Excerpt
Sitting in the Senior Library, Halide went over the facts in her mind. She shuffled the truths and arranged them piece by piece, so that they balanced like locum on the great brass scales at Haci Bekir's sweet shop. Here was the Sultan, God's representative on earth. Her father, grandparents, and their grandparents before them were an integral part of the Imperial order. Here were the guardians of Eyoub and beneath them the chief coffee makers, sweet makers, and rabbit dancers. It had always been this way, forever.