She peered into other windows. In one, two men sat together upon a couch, one resting his head upon the other’s shoulder. In another, a man was hunched before a boxlike contraption, his fingers dancing over its many round buttons, each one making a clack that she could hear through the glass. She watched children sleeping, and in the next room saw a woman who lay awake, tears rolling slowly down her cheeks for no reason that the jinniyeh could discern.
It ought to have been like watching the Bedu in their half-crumbled citadel—and yet it wasn’t. In the Cursed City, she might float in and out of their lives and be a nuisance as she liked. Here, the humans were sealed away from her reach. She supposed that if she wanted to, she could find a way inside, and cause trouble—but what would be the point? None of them would shout, Iron, O unlucky one, or raise an amulet against her, or set out a ball of wool in hopes of appeasing her. There was no place for her here, not even as their adversary.
Unsettled, she flew upward, away from the windows. Below, the streetlights resolved into lines that stretched down and across, and one wide, bright river that cut through them at an angle. That must be Broadway, she thought, remembering Sophia’s map—and then felt irritated by her own knowledge, as though the woman had planted the name in her mind to annoy her. But there was little else for her to do—and before long she was following Broadway north. Rooftop spires reached toward her as the wide street drifted westward, crossing avenue after avenue. A huge, unlit space appeared, its straight-edged borders holding back a textured murk. Dimly she picked out trees, hills, paths, water. Central Park, she thought. One of Sophia’s favorite places. She thought of the Ghouta, with its jinn-eating creatures, and decided to avoid the park for the moment. But it called to mind something else that Sophia had shown her: the box where the woman had once lived, the mansion, as she’d called it.
She left Broadway behind and flew to the south-east corner of the park, counting the cross-streets, circumnavigating each building in turn, unsure how she would tell Sophia’s from the rest—
There. The balcony with its curving marble balustrade, the twin doors set with glass, the bedroom beyond. All of it exactly as it had been in Sophia’s dream.
There were still hours left until dawn. Here, she thought, she might cause enough mischief to pass the time.
Julia Hamilton Winston lay in her bed, wide awake.
This sleeplessness was nothing new. She only slept in brief spells nowadays, with interminable hours between them. Insomnia often comes with grief, her doctors had told her when first she’d asked if there was something they could do, something they might give her. Now, though, they seemed to think she ought to be past such things. They spoke of mental hardiness, of learning to soothe and regulate her own mind, as though she merely wasn’t giving it the proper effort. Do emotional fancies tend to dominate your thoughts? one specialist had asked her. Do you find yourself susceptible to suggestions? She’d suggested in return that, should he dare to label her a hysteric, she’d drag him before the Board of Health and have his license revoked. She was still Julia Winston; her grief hadn’t sapped her completely.
On this night, though, her unquiet mind was full of more immediate matters. A sympathetic editor at the New York Herald had telephoned that afternoon to say that a woman calling herself Sophia Winston had been spotted at a Washington Square hotel. I can’t keep them from printing it if it’s true, he’d warned her. There’s still too much public interest.
It made her seethe with anger. Once, the Winston name had meant industry, society, influence. Now it only meant the disaster. There were no more soirées in the ballroom, no more luncheons for worthy causes. Most of the servants had left, not wanting their own names chained to a sunken ship. Even Francis’ corporation no longer bore his name. Without a Winston left to run it, the controlling parties had broken it apart, assigned each piece its own petty ruler. Each of them sent a portion of their annual profits to the family coffers, a burnt offering for the departed gods. And now some dimwitted girl dared to call herself Sophia Winston, and drag the name into scandal! Would anyone have attempted such a thing when Francis was alive?
She turned over in her bed, peered at the clock. Three thirty. She turned over again, her mind churning. Locked away in her writing-desk was a stack of Syrian postcards, dozens of them, each one blank save for the address. Many of Julia’s sleepless nights were spent trying to imagine the life behind those silent messages: where Sophia was and whose company she kept, what she’d done in order to survive.
She won’t come back while I’m still alive, Julia told herself. She’d rather starve than be my daughter again.
There was a noise in the dark.
Julia sat up. The heavy curtains let in only a little street-light; but at the far end of
