A group of artists and writers have come to Lahore, Pakistan for Comic Con. As they debate the merits of traditional storytelling, a man named Baba Kahani approaches them and offers to tell them a story. He begins with the story of a trickster named Taimur, who would coerce men onto a Red Street and then pickpocket them. He explains why those men were captivated by the Red Street through another story about the “moon-mad rose sickness,” which made women randomly begin insulting and attacking their husbands. One of these women says that this is because every few nights a red road appears outside her window and takes her to the Red Bazaar, an empty market stacked with goods and puppets with red eyes. Its ruler is the Red Midnight Queen, who tells the woman her origin story.

Once long ago, she lived in Cairo as a woman named Fatima married to a cobbler M___. Their marriage was unhappy and she was unable to bear children because he could not provide enough food to sustain her pregnancies. One day after her father’s death, he let a friend borrow her prized Quran, and in fury she beat herself and then accused him of abuse. Although her first attempt failed to condemn him, her second try did, and he fled the city with her Quran and left her independent. Still, she heard stories of M___ becoming a famous sorcerer married to a king’s daughter in another land, which enraged her further. One night she happened upon a mysterious female being that promised her any wish in exchange for a deal, and after they slept together, she became the Red Queen. 

One day, Taimur is playing his usual tricks and happens upon a finely-dressed man. He followed him and attempted to pickpocket him, but the man shocked him with his ring and knocked him out. Taimur wakes up in a room with another young woman and the man, who introduces himself as the sorcerer M____. He shows Taimur that the power of his ring comes from an ancient half-homunculus. He’s heard of Taimur’s trickery and wants to use him to stop the moon-mad roses by following the young woman along the path that night. Taimur is terrified and decides to trick him by dragging M___ into the Red Midnight along with him. The sorcerer is furious, but together they go to confront Fatima the Red Queen.

At first M___ attempts to seduce her to give up her magic by promising they can marry again and he will return her Quran, but she transports them to a room where she has captured and sewn up all the men that followed women into her realm. She gorily transforms M____ into a book for herself and takes his ring. Taimur is terrified she will do the same to him, but then she reveals she knows his secret, which is that he is actually a woman named Tehmina and adopted the male gender for respect. The Red Queen gives her the magic ring and tells her she can make any wish. 

This is where Baba Kahani ends his story, having captivated the friends in Lahore. As he walks away from them and they debate the various endings and meanings of his tale, he takes off his disguise to reveal he is actually Tehmina.