This is the palace at the hour Scheherazade begins her tale — a midnight-indigo interior lit by a single brass lamp, every surface pierced with eight-pointed star-lattice and dripping gilt. Deep aubergine and royal indigo grounds, brass and honey-gold ornament catching lamplight, thin filigree arches framing each block of text like a storyteller's alcove.

It is unapologetically ornate, but the ornament is disciplined: geometric mashrabiya screens, mihrab arches, keyhole windows. Not a bazaar cliché — a moonlit court where a woman tells tales to stay alive, rendered in violet, silver and gold. The night is not over, and there are nine hundred more stories.