The City of Brass: Escape to a city of adventure, romance, and magic in this thrilling epic fantasy trilogy (The Daevabad Trilogy, Book 1)

“Don’t fall asleep, little thief. We’re landing soon.”

Nahri’s eyelids were as heavy as a sack of dirhams, but she wasn’t asleep. There was no way she could be, with only a scrap of fabric preventing her from plummeting to her death. She rolled over on the carpet, a chilly wind caressing her face as they flew. The dawn sky blushed at the approach of the sun, the dark of night giving way to light pinks and blues as the stars winked out. She stared at the sky. Exactly one week ago, she’d been looking at another dawn in Cairo, waiting for the basha, unaware of how drastically her life was about to change.

The djinn—no, the daeva, she corrected herself; Dara had a tendency to fly into a rage when she called him a djinn—sat beside her, the smoky heat from his robe tickling her nose. His shoulders were slumped, and his emerald eyes were dim and focused on something in the distance.

My captor looks particularly tired this morning. Nahri didn’t blame him; it had been the most bizarre, challenging week of her life, and though Dara appeared to be softening toward her, she sensed they were both thoroughly exhausted. The haughty daeva warrior and scheming human thief were not the most natural of pairings; at times, Dara could be as chatty as a girlhood friend, asking a hundred questions about her life, from her favorite color to what types of cloth they sold in the Cairo bazaars. Then, with little warning, he’d turn sullen and hostile, perhaps disgusted to find himself enjoying a conversation with a mixed-blood.

On Nahri’s part, she was largely forced to check her own curiosity; asking Dara anything about the magical world immediately put him in a bad mood. “You can bother the djinn in Daevabad with all your questions,” he’d dismiss her, returning to polishing his weapons.

But he was wrong.

She couldn’t do that. Because she was definitely not going to Daevabad.

One week with Dara was enough for her to know there was no way she was trapping herself in a city filled with more ill-tempered djinn. She would be better off on her own. Surely she could find a way to avoid the ifrit; they couldn’t possibly search the entire human world, and there was no way in hell she’d ever perform a zar again.

And so, eager to escape, she’d kept an eye out for an opportunity—but there’d been nowhere to flee in the vast, unbroken monolith of desert they traveled, all moonlit sands by night and shady oases by day. Yet as she sat up now and caught a glimpse of the ground below, hope bloomed in her chest.

The sun had broken across the horizon to illuminate a changed landscape. Instead of desert, limestone hills melted into a wide, dark river that twisted southeast as far as the eye could see. White clusters of buildings and cooking fires hugged its banks. The arid plains directly below were rocky, broken up by scrub and slender, conical trees.

She scanned the ground, growing alert. “Where are we?”

“Hierapolis.”

“Where?” She and Dara might speak the same language, but they were centuries apart in geography. He knew everything by a different name, rivers, cities, even the stars in the sky. The words he used were entirely unknown, and the stories he told to describe such places even more bizarre.

“Hierapolis.” The carpet swept toward the ground, Dara directing it with one hand. “It has been too long since I’ve been back. When I was young, Hierapolis was home to a very … spiritual people. Very devoted to their rituals. Though I suppose anyone would be devoted, considering they worshipped phalluses and fish and preferred orgies to prayer.” He sighed, his eyes creasing in pleasure. “Humans can be so delightfully inventive.”

“I thought you hated humans.”

“Not at all. Humans in their world, and my people in ours. That is the best way of things,” he said firmly. “It is when we cross that trouble arises.”

Nahri rolled her eyes, knowing he believed her to be the result of such a crossing. “What river is that?”

“The Ufratu.”

Ufratu … She rolled the word in her mind. “Ufratu … el-Furat … that’s the Euphrates?” She was stunned. They were much farther east than she expected.

Dara took her dismay the wrong way. “Yes. Don’t worry, it’s too massive to cross here.”

Nahri frowned. “What do you mean? We’re flying over it anyway, aren’t we?”

She would swear that he blushed, a hint of embarrassment in his bright eyes. “I … I don’t like flying over that much water,” he finally confessed. “Especially when I’m tired. We’ll rest, then fly farther north to find a better spot. We can get horses on the other side. If Khayzur was right about the enchantment I used on the rug being easy to track, I don’t want to fly much farther on it.”

Nahri barely heard what he said about the rug, her mind racing as she appraised the dark river. This is my chance, she realized. Dara might refuse to talk about himself, but Nahri had studied him all the same, and his confession about flying over the river confirmed her suspicion.

The daeva was terrified of water.

He’d refused to put even a toe in the shady pools of the oases they visited and seemed convinced she was going to drown in the shallowest of ponds, declaring her enjoyment of water unnatural, a shafit perversion. He wouldn’t dare cross the mighty Euphrates without the carpet; he probably wouldn’t even go near its banks.

I just need to get to the river. Nahri would swim its whole damn length if that was the only way to freedom.

They landed on the rocky ground, and her knee slammed into a hard lump. She cursed, rubbing it as she climbed to her feet to look around. Her mouth dropped open. “When did you say you last visited?”

They hadn’t landed on rocky ground; they’d landed on a flattened building. Broken and bare marble columns lined the avenues, most of which were missing sections of paving stones. The buildings were destroyed, though the height of a few remaining yellowed walls hinted at previous glory. There were grand arched entrances that led to nothing, and blackened weeds and brush growing between the stonework and snaking up the columns. Across from the rug, an enormous stone pillar the color of washed sky lay smashed on the ground. Carved into its side were the grimy contours of a veiled woman with a fish tail.

Nahri moved away from the rug and startled a dust-colored fox. It vanished behind a crumbling wall. She glanced back at Dara. He looked equally stunned, his green eyes wide with shock. He caught her glance and forced a small smile.

“Well, it has been some time …”

“Some time?” She gestured to the abandoned remains surrounding them. Across the broken road was an enormous fountain filled with murky black water; foul scum stained the marble from where it had started to evaporate. It had to take centuries for a place to get like this. There were similar ruins in Egypt, and it was said that they belonged to an ancient race of sun worshippers who lived and died before the holy books were even written. She shivered. “How old are you?”

Dara gave her an annoyed look. “It’s not your concern.” He shook the carpet out with more force than necessary, rolled it up, and then threw it over one shoulder before stalking off into the largest of the ruined buildings. Voluptuous fish-women were carved around the entrance; perhaps it was one of the temples where people had “worshipped.”

Nahri followed. She needed that rug. “Where are you going?” She stumbled over a broken column, envying the graceful way the daeva moved over the uneven ground, and then paused as she entered the temple, dazzled by the grand decay.

The temple’s roof and eastern wall were gone, opening the ruin to the dawn sky. Marble pillars stretched far above her head, and crumbled stone walls outlined what must once have been an enormous maze of different rooms. Most of the interior was gloomy, shaded by the remaining walls and a few determined cypress trees that split through the floor.

To her left was a tall stone dais. Three statues were poised on top: another fish-woman, as well as a stately female riding a lion, and a man wearing a loincloth and holding a discus. All were stunning, their muscled figures and regal poise entrancing. The pleats in their stone garments looked so real that she was tempted to touch them.

But glancing around, she saw that Dara had vanished, his footsteps silent in the grand ruin. Nahri followed the trail he’d made in the thick layer of dust coating the floor.

“Oh …” A small sound of appreciation escaped her throat. The large temple was dwarfed by the enormous theater she entered. Hundreds, perhaps thousands, of stone seats were carved into the hill in a semicircle surrounding the large stage upon which she stood.

The daeva stood at the edge of the stage. The air was still and silent save for the early morning trill of songbirds. His midnight blue robe smoked and swirled about his feet, and he’d unwrapped his turban to let it fall to his shoulders, his head covered only by the flat charcoal cap. Its white embroidery shone pink in the rosy morning light.

He looks like he belongs here, she thought. Like a ghost forgotten in time, searching for its long-dead companions. Judging from the way he spoke of Daevabad, Nahri assumed him to be some sort of exile. He probably missed his people.

She shook her head; she didn’t intend to let a flash of sympathy convince her to keep playing companion to a lonely daeva. “Dara?”

“I saw a play here once with my father,” he reminisced. “I was young, probably my first tour of the human world …” He studied the stage. “They had actors waving brilliant blue silks to represent the ocean. I thought it magical.”

“I’m sure it was lovely. Can I have the carpet?”

He glanced back. “What?”

“The carpet. You sleep on it every day.” She let a note of complaint slip into her voice. “It’s my turn.”

“So share with me.” He nodded at the temple. “We’ll find a place in the shade.”

She felt her cheeks grow slightly hot. “I’m not sleeping alongside you in some temple dedicated to fish orgies.”

He rolled his eyes and dropped the rug. It landed hard on the ground, sending up a cloud of dust. “Do as you wish.”

I intend to. Nahri waited until he had stalked back into the temple before dragging the carpet to the far end of the stage. She pushed it off and flinched at the heavy thump, half-expecting the daeva to run out and tell her to hush. But the theater stayed empty.

She knelt on the rug. Though the river was a long, hot walk away, she didn’t want to leave until she was certain Dara was fast asleep. It didn’t usually take long. The comment about flying over the river wasn’t the first time he’d mentioned becoming exhausted by magic. Nahri supposed it was a type of labor like any other.

She reviewed her supplies. It wasn’t much. Besides the clothes on her back and a sack she’d made from the remains of her abaya, she had the waterskin and a tin of manna—stale-tasting crackers Dara had given her that landed in her stomach like weights. The water and manna might keep her fed, but they wouldn’t put a roof over her head.

It doesn’t matter. I might not get another opportunity like this. Pushing away her doubts, she tied the bag closed and rewrapped her headscarf. Then she picked up some kindling and crept back into the temple.

She followed the smell of smoke until she found the daeva. As usual, Dara had lit a small fire, letting it burn beside him as he slept. Though she’d never asked why—it obviously wasn’t for warmth during the hot desert days—the presence of the flames seemed to comfort him.

He was fast asleep under the shadow of a crumbling arch. For the first time since they’d met, he’d taken off his robe and was using it as a pillow. Underneath he wore a sleeveless tunic the color of unripe olives and loose, bone-colored pants. His dagger was tucked into a wide black belt tied tight around his waist, and his bow, quiver of arrows, and scimitar were between his body and the wall. His right hand rested on the weapons. Nahri’s gaze lingered on the sight of his chest rising and falling in sleep. Something stirred low in her belly.

She ignored it and lit her kindling. His fire flared, and in the improved light, she noticed the black tattoos covering his arms, bizarre, geometrical shapes, as if a calligrapher had gone mad on his skin. The largest mark was a slender, ladderlike structure with what looked like hundreds of meticulously drawn, unsupported rungs snaking out from his left palm and twisting up his arm to disappear under his tunic.

And I thought the tattoo on his face was strange …

As she followed the lines, the light illuminated something else as well.

His ring.

Nahri stilled; the emerald winked in the firelight as if greeting her. Tempting her. His left hand rested lightly on his stomach. Nahri stared at the ring, transfixed. It had to be worth a fortune and yet didn’t even look snug on his finger. I could take it, she realized. I’ve taken jewelry off people while they were awake.

The kindling grew warm in her hand, the fire burning uncomfortably close. No. It wasn’t worth the risk. She gave the daeva one last glance as she left. She could not help but feel a pang of regret; she knew Dara represented the best chance to learn about her origins, about her family and her abilities. About, well … everything. But it wasn’t worth her freedom.

Nahri returned to the theater. She dropped the kindling on the carpet. Years in a tomb and a week in the desert air had sucked out every drop of moisture from the old wool. It burst into flames like it had been doused in oil. She coughed, waving smoke away from her face. By the time Dara woke, it would be nothing but ash. He’d have to go after her on foot, and she’d have a half day’s start.

“Just make it to the river,” she whispered to herself. She picked up her bag and started climbing the stairs that led out of the theater.

The bag was pathetically light, a physical reminder of how dire her circumstances were. I’m going to be nothing. People will laugh when I say I can heal. Yaqub’s willingness to partner with her was rare, and that was after she’d already established a reputation as a healer, a reputation that had taken years of careful cultivation.

But she wouldn’t have to worry if she had that ring. She could sell it, rent a place so she wouldn’t have to sleep on the street. Buy medicines to use in her work, materials with which to make amulets. She slowed, not even halfway up the steps. I’m a good thief. I’ve stolen far more challenging things. And Dara slept like the dead; he hadn’t even awakened when Khayzur nearly landed on him.

“I’m a fool,” she whispered, but she was already turning around, running lightly down the steps and past the blazing carpet. She crept back into the temple, winding her way around the collapsed columns and smashed statues.

Dara was still fast asleep. Nahri carefully put down her bag and freed the waterskin. She sprinkled a few drops on his finger, her heart racing as she watched for any reaction. Nothing. Moving cautiously, she gently pinched the ring between her thumb and index finger. She pulled.

The ring pulsed and grew hot. A sudden pain blossomed in her head. She panicked and tried to let go, but her fingers wouldn’t budge. It was as if someone had seized control of her mind. The temple vanished, and her vision blurred, replaced by a series of smoky shapes that quickly solidified into something entirely new. A parched plain under a blinding white sun …

I study the dead land with a practiced eye. This place had once been grassy and green, rich with irrigated fields and orchards, but my master’s army trampled all signs of fertility, leaving nothing but mud and dust. The orchards are stripped and burned, the river poisoned a week ago, in hopes that it would drive the city to surrender.

Unseen by the humans around me, I rise in the air like smoke to better survey our forces. My master has a formidable army: thousands of men in chain and leather, dozens of elephants, and hundreds of horses. His archers are the best in the human world, honed by my careful instruction. But the walled city remains insurmountable.

I stare at the ancient blocks, wondering at how thick they are, how many other armies they have repulsed. No battering ram will bring them down. I sniff carefully; the stench of famine scents the wind.

I turn to my master. He is one of the largest humans I’ve ever encountered; the top of my head barely comes to his shoulders. Unable to deal with the heat of the plains, he is constantly pink and wet and utterly disagreeable. Even his ruddy beard is damp with sweat, and his ornately filigreed tunic stinks. I wrinkle my nose; such a garment is frivolous in a time of war.

I settle to the ground next to his horse and look up at him. “Another two to three days,” I say, tripping over the sounds. Although I’ve belonged to him for a year, his language is still strange to me, full of harsh consonants and snarls. “They cannot hold out much longer.”

He scowls and caresses the hilt of his sword. “That is too long. You said they’d be ready to surrender last week.”

I pause, the impatience in his voice causing a small knot of dread to grow in my stomach. I do not want to sack this city. Not because I care about the thousands who will die—centuries of slavery have cultivated a deep hatred for humans in my soul—but because I do not wish to see the sack of any city. I do not want to see the violence, to imagine how my beloved Daevabad suffered a similar fate at the hands of the Qahtanis.

“It is taking longer because they are courageous, my lord. Such a thing should be admired.” My master doesn’t seem to hear me, so I continue, “You’ll earn a more lasting peace by negotiating.”

My master takes a deep breath. “Was I not clear?” he snaps, leaning down in his saddle to glare at me. His face is scarred from the pox. “I didn’t buy you for advice, slave. I wish for you to give me victory. I wish for this city. I wish to see my cousin on his knees before me.”

Admonished, I lower my head. His wishes settle heavily on my shoulders, wrapping around my limbs. Energy surges through my fingers.

There is no fighting it; I learned this long ago. “Yes, master.” I raise my hands and focus my attention on the wall.

The ground begins to tremble. His horse shies away, and a few men cry out in alarm. In the distance, the wall groans, the ancient stones protesting my magic. Tiny figures race along the top, fleeing their posts.

I close my hands into fists, and the wall collapses as though made of sand. A roar runs through my master’s army. Humans, their very blood dances at the prospect of brutalizing their own kind …

No! Nahri gasped, a tiny voice crying out in her mind. This isn’t me! This isn’t real! But the voice was drowned out by the screams of the next vision.

We are inside the city. I fly alongside my master’s horse through bloody streets thick with corpses. His soldiers torch the shops and narrow homes, cutting through any inhabitants foolish enough to cross them. A burning man crashes to the ground beside me, thrown from a balcony, and a young girl shrieks as two soldiers pull her from an overturned cart.

Bonded by the wish, I can’t leave my master’s side. I wade through gore with a sword in each hand, killing any who approach. As we grow closer to the castle, the attackers are too numerous for my blades. I toss the weapons away, and the slave curse sweeps through me as I burn an entire group with a single glance. Their screams rise through the air, horrendous, animal-like groans.

Before I know it, we are in the castle and then in a bedchamber. The room is opulent and smells strongly of cedarwood, the scent bringing tears to my eyes. It was what my Daeva tribe burned to honor the Creator and His blessed Nahids … but I cannot honor anyone in my defiled condition. Instead, I tear through the guards. Their blood spatters the silk wall coverings.

A balding man cowers in one corner; I can smell his released bowels. A fierce-eyed woman throws herself in front of him, a knife in her hand. I break her neck as I toss her aside and then grab the sobbing man, forcing him to his knees before my master.

“Your cousin, my lord.”

My master smiles, and the weight of the wish lifts from my shoulders. Exhausted by magic and nauseated by the smell of so much human blood, I fall to my own knees. My ring blazes, illuminating the black slave record branded into my skin. I fix my gaze on my master, surrounded by the carnage he ordered, watching as he mocks his cousin’s hysterics. Hate surges in my heart.

I will see you dead, human, I swear. I will see your life reduced to a mere mark on my arm …

The bedchamber dissolved before Nahri’s eyes as her fingers were pried off the ring, her hand wrenched away so hard that she fell back against the stone floor. Her mind spun as she desperately tried to make sense of what had just happened.

The answer loomed over her, still clutching her wrist.

If anything, Dara looked more shocked to find himself awakened in such a manner. He glanced at his hand, his fingers still gripping her wrist. His ring blazed with light, mirroring the emerald brightness of his eyes. He let out a startled cry.

“No!” His eyes went wide with panic, and he dropped her wrist, backing away. His entire body was shaking. “What did you do?” he shrieked, holding his hand out like he expected the ring to explode.

Dara. The man in her vision had been Dara. And what she had seen … were those his memories? They seemed too real to have been his dreams.

Nahri forced herself to meet his gaze. “Dara …” She tried to keep her voice gentle. The daeva was pale with fright, his eyes wild. “Please, just calm down.” He’d backed away without any of his weapons. She resisted the urge to look at them, fearing he would notice. “I didn’t—”

The daeva seemed to read her mind, lunging for his weapons at the same time she did. He was faster, but Nahri was closer. She grabbed his sword and jumped back as he lunged at her with the dagger.

“Don’t!” She raised the sword, her hands trembling as she gripped it tight. Dara drew back with a hiss that bared his teeth. Nahri panicked. There was no way she could outrun him, no way she could outfight him. The daeva looked like he’d gone mad; she half-expected him to start frothing at the mouth. The visions flashed through her mind again: bodies ripped apart, men burned to death. And Dara had done it all.

No. There had to be some explanation. And then she remembered. Master, he had called that man his master.

He’s a slave. All the stories Nahri had heard about the djinn raced through her mind, and her mouth fell open in shock. A wish-granting djinn slave.

The realization didn’t improve her situation. “Dara, please … I don’t know what happened, but I didn’t mean to hurt you. I swear!”

His left hand was pressed to his chest, the ring next to his heart—if daevas had hearts. He held the dagger out with his right, circling her like a cat. He closed his eyes for a moment and when he opened them, some of the wildness had dissipated. “No … I—” He swallowed, looking close to tears. “I’m still here.” He took a shaky breath, relief flooding into his face. “I’m still free.” He leaned heavily against one of the marble columns. “But that city …,” he choked out. “Those people …” He slid to the floor, dropping his head into his hands.

Nahri didn’t lower the sword. She had no idea what to say, torn between guilt and fear. “I … I’m sorry,” she finally said. “I just wanted the ring. I had no idea …”

“You wanted the ring?” He glanced up sharply, a hint of suspicion stealing back into his voice. “Why?”

Telling the truth seemed safer than his assuming some type of magical malice on her part. “I was trying to steal it,” she confessed. “I am—I was,” she corrected, realizing there was no way she was getting free now, “trying to escape.”

“Escape?” He narrowed his eyes. “And you needed my ring for that?”

“Have you seen the size of it?” She let out a nervous laugh. “That emerald could get me back to Cairo with money to spare.”

He gave her an incredulous look and then shook his head. “And the glory of the Nahids continues.” He climbed to his feet, seemingly unaware of how quickly she backed away. “Why would you even want to escape? Your human life sounds dreadful.”

“What?” she asked, offended enough to momentarily forget her fear. “Why would you say that?”

“Why?” He picked up his robe and whirled it around his shoulders. “Where do I even start? If simply being human isn’t wretched enough, you had to lie and steal constantly to survive. You lived alone, with no family and no friends, in unceasing fear you’d be arrested and executed for sorcery.” He blanched. “And you’d return to that? Over Daevabad?”

“It wasn’t that bad,” she insisted, taken aback by his answer. All those questions he’d asked about her life in Cairo—he really had been listening to her answers. “My abilities gave me a lot of independence. And I had a friend,” she added, though she wasn’t certain Yaqub would agree with that definition of their relationship. “Besides, you act as if I’m facing something better. Aren’t you turning me over to some djinn king who murdered my family?”

“No,” Dara said, adding somewhat more hesitantly, “it was not … technically him. Your ancestors were enemies, but Khayzur spoke correctly.” He sighed. “It was a long time ago,” he added lamely, as if that explained everything.

Nahri stared. “So being delivered to my ancestral enemy is supposed to make me feel better?”

Dara looked even more annoyed. “No. It’s not like that.” He made an impatient noise. “You’re a healer, Nahri. The last of them. Daevabad needs you as much as you need it, maybe even more.” He scowled. “And when the djinn learn I was the one who found you? The Scourge of Qui-zi forced to play nursemaid to a mixed-blood?” He shook his head. “The Qahtanis are going to love it. They’ll probably set you up in your own wing of the palace.”

My own wing of the what? “The Scourge of Qui-zi?” she asked instead.

“An endearment I’ve earned from them.” His green gaze settled on the sword still clasped in her hands. “You don’t need that. I’m not going to hurt you.”

“No?” Nahri arched an eyebrow. “Because I just saw you hurt a whole lot of people.”

“You saw that?” When she nodded, his face crumpled. “I wish you hadn’t.” He crossed the floor to retrieve her bag, dusting it off before handing it back. “What you saw … I didn’t do those things by choice.” His voice was low as he turned back and picked up his turban cloth.

Nahri hesitated. “In my country, we have stories of djinn … djinn who are trapped as slaves and forced to grant wishes to humans.”

Dara flinched, his fingers fumbling as he rewound his turban. “I’m not a djinn.”

“But are you a slave?”

He said nothing, and her temper flashed. “Forget it,” she snapped. “I don’t know why I bothered to ask. You never answer my questions. You let me panic over this Qahtani king for an entire week just because you couldn’t bother to—”

“Not anymore.” His reply was a whisper, a fragile thing that hung in the air—the first real truth he’d offered her. He turned around; old grief was etched in his face. “I’m not a slave anymore.”

Before Nahri could respond, the ground trembled beneath her feet.

A nearby pillar cracked as a second rumble—far stronger—rocked the temple. Dara swore, snatched up his weapons, and grabbed her hand. “Come on!”

They raced through the temple and out onto the open stage, narrowly avoiding a falling column. The ground shook harder, and Nahri gave the theater a nervous glance, looking for signs of the recently risen dead. “Maybe this one’s an earthquake?”

“So soon after you used your powers on me?” He searched the stage. “Where’s the carpet?”

She hesitated. “I may have burned it.”

Dara whirled on her. “You burned it?”

“I didn’t want you to follow me!”

“Where did you burn it?” he asked, not even waiting for an answer before sniffing the air and racing toward the edge of the stage.

By the time she caught him, he was crouching in the glowing embers, his hands pressed against the carpet’s ashy remains. “Burned it …,” he muttered. “By the Creator, you really don’t know anything about us.”

Little worms of white-bright flame crawled out from under his fingers, reigniting the ash and twisting together into long ropes that grew and stretched under his feet. As she watched, they quickly multiplied, forming a fiery mat roughly the same size and shape as the carpet.

The fire flashed and died, revealing the tired colors of their old rug. “How did you do that?” she whispered.

Dara grimaced as he ran his hand over the surface. “It won’t last long, but it should get us across the river.”

The ground rumbled again, and a groan came from inside the temple, the sound all too familiar. Dara reached for her hand. She backed away.

His eyes flashed with alarm. “Are you mad?”

Probably. Nahri knew what she was about to do was risky, but she also knew the best time to negotiate was when your mark was desperate. “No. I’m not getting on that rug unless you give me some answers.”

There was another loud, vaguely human shriek from inside the temple. The ground shook harder, and a crack raced across the high ceiling.

“You want answers now? Why? So you’ll be better informed when the ghouls devour you?” Dara snatched for her ankle, but she danced back. “Nahri, please! You can ask me whatever you want once we’re gone, I swear!”

But she wasn’t convinced. What was to stop him from changing his mind as soon as they were safe?

Then it came to her.

“Tell me your name, and I’ll go with you,” she offered. “Your real name.” He had told her there was power in names. It wasn’t much, but it was something.

“My name doesn’t—” Nahri took a deliberate step toward the temple, and panic lit his face. “No, stop!”

“Then tell me your name!” Nahri shouted, her own fear getting the better of her. She was used to bluffing, but not with the threat of being eaten by the risen dead looming. “And be quick about it!”

“Darayavahoush!” The daeva pulled himself onto the stage. “Darayavahoush e-Afshin is my name. Now get over here!”

Nahri was certain she couldn’t have repeated that correctly even if she’d been paid, but as the ghouls screamed again, and the smell of rot swept past her face, she decided it didn’t matter.

He was ready for her, grabbing her elbow and pulling her down on the rug as he landed lightly beside her. Without another word, the carpet rose in the air, sweeping over the temple’s roof as three ghouls stumbled out onto the stage.

DARA WAS THOROUGHLY RILED BY THE TIME THEY’D risen above the clouds. “Do you have any idea how dangerous that was?” He threw up his hands. “Not only did you try to destroy our only method of escaping the ifrit, you were ready to risk your life just to—”

“Oh, get over it,” she said, dismissing him. “You’re the one who drove me to such straits, Afshin Daryevu—”

“‘Dara’ will continue to do just fine,” he interrupted. “You needn’t mangle my proper name.” A goblet appeared in his hand, filled with the familiar dark of date wine. He took a long sip. “You can call me a damn djinn again if you promise not to go running after ghouls.”

“Such affection for the shafit thief?” She raised an eyebrow. “You weren’t so fond of me a week ago.”

He grumbled. “I can change my mind, can’t I?” A blush stole into his cheeks. “Your company is not … entirely displeasing.” He sounded deeply disappointed in himself.

Nahri rolled her eyes. “Well, it’s time your company became a lot more informative. You promised to answer my questions.”

He glanced around, gesturing to the clouds. “Right now?”

“Are you busy with something else?”

Dara exhaled. “Fine. Go on, then.”

“What’s a daeva?”

He sighed. “I already told you this: we’re djinn. We just have the decency to call ourselves by our true name.”

“That explains nothing.”

He scowled. “We’re souled beings like humans, but we were created from fire, not earth.” A delicate tendril of orange flame snaked around his right hand and twisted through his fingers. “All the elements—earth, fire, water, air—have their own creatures.”

Nahri thought of Khayzur. “The peris are creatures of air?”

“An astonishing deduction.”

She shot him a dirty look. “He had a better attitude than you.”

“Yes, he’s extraordinarily gentle for a being who could rearrange the landscape below us and kill every life-form for miles with a single sweep of his wings.”

Nahri felt the blood drain from her face. “Truly?” When Dara nodded, she continued. “Are—are there a lot of creatures like that?”

He gave her a somewhat wicked smile. “Oh, yes. Dozens. Rukh birds, karkadann, shedu … things with sharp teeth and nasty temperaments. A zahhak nearly ripped me in two once.”

She gaped at him. The flame playing around his finger stretched into an elongated lizard that belched a fiery plume. “Imagine a fire-breathing serpent with limbs. They’re rare, thank the Creator, but don’t give much warning when they attack.”

“And humans don’t notice any of this?” Nahri’s eyes widened as the smoky beast left Dara’s arm and flew around his head.

He shook his head. “No. Those created from dirt, like humans, usually can’t see the rest of us. Besides, most magical beings prefer wild places, places already empty of your kind. If a human had the misfortune to come across one, they might sense something, see a blur on the horizon or a shadow out of the corner of their eye. But they’d likely be dead before they gave it a second thought.”

“And if they came across a daeva?”

He opened his palm, and his fiery pet flew into it, dissolving into smoke. “Oh, we’d eat them.” At the alarm in her face, he laughed and took another sip of wine. “A jest, little thief.”

But Nahri wasn’t in the mood for his jokes. “What about the ifrit?” she persisted. “What are they?”

The amusement vanished from his face. “Daevas. At least … they were once.”

“Daevas?” she repeated in surprise. “Like you?”

“No.” He looked offended. “Not like me. Not at all.”

“Then like what?” She prodded his knee when he stayed silent. “You promised to—”

“I know, I know.” He removed his cap to rub his brow, running his fingers through his black hair.

It was an entirely distracting motion. Nahri’s eyes followed his hand, but she shut her wayward thoughts down, ignoring the flutter in her stomach.

“You do know that if you have Nahid blood, you’re likely going to live a few centuries.” Dara lay back on the carpet to recline on a propped wrist. “You should work on your patience.”

“At this rate, it will take us a few centuries just to finish this conversation.”

That brought a wry smile to his face. “You have their wit, I’ll admit to that.” He snapped his fingers, and another goblet appeared in his hand. “Drink with me.”

Nahri gave the goblet a suspicious sniff. It smelled sweet, but she hesitated. She hadn’t had a drop of wine in her life; such a forbidden luxury was well beyond her means, and she wasn’t sure how she’d react to alcohol. Drunks had always been easy pickings for a thief.

“Rejecting hospitality is a grave offense among my people,” Dara warned.

Mostly to appease him, Nahri took a small sip. The wine was cloyingly sweet, more like a syrup than a liquid. “Is it truly?”

“Not at all. But I’m tired of drinking alone.”

She opened her mouth to protest, irritated that she’d been so easily tricked, but the wine was already working, rolling down her throat and spreading a warm drowsiness throughout her body. She swayed, grabbing for the rug.

Dara steadied her, his fingers hot on her wrist. “Careful.”

Nahri blinked, her vision swimming for another moment. “By the Most High, your people must get nothing done if you drink things like this.”

He shrugged. “A fair assessment of our race. But you wish to know of the ifrit.”

“And why you think they want to kill me,” she clarified. “Mostly that.”

“We’ll get to that bit of bad luck later,” he said lightly. “First, you must understand that the earliest daevas were true creatures of fire, formed and formless all at once. And very, very powerful.”

“More powerful than you are now?”

“Far more. We could possess and imitate any creature, any object we desired, and our lives spanned eras. We were greater than peris, maybe even greater than marid.”

“Marid?”

“Water elementals,” he replied. “No one’s seen one in millennia—they’d be like gods to your kind. But the daevas were at peace with all creatures. We stayed in our deserts while the peri and marids kept to their realms of sky and water. But then, humans were created.”

Dara twirled his goblet in his hand. “My kind can be irrational,” he confessed. “Tempestuous. To see such weak creatures marching across our lands, building their filthy cities of dirt and blood over our sacred sands … it was maddening. They became a target … a plaything.”

Goose bumps erupted across her skin. “And how exactly did the daevas play?”

A flash of embarrassment swept his bright eyes. “In all sorts of ways,” he muttered, conjuring up a small pillar of white smoke that thickened as she watched. “Kidnapping newlyweds, stirring up sandstorms to confuse a caravan, encouraging …” He cleared his throat. “You know … worship.”

Her mouth fell open. So the darker stories about djinn really did have their roots in truth. “No, I can’t say that I do know. I’ve never murdered merchants for my own amusement!”

“Ah, yes, my thief. Forgive me for forgetting that you are a paragon of honesty and goodness.”

Nahri scowled. “So what happened next?”

“Supposedly the peri ordered us to stop.” Dara’s smoky pillar undulated in the wind at his side. “Khayzur’s people fly to the edge of Paradise; they hear things—at least they think they do. They warned that humans were to be left alone. Each elemental race was to stick to its own affairs. Meddling with each other—especially with a lesser creature—was absolutely forbidden.”

“And the daevas didn’t listen?”

“Not in the slightest. And so we were cursed.” He scowled. “Or ‘blessed,’ as the djinn see it now.”

“How?”

“A man was called from among the humans to punish us.” A hint of fear crossed Dara’s face. “Suleiman,” he whispered. “May he be merciful.”

“Suleiman?” Nahri repeated in disbelief. “As in the Prophet Suleiman?” When Dara nodded, she gasped. Her only education might have consisted of running from the law, but even she knew who Suleiman was. “But he died thousands of years ago!”

“Three thousand,” Dara corrected. “Give or take a few centuries.”

A horrifying thought took root in her mind. “You … you’re not three thousand years—”

“No,” he cut in, his voice terse. “This was before my time.”

Nahri exhaled. “Of course.” She could barely wrap her mind around how long three thousand years was. “But Suleiman was human. What could he possibly do to a daeva?”

A dark expression flickered across Dara’s face. “Anything he liked, apparently. Suleiman was given a seal ring—some say by the Creator himself—that granted him the ability to control us. A thing he went about doing with a vengeance after we … well, supposedly there was some sort of human war the daevas might have had a part in instigating—”

Nahri held up a hand. “Yes, yes, I’m sure it was a most unfair punishment. What did he do?”

Dara beckoned the smoky pillar forward. “Suleiman stripped us of our abilities with a single word and commanded that all daevas come before him to be judged.” The smoke spread before them; one corner condensed to become a misty throne while the rest dissipated into hundreds of fiery figures the size of her thumb. They drifted past the carpet, their smoky heads bowed before the throne.

“Most obeyed; they were nothing without their powers. They went to his kingdom and toiled for a hundred years.” The throne vanished, and the fiery creatures swirled into workers heating bricks and stacking enormous stones several times their size. A vast temple began to grow in the sky. “Those who made penance were forgiven, but there was a catch.”

Nahri watched the temple rise, entranced. “What was it?”

The temple vanished, and the daevas were bowing again to the distant throne. “Suleiman didn’t trust us,” Dara replied. “He said our very nature as shapeshifters made us manipulative and deceitful. So we were forgiven but changed forever.”

In an instant, the fire was extinguished from the bowing daevas’ smoky skin. They shrank in size, and some grew hunched, their spines bent in old age.

“He trapped us in humanlike bodies,” Dara explained. “Bodies with limited abilities that only lasted a few centuries. It meant that those daevas who originally tormented humanity would die and be replaced by their descendants, descendants Suleiman believed would be less destructive.”

“God forbid,” Nahri cut in. “Only living for a few centuries with magical abilities … what an awful fate.”

He ignored her sarcasm. “It was. Too awful for some. Not all daevas were willing to subject themselves to Suleiman’s judgment in the first place.”

The familiar hate returned to his face. “The ifrit,” she guessed.

He nodded. “The very same.”

“The very same?” she repeated. “You mean they’re still alive?”

“Unfortunately. Suleiman bound them to their original daeva bodies, but those bodies were meant to survive millennia.” He gave her a dark look. “I’m sure you can imagine what three thousand years of seething resentment does to the mind.”

“But Suleiman took their powers away, didn’t he? How much of a threat can they be?”

Dara raised his brows. “Did the thing that possessed your friend and ordered the dead to eat us seem powerless?” He shook his head. “The ifrit have had millennia to test the boundaries of Suleiman’s punishment and have risen to the task spectacularly. Many of my people believe they descended to hell itself, selling their souls to learn new magic.” He twisted his ring again. “And they’re obsessed with revenge. They believe humanity a parasite and consider my kind to be the worst of traitors for submitting to Suleiman.”

Nahri shivered. “So where do I fit in all this? If I’m just some lowly, mixed-blood shafit, why are they bothering with me?”

“I suspect it’s whose blood—however little—you have in you that provoked their interest.”

“These Nahids? The family of healers you mentioned?”

He nodded. “Anahid was Suleiman’s vizier and the only daeva he ever trusted. When the daevas’ penance was complete, Suleiman not only gave Anahid healing abilities, he gave her his seal ring, and with it the ability to undo any magic—whether a harmless spell gone wrong or an ifrit curse. Those abilities passed to her descendants, and the Nahids became the sworn enemies of the ifrit. Even Nahid blood was poisonous to an ifrit, more fatal than any blade.”

Nahri was suddenly very aware of how Dara was speaking of the Nahids. “Was poisonous?”

“The Nahid family is no more,” Dara said. “The ifrit spent centuries hunting them down and killed the last, a pair of siblings, about twenty years ago.”

Her heart skipped a beat. “So what you’re saying—” she started, her voice hoarse, “is that you think I’m the last living descendant of a family that a group of crazed, revenge-obsessed former daevas have been trying to exterminate for the last three thousand years?”

“You wanted to know.”

She was sorely tempted to push him off the carpet. “I didn’t think …” She trailed off as she noticed ash drifting up around her. She looked down.

The carpet was dissolving.

Dara followed her gaze and let out a surprised cry. He backed away to a more solid patch in the blink of an eye and snapped his fingers. Its edges smoking, the rug sped up as it descended toward the glistening Euphrates.

Nahri tried to appraise the water as they skimmed through the air above it. The current was rough but not as turbulent as it had been in other spots; she could probably make it to shore.

She glanced up at Dara. His green eyes were so bright with alarm that it was difficult to look at his face. “Can you swim?”

“Can I swim?” he snapped, as if the very idea offended him. “Can you burn?”

But their luck held. They were already at the shallows when the carpet finally burst into burning crimson embers. Nahri tumbled into a knee-high patch of river while Dara leaped for the rocky shore. He sniffed disdainfully as she staggered toward the riverbank covered in muck.

Nahri adjusted the makeshift strap of her bag. And then she stopped. She didn’t have Dara’s ring, but she had her supplies. She was in the river, safely separated from the daeva by a band of water she knew he wouldn’t cross.

Dara must have noticed her hesitation. “Still tempted to try your luck alone with the ifrit?”

“There’s a lot you haven’t told me,” she pointed out. “About the djinn, about what happens when we get to Daevabad.”

“I will. I promise.” He gestured at the river, his ring sparkling in the light of the setting sun. “But I’ve no desire to spend the coming days being looked at like some villainous abductor. If you want to return to the human world, if you wish to risk the ifrit to return to bartering your talents for stolen coins, stay in the water.”

Nahri glanced back at the Euphrates. Somewhere across the river, across deserts vaster than seas, was Cairo, the only home she’d ever known. A hard place but familiar and predictable—completely unlike the future Dara offered.

“Or follow me,” he continued, his voice smooth. Too smooth. “Find out what you really are, what really exists in this world. Come to Daevabad where even a drop of Nahid blood will bring you honor and wealth beyond your imagining. Your own infirmary, the knowledge of a thousand previous healers at your fingertips. Respect.”

Dara offered his hand.

Nahri knew she should be suspicious, but, God, his words struck her heart. For how many years had she dreamed of Istanbul? Of studying proper medicine with respected scholars? Learning to read books instead of pretending to read palms? How often had she counted her savings in disappointment and put aside her hopes for a greater future?

She took his hand.

He pulled her free of the mud, his fingers scalding her own. “I’ll cut your throat in your sleep if you’re lying,” she warned, and Dara grinned, looking delighted at the threat. “Besides, how are we supposed to get to Daevabad? We’ve lost the rug.”

The daeva nodded eastward. Set against the dark river and distant cliffs, Nahri could make out the bare brick lines of a large village.

“You’re the thief,” he challenged. “You’re going to steal us some horses.”