It could be someone else taking a shortcut, she told herself, her heart racing. Cairo was relatively safe, but Nahri knew there were few good outcomes to a young woman being followed at night.
She kept her pace but moved her hand toward her dagger before making an abrupt turn deeper into the cemetery. She hurried down the lane, startling a sleepy cur, and then ducked behind the entrance to one of the old Fatimid tombs.
The footsteps followed. They stopped. Nahri took a deep breath and raised her blade, getting ready to bluster and threaten whoever was there. She stepped out.
She froze. “Baseema?”
The young girl stood in the middle of the alley about a dozen paces away, her head uncovered, her abaya stained and torn. She smiled at Nahri. Her teeth gleamed in the moonlight as a breeze blew back her hair.
“Speak again,” Baseema demanded in a voice strained and hoarse from disuse.
Nahri gasped. Had she actually helped the girl? And if so, why in God’s name was she wandering around a cemetery in the middle of the night?
She dropped her arm and hurried toward her. “What are you doing out here all alone, child? Your mother will be worried.”
She stopped. Though it was dark, sudden clouds veiling the moon, she could see strange splotches staining Baseema’s hands. Nahri drew in a sharp breath, catching the scent of something smoky and charred and wrong.
“Is that . . . blood? By the Most High, Baseema, what happened?”
Clearly oblivious to Nahri’s worry, Baseema clapped her hands together in delight. “Could it really be you?” She circled Nahri slowly. “About the right age . . . ,” she mused. “And I’d swear that I see that witch in your features, but you otherwise look so human.” Her gaze fell on the knife in Nahri’s hand. “Though I suppose there’s only one real way to tell.”
The words had no sooner left her mouth than she snatched the dagger away, her movements impossibly fast. Nahri stumbled back with a surprised cry, and Baseema laughed. “Don’t worry, little healer. I’m no fool; I’ve no intention of testing your blood myself.” She wagged the dagger in one hand. “Though I think I’ll take this before you get any ideas.”
Nahri was speechless. She took Baseema in with new eyes. Gone was the flapping, tormented child. Her bizarre declarations aside, she stood with a new confidence, the wind whipping through her hair.
Baseema narrowed her eyes, perhaps picking up on Nahri’s confusion. “Surely you know what I am. The marid must have warned you about us.”
“The what?” Nahri held up a hand, trying to protect her eyes from a sandy gust of wind. The weather had worsened. Behind Baseema, dark gray and orange clouds swirled across the sky, obliterating the stars. The wind howled again, like the worst of the khamaseen, but it was not yet the season for Cairo’s spring sandstorms.
Baseema glanced at the sky. Alarm bloomed in her small face. She whirled on Nahri. “That human magic you did . . . who did you call for?”
Magic? Nahri raised her hands. “I didn’t do any magic!”
Baseema moved in the blink of an eye. She shoved Nahri against the nearest tomb wall, pressing an elbow hard against her throat. “Who did you sing for?”
“I . . .” Nahri gasped, shocked by the strength in the girl’s thin arms. “A . . . warrior, I think. But it was nothing. Just an old zar song.”
Baseema stepped back as a hot breeze tore down the alley, smelling of fire. “That’s not possible,” she whispered. “He’s dead. They’re all dead.”
“Who’s dead?” Nahri had to shout over the wind. “Wait, Baseema!” she cried as the young girl fled down the opposite alley. “Where are you going?”
She didn’t have long to wonder. A crack snapped the air, louder than a cannon. All was silent, too silent, and then Nahri was thrown off her feet, blasted against one of the tombs.
She hit the stone hard as a bright flash of light blinded her. She crumpled to the ground, too dazed to protect her face from the rain of scorching sand.
The world went quiet, returning with the steady beat of her heart, the blood rushing to her head. Black dots blossomed across her eyes. She flexed her fingers and twitched her toes, relieved they were still attached. The thud of her heart was slowly replaced by ringing in her ears. She tentatively touched the throbbing bulge on the back of her skull, stifling a cry at the sharp pain.
She tried to twist free of the sand that half-buried her, still blinded by the flash. No, not from the flash, she realized. The white bright light was still in the alley, just condensing, growing smaller to reveal fire-scorched tombs as it collapsed in on itself. As it collapsed in on something.
Baseema was nowhere to be seen. Frantically, Nahri began to work her legs loose. She had just managed to uncover them when she heard the voice, clear as a bell and angry as a tiger, in the language she’d been listening for all her life.
“Suleiman’s eye!” it roared. “I will kill whoever called me here!”
There’s no magic, no djinn, no spirits waiting to eat us up. Nahri’s own decisive words to Yaqub came back to her, mocking her as she peeked over the headstone she’d dashed behind when she first heard his voice. The air still smelled of ash, but the light filling the alley dimmed, almost like it had been sucked in by the figure at its center. It looked like a man, swathed in a dark robe that swirled around his feet like smoke.
He stepped forward as the remaining light vanished into his body and immediately lost his balance, grabbing for a desiccated tree trunk. As he steadied himself, the bark burst into flames beneath his hand. Instead of pulling back, he leaned against the burning tree with a sigh, the flames licking harmlessly at his robe.
Too stunned to form a coherent thought, let alone flee, Nahri rolled back against the headstone as the man called out again.
“Khayzur . . . if this is your idea of a jest, I swear on my ancestors to pluck you apart feather by feather!”
His bizarre threat rang in her mind, the words meaningless, but the language so familiar it felt tangible.
Why is some lunatic fire creature speaking my language?
Unable to fight her curiosity, she turned back, peering past the headstone.
The creature dug through the sand, muttering to himself and swearing. As Nahri watched, he pulled free a curved scimitar and secured it to his waist. It was quickly joined by two daggers, an enormous mace, an ax, a long quiver of arrows, and a gleaming silver bow.
The bow in hand, he finally staggered up and glanced down the alley, obviously searching for whoever had—what had he said?—“called” him. Though he didn’t look much taller than her, the vast array of weapons—enough to fight a whole troop of French soldiers—was terrifying and slightly ridiculous. Like what a little boy might don when playing at being some ancient warrior.
A warrior. Oh, by the Most High . . .
He was looking for her. Nahri was the one who had called him.