As they started back towards the city, they spat and grimaced and scratched their hair to rid themselves of the sand, which was everywhere – in their ears and mouth, under their clothes. They'd placed the cages at a safe distance from the oncoming waves, and when Hamid turned to look at them, all but one of the doves were still sitting inside them, distrustful of the freedom being offered.

The boys had already set off earlier, back towards the Bazaar. Night fell like a curtain, making it a slow and perilous walk. They groped their way through the darkness with only the diffused light from a sliver of the moon to guide them, Hamid barefoot, Flora in wet boots that tore at her ankles. An eerie howling began. It continued from street to street as new dogs joined in, possibly as a warning, as a cry for help, or to gather the pack. A thick, continuous noise, restless and filled with longing. Flocks of rawboned stray dogs appeared. They circled around, so close Hamid and Flora had to ward them off with sharp sticks.

When they finally turned into the Grand Rue de Pera, Flora's shop seemed deserted and obscure, like a bedevilled house, with a single, pale light burning inside.

"The girls must be worried sick," she whispered.

In the doorway, he drew her near, and they remained standing, absorbed by the sense of being close to each other, neither wanting to let go. A question hung, unspoken, between them: what are we to do? For a whole day, he had brushed aside all thoughts of the prophecy and the dangerous coup that was in the making. Their looming separation brought it all back. Only now, the prospect of a coup did not fill him with a sense of impending doom, but with optimism and hope.

"We will see each other again," he said with conviction.

Struggling with a sob in her throat, she answered quickly, "No. It's not possible." She said the words without letting go of his hand.

He opened his mouth to speak, but the words got stuck in his throat. Tears burnt behind his eyelids, and he looked away, all hope he had felt only moments ago, crushed. His body felt wobbly. He mustn't allow panic to get its hooks into him. He walked away without a further word.

All the way back to Galata, a whisper of a voice in his head told him: you will never see her again. Never. Never again. He willed himself to harden his heart: pull yourself together, stop frightening yourself. It was no use.

At the sight of Hamid, Reshid fell to his knees and kissed the hem of his tunic.

"Thank God you're here, my Lord. I thought you were dead. What would I have done? What would I have told the Princess?" He stood and looked at Hamid, trying to comprehend. "Good heavens, your feet! Bleeding! Where are your slippers? Where have you been?"

"To the Grand Bazaar," he said and collapsed on the divan.

Hifsi, who appeared out of nowhere, hurriedly removed Hamid's dirtied clothes, left the room, and returned with hot water to clean his feet.

Tired and despairing of the future, he allowed the words to flow, and it gave him relief. Following his brief spark of optimism, he had left Flora with little hope of seeing her again, resigned to whatever lay ahead of him. Sharing his despondency with Reshid felt like planting a tiny seed of hope in his heart again.

"I love her," he said, surprising even himself.

Complete silence fell. Reshid's expression darkened. "Love? I vowed to keep you hidden and safe here," he said. "I risk my life for you, and this is how you reward me? With recklessness and self-indulgence."

"You can't understand," Hamid snapped angrily, momentarily surprised at Reshid's less deferential tone. "It's easy for you, you are free to live as you please."

"Free?" A flash of anger appeared in Reshid's eyes.

"Yes! You freely abandoned your family, your country, your faith to come here, to travel the world, to study and grow, to become the man you want to be. How could you know what it's like to be shackled by the past. To have the stale palace world permeate your insides, seeping through the pores of your skin and poisoning the bloodstream. To die before you have lived."

"We are not the same."

"Why? Am I not a man, with the same rights as everyone else? The right to live and to be free?"

Reshid stared at him in stunned disbelief. "You, my Lord, are an Osman."

A silence eddied around them, which filled Hamid with shame. He hid his face in his hands.

Reshid sat on the divan next to him, and said with barely suppressed anger, "Look at me, I have nothing – no family, no friends, no country, no heritage. Is that freedom? I come from nothing. My father died dirt poor and left my illiterate mother with nothing more than the children to raise. Me, a miserable Jew, I had no future. To obtain a proper education, I had to become Catholic, so I did. But in Hungary, I would always remain a Jew beneath my Catholic name, so I left for the empire. In this place, people have more fluid identities, and they tolerate Jews. But to truly prosper, I had to become Muslim, so I did." He shrugged and shook his head. "All I know is I am alive."

Hamid saw Reshid drifting, like a displaced piece of wood on a vast ocean. Not a scary vision, but encouraging and irresistibly seductive. It made him angry, with Reshid, with everyone, with himself.

"I don't expect you to understand."

"Oh, I understand well enough. You feel entitled to your dreams, to happiness and love."

Love? The word coming out of Reshid's mouth sounded strange. It unleashed a chaotic feeling inside, confusing and frightening. "What do you know about love?"

"I know it grows bitter and dies," Reshid said.

Hamid felt his eyelids burn. "What if it does? What then? What if without love there's nothing, only darkness?"

The light from the burning candles seemed to bring a beam of light on the emotions he felt inside. The room felt stiflingly hot, and he was desperate to breathe fresh air. He paced, and paused before the caged, white canary. The bird blinked.

"It still won't eat, she is dying." Reshid said. "Oh," he exclaimed, and stood up straight. Then, with solemn dignity, he looked at Hamid. "Forgive me, my Lord, my concern for your wellbeing makes me forget my duty. I bring a message from Midhat Pasha, a most urgent message." He cleared his throat. "Your highness, you are to meet with Midhat Pasha."

"Why?" Hamid asked, bewildered.

"The Valide is getting suspicious. Celime has caught one of her spies who had infiltrated her household. It's possible she knows you are not there."

After a pause, Hamid comprehended, and the terror which had appeared in Reshid's eyes was confirmation enough: his time was running out.

"When?"

Reshid's neck flushed a dark red. "Not soon enough if you ask me. Midhat Pasha will be a guest at the Seagrave spring ball and if you agree, I am to accompany you there. It's only in two days, but it was the safest place we could think of. The Seagrave home is out of reach of the Valide's spies, and, as a guest, Midhat Pasha's presence there will need no explanation."

"And me?"

"We will arrive through a back entrance and slip unnanounced into a private room through the servants' staircase. God willing, no one will ever know you were there."

That night, Hamid lay awake in his make-shift bed, left to his own restlessness and his head spinning with thoughts of love, the coup, the conspirators. Everything about the meeting with the great statesman, Midhat Pasha, made him anxious. What did Midhat want from him?

He thought of Flora and felt even more gloomy. Reshid was right, he was an Osman. Even if he felt like another person with her, that person was an invention which rested on a lie, and beneath the lie remained the truth he had concealed even from himself: when Murad became Sultan, he would not be free. He would be Crown Prince, shackled ever tighter to the throne. That lie, that inescapable truth, would always stand like an invisible wall between him and Flora.

He spent the rest of the night trying to find the words to explain his position, and to attenuate the disgust and disavowal the truth would surely provoke in her, but came up with nothing.

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Author's note

I'm not the first to use the dying canary as a metaphor to serve as a warning or indicator of a larger problem or impending danger. The symbolism of the dying canary has its roots in the historical use of canaries in coal mines.

In the early 20th century, coal miners would bring canaries into the mines as an early warning system for toxic gases such as carbon monoxide and methane. These gases are odourless and colourless, making them difficult for humans to detect. But canaries are more sensitive to these gases and would become ill or die in their presence, alerting the miners to the danger and giving them time to evacuate.