Ali let go of her wrist and then stepped back to retrieve their extinguished torch. He held it out. “Light it.”
Nahri tipped her hand to let the flame dance from her palm to the torch, setting it ablaze. She looked mesmerized . . . and far more emotional than he’d ever seen her. Her typically cool mask had vanished; her face was shining with delight, with relief.
And then it was gone. She lifted an eyebrow. “Would you like to explain the purpose of that last question?”
He dropped his gaze, shifting on his feet. “Sometimes magic works best when there’s a little . . .” He cleared his throat, searching for the least inappropriate word he could think of. “Ah, emotion behind it.”
“Emotion?” She abruptly swept her fingers through the air. “Naar,” she whispered, and a slash of fire danced in front of her. She grinned when Ali jumped back. “I suppose anger works just as well then.” But she was still smiling when the tiny embers fell to the ground, winking out in the sand. “Well, whatever your intent, I appreciate it. Truly.” She glanced up at him. “Thank you, Ali. It’s nice to learn some new magic here.”
He tried to offer a casual shrug, as if teaching potentially deadly skills to his ancestral enemy was something he did all the time—and not, as it suddenly dawned upon him, a thing that should have been considered more carefully. “You needn’t thank me,” he insisted, his voice slightly hoarse. He swallowed and then abruptly crossed to retrieve the scroll from where she’d dropped it. “I . . . I guess we should look at what we came down here for in the first place.”
Nahri followed. “You really didn’t have to go to all this trouble,” she said again. “It was just a passing curiosity.”
“You wanted to know about Egyptian marid.” He tapped the scroll. “This is the last surviving account of a djinn meeting one.” He unfurled it. “Oh.”
“What?” Nahri asked, peeking over his arm. She blinked. “Suleiman’s eye . . . what is that supposed to be?”
“I have no idea,” Ali confessed. Whatever language the scroll was in was unlike any he’d ever seen, a confusing spiral of miniature pictograms and wedge-shaped marks. The letters—if they were letters—were crammed in so tight, it was difficult to see where one ended and the next began. From opposing corners, an inky path—a river perhaps, maybe the Nile—had been painted, its cataracts marked by more bizarre pictograms.
“I don’t suppose we’ll be getting any information from that,” Nahri sighed.
Ali hushed her. “You shouldn’t give up on things so quickly.” An idea unfurled in his head. “I know someone who might be able to translate this. An Ayaanle scholar. He’s retired now, but he might be willing to help us.”
Nahri looked reluctant. “I’d rather not have my interest in this made public.”
“He’ll keep your secret. He’s a freed slave—he’d do anything for a Nahid. And he spent two centuries traveling the lands of the Nile, copying texts before he was captured by the ifrit. I can think of no one better suited for the task.” Ali rolled up the scroll.
He caught the confusion on her face, the connection not quite clear. But she said nothing. “You can just ask me,” he finally said, when it was clear she wasn’t going to speak.
“Ask you what?”
Ali gave her a knowing look. They’d been dancing around this topic for weeks—well, actually, they’d been dancing around lots of topics, but this one especially. “What you’ve wanted to ask since that day in the garden. Since I told you the significance of the mark on your Afshin’s arm.”
Nahri bristled, the warmth vanishing from her face. “I’m not discussing Dara with you.”
“I didn’t say him specifically,” he pointed out. “But you want to know about slaves, don’t you? You get all tense every time the slightest mention of them comes up.”
Nahri looked even more annoyed to have been caught out, her eyes flashing. How wonderfully he’d timed this fight, to occur after he’d taught her to conjure up flames.
“And what if I do?” she challenged. “Is that a thing you’ll race back to your father to report?”
Ali flinched. He couldn’t say anything to that—he had been spying on her and the Afshin in the infirmary a few days ago, though neither of them had mentioned the incident until now.
He met her gaze. Ali wasn’t used to Daeva eyes; he’d always found their ebony depths slightly off-putting, though admittedly Nahri’s were rather nice, her human features softening the harshness. But there was so much suspicion in her eyes—rightly so, of course—that Ali wanted to squirm.But he also suspected enough people in Daevabad, particularly the Afshin of whom she was so defensive, had lied to Nahri. So he decided to tell her the truth. “And what if I report it?” he asked. “Do you imagine your interest is surprising to anyone? You were raised in the human world on legends of djinn slaves. That you would want to know more is to be expected.” He touched his heart, the corners of his mouth tugging up. “Come on, Nahid. A Qahtani fool is offering up free information. Surely your instincts are telling you to take advantage of it.”
That drew a slight smile, tinged with exasperation. “Fine.” She threw up her hands. “My curiosity is winning over my common sense. Tell me about slaves.”
Ali raised the torch, nodding toward the corridor leading back to the main library. “Let’s walk and talk. It’ll look inappropriate if we’re down here too long.”
“The devil again?” He flushed, and she laughed. “You’d fit in well back in Cairo, you know,” she added as she turned on her heel.
I do know. That was exactly the reason his father had chosen Ali for this assignment, after all.
“Is it like the stories, then?” Nahri continued, her Egyptian-laced Arabic rapid with excitement. “Djinn trapped in rings and lamps, forced to grant whatever wishes their human master desires?”
He nodded. “The slave curse returns djinn to their natural state, the way we were before the Prophet Suleiman—peace be upon him—blessed us. But the catch is that you can use your abilities only in the service of a human master. You’re entirely bound to them, to their every whim.”
“To their every whim?” Nahri shuddered. “In the stories, it’s usually in good fun, people wishing for vast fortunes and luxurious palaces, but . . .” She bit her lip. “Humans are capable of some pretty terrible things.”
“They have that in common with our race,” Ali noted darkly. “With the marid and peri too, I’d imagine.”
Nahri looked thoughtful for a moment, but then she frowned. “But the ifrit hate humans, don’t they? Why give them such powerful slaves?”
“Because it’s not a gift. It’s raw, unchecked power,” Ali explained. “Few ifrit have dared to directly harm humans since Suleiman cursed us. But they don’t need to; a djinn slave in the hands of an ambitious human causes an immense amount of destruction.” He shook his head. “It’s revenge. That it eventually drives the djinn slave mad is merely an added benefit.”