Maryam’s eyes had widened. “Six centuries? Is that how much longer you’ll live?”
“Barring malice, accident, or my own idiocy, yes.”
She began to laugh, one hand to her mouth, all wariness fallen away. “Oh, Ahmad. Forgive me, but—how long have you been here, with us?”
“It’ll be sixteen years, this summer.”
“And how many changes have there been, in those sixteen years? How many inventions, how many new marvels?”
He frowned. “I . . . don’t understand.”
“Do you remember the first automobiles? Or when the subway opened?”
“Of course I do,” he said. “I remember all of it. The telephones. The Woolworth Building.”
“Exactly. All in sixteen years. And you have another six hundred ahead of you. How long will it be, do you think, before we ordinary humans begin to make our own Amhersts? How long before there’s an Amherst on every corner?”
He stared at her, and then looked upward.
“We’re going to catch up to you,” she told him, smiling. “And more quickly than you’d expect. If you’re not careful, we’ll pull ahead. All you have to do is wait.”
* * *
The jinniyeh flew toward the river.
Some say, she told herself, that the iron-bound jinni was last seen crossing into the Ghouta, perhaps to drown himself, and thus end his unhappy life.
The river stretched north and south, its shoreline a sharp edge, the piers lying across it like fallen wheat. Ferries, barges, freight terminals, she thought. She could feel Sophia trying to grab her attention, pleading with her to stop; she ignored the woman and kept going, flying out over the nearest pier, aiming toward the middle of the river. Jersey City, she thought in despair, as she gazed toward the opposite shore. Hoboken. She didn’t want to die—but she didn’t want to live, either. Not like this. She gathered herself, shuddering in fear—
“Wait!” a woman’s voice cried out.
Startled, she halted in the air, turned—and saw the figure at the end of the pier.
In her shock, the Golem could only think of the Jinni’s golden embroidery. Never would she have mistaken it for a jinniyeh if she’d seen this creature first. This was no fire-winged girl, but a living, blazing aurora, a veil of flame that twisted in the air.
The jinniyeh descended and began to circle her slowly, examining her with a curiosity so intense that it was nearly unbearable. Her thoughts assailed the Golem, images and emotions bursting from her mind and vanishing again, too quickly for sense.
—You aren’t human, the jinniyeh said. You are something else. A creature of earth, made by human hands. What are you?
The windblown language, too, was like nothing the Golem had ever heard. The words were brief, yet they held oceans of meaning: a language with depth enough to satisfy centuries of exploration, so one might describe a rock, a sunset, a lover, all to the final detail.
Oh, Ahmad, she thought, amazed. I see what you lost. I understand.
The jinniyeh was still circling her, studying her. Then, suddenly she pulled back.—You’re a wizard’s automaton, she said. The tales of the Cursed City were full of monsters like you. Who controls you?
But the Golem stayed warily silent. She could hardly bear the rush of images, both familiar and strange. A desert valley, littered with fallen ruins. The Washington Square Arch, seen from above. The Amherst’s forge, and the Jinni lying atop it, beneath her—
The Golem flinched.
And in the hospital room, watching it all with that new second sight, Sophia thought in surprise, Chava?
—Chava? the jinniyeh said, incredulous. The baker that the iron-bound one spoke of? His ‘friend?’ But he led me to believe that you were human, not some thrice-damned—
Dima, Sophia thought quickly. Be careful. Don’t make an enemy of her.
“Dima,” the monster said.
The jinniyeh started in surprise.
“That’s what Sophia Winston calls you.”
—How could you know that? she snarled.
“I can see her in your thoughts,” the monster said, her tone puzzled. “Though I don’t know how.”
—Is my mind an open carcass now, to be picked over by passing jackals? Get out—
She broke off, shuddering in pain as the damp night air pressed against her injuries.
And Sophia winced too, one hand to her stomach, feeling Dima’s pain as well as her own.
“You’re hurt,” the monster said. “Both of you.”
—Stop that, the jinniyeh snapped. Why had he lied to her? Was it to protect the creature? But why would he do such a thing? Sophia had known her on sight . . .
The memory came to her, then.
A high-ceilinged dining-room, a roaring fireplace. The tall woman bursting through the door, an unconscious man carried in her arms, her face a mask of desperation, of—love?
—Six directions, the jinniyeh whispered. You were—but he said, after Sophia, he swore—Ah. ‘Never another human.’ I failed to see the exception. He must have been lonely indeed, to have lowered himself so.
Anger flared in the monster’s eyes, was carefully tamped down. Good, the jinniyeh thought: she greatly preferred it to the concern and pity she’d seen there a moment ago. Why, she wondered, had the monster called out when she’d seen her? Why not simply let her drown herself?
“Because you were in pain,” the monster said. “And this isn’t a battlefield. We aren’t enemies, even if you think we are.”
—Of course we’re enemies, said the jinniyeh. How could we possibly be anything else?
“We can simply choose not to be. I can help you, Dima. Whatever’s happened to you and Sophia—we can navigate it together. You don’t have to be alone.”
Dima, please, Sophia thought. Neither of us wanted this. But maybe she’s right, and there’s a way forward.
What was Sophia saying? That they should all become allies? Friends?
I know, thought Sophia. Jinn don’t have friends. But perhaps, just this once, you could change that.
But—she doesn’t know what I’ve done, thought the jinniyeh.
The monster went still. “What did you do? What’s happened?”
The jinniyeh hesitated—
—but in an overwhelming flash of her memory, the Golem saw it all: the battle, the broken pipe, the flooded forge. The Jinni, lying in the water.
The Golem staggered. “Ahmad,” she whispered; then turned, and ran for the
