pleases you, Madame," the feeling in his chest was getting tighter, knots were twisting in his stomach like he'd swallowed a writhing snake.

There was another tantalising flash of gold.

Then the key dropped into his hands.

Twisted, broken.

Rage. Pain. Fear. Horror.

He looked up at the delighted khanum.

"Where is she?"

"I do not know what you are talking about." she turned away, the rings on her fingers glinting like eyes.

"Where is she?" his voice was awful in the stillness.

"She, oh, you mean your little toy? It is here, Erik, right here."

The skirts of the ladies swirled, and then there she was, held by two eunuchs, bound, bruised, broken. Blood trickled from the corner of her mouth, and he could see the wood slowly creeping up the tips of her fingers.

"Zítra," his voice was hoarse, disbelieving.

She whimpered, her knees buckling, and one of the eunuchs shook her.

The man's cry of pain echoed through the hall a second later, and then Zítra was in the magician's arms, her head lolling to one side, and her eyelids flickering shut. She was cold and blood was sticky on his hands as he pushed past the khanum, out of the harem, along deserted corridors lit by glowing lamps, into the apartment, slamming the door.

He laid her on their bed, the pain in his chest like a river in full flood. "Erik," she murmured, tossing her head to one side as he undid the ropes with trembling fingers. "Erik, where are you?"

"I'm here, Zítra. I'm here," the breath hitched in his throat as blood began to spread across the sheets. "It's alright, it's going to be alright."

"No, it's not," she opened those blue eyes that had always been able to see right through his rage and his pain. "I'm dying."

Those words tore at him with sharp claws, and he choked back sobs. "You're not dying. You're not, look, I'm going to get bandages and…"

"It's too late. Too late," she broke off, coughing, and held out her arms, beseeching. "Hold me. Please."

"You can't die, you can't," he lay beside her, taking her into his arms as she pulled off his mask, her hands resting weakly against his chest. "I won't let you."

"You have to let me go," her eyes were infinite pools in the gathering darkness.

"No," came his simple answer. "No. I am never letting you go."

She took hours to die, choking and bleeding away her life as fragile limbs slowly turned to wood. He held her in his arms, her tears falling on his cheeks as he sang to her, watched her, pleaded with her. She can't die. She can't.

It was almost midnight, and the starlight shone on her painted cheeks, little breaths fluttering past his face and a fading heartbeat echoing in the air around them. She is not dying.

It was midnight and the chimes fell from the grandfather clock, bong, bong, bong. When it was quiet again there was only one heart beating.

He screamed. When he shook her, her wooden eyelids opened and flat blue eyes stared up at him reproachfully.

On her back, the keyhole had disappeared. He sobbed and cursed raggedly, and when the dawn came, the Persian found him lying still and silent with a wooden doll clutched to his chest, and blood staining the sheets in the shape of wings.