"I hope they don't care who Rabab is sleeping with, as far as I know it's nobody but imagine how embarrassing."

"I think they'll care that she knows not to get into trouble with anyone in the palace but not at all about whatever she's up to outside."

"She's very sensible."

"You have good taste in people."

"Thank you! Took some practice, but I was good at it by the time I had my own hiring to do."

So they can get their servants screened and her private rooms (near his, but not shared) set up, and invitations sent to the more tolerable cousins.

Cousins all agree to attend the royal wedding!

"Now here's a question, what was in these rooms last month?" Ismat wonders. "Were they standing empty in the anticipation of wives? Is Khalil in what was to be a wife suite? Suppose you wind up with eight wives and forty children and they only budgeted for seven and thirty-two, will we all need to move?"

"They were guest suites," he says. "And I think the servants use them when there aren't guests. I think if I had that many wives then some of them would end up on a different floor of the palace and there'd probably be secret power struggles over which so I'd better not."

"Well, how many blackmailed crossdressers can there really be out there, I suppose."

"I have no particular reason to think I'm any more or less likely than the average person who doesn't particularly want a second wife to change my mind about that. I guess I have more options and am also choosier and I don't know how those balance out."

"I don't think I'd make a fuss about it if it came up but it's just as well if it doesn't."

"If you disliked her I almost certainly wouldn't. My father gets along really poorly with his father's later wives and it was stressful for everyone and a big waste of energy."

"Well, pharaohs, do they get much choice about it?"

"Not really." Sigh. 

"Long may he live," she remarks.

Fervently: "Amen."

She puts her house on the market. Rabab demonstrates non-assassinhood and takes over day to day management of Trilliant with the remaining employees on days Ismat doesn't go out, duck into the back, and teach or conduct interviews; but most of Ismat's work can be done in the dome. She attempts to strike up a friendship with her future mother in law.

Her future mother in law is very pleased with her and wants to see if she can pick up the magic item making.

Maybe she can! Ismat'll see if she can translate what she knows into the relevant area of expertise.

She's tried her hand at making jewelry occasionally but she mostly does sculpture.

Maybe they can make very jeweled sculptures.

Sounds potentially interesting!

She won't likely get it before the wedding but they can make some pretty stuff trying.

And eventually the wedding day arrives. The ceremony is inside the Dome, though outside the palace proper; about a thousand important people she doesn't know are invited. Everything is done up stunningly in red and gold.

"Well, that's a lot of people," remarks Ismat. "Why do they even all want to come? Do you know them?"