The Adventures of Amina Al-Sirafi

The scribe apologizes for the disappointment that the reader must feel upon discovering that the treasure the characters are risking their lives for is actually a bucket. Al-Dabaran, moon phase admirer of Bilqis, wanted to visit her, so when he filled the basin with himself, he perhaps resembled the pearl that the myths speak of. To dispose of the Moon of Saba, there is a family whose talent is the destruction of magical things. This is where Amina comes in.

Amina is disappointed that the Moon of Saba is really a washbasin. Dunya says it helps one to see all the divine mysteries. She thinks that one can access it through the door that Amina noticed in the cave, but doing so would require Dunya’s tablets of spells. Amina wants to throw the tablets into the sea, but Dunya begs her not to. She wants to destroy the Moon of Saba and believes that what happened on Socotra was her fault. Amina says the easiest way to stop worse things from happening is to go home, but Dunya declares that she can’t marry a man. Amina realizes that Dunya has dressed and cut her hair like a male and asks if that’s how she sees herself.