“Ahmad?” She approached the curtain—and suddenly it was flung aside and he was striding toward her, heat pouring off him like water, his face so bright in the dark that she could barely look at him. She backed away, nearly tripping over the scattered rocks as he walked past her, out of the room.
She followed, and found him standing at the forge’s edge, his hands buried in the coals. She wanted to flinch at the sight. He wore only his leather apron and a pair of trousers; his shirt, it seemed, had burned away completely. The forge was so hot she could barely come near him.
“Ahmad,” she said. “I’m so sorry—but I just heard from Maryam. Arbeely’s gone. He passed away.”
Silence. He only stood there, staring into the flames.
She frowned. “Ahmad? Did you hear me?”
“Yes,” he said at last. “I heard you. Arbeely is gone.” He lifted his hands from the coals, and brushed the coal dust from his fingers.
All at once she wanted to shake him. “Does that mean nothing to you? He was your friend!”
He smiled. “Ah, I see. You’re here to instruct me on how to mourn properly. And to chide me, if I fail to meet your exacting standards.”
She shook her head. “I won’t let you push me away.”
“Spare me, Chava. Spare me your—” And again that sigh of air, a word that was not a word. He froze—and then all at once his face crumpled. He put his hands over his eyes and swayed on his feet.
“Oh, Ahmad,” she whispered. She stepped toward him—but he barreled past her and across the remains of the showroom, to the stairwell.
Up he went, past the four empty floors to the top, where the door opened onto a rush of snowflakes that vaporized before they could touch him. He walked across the roof to the farthest corner, by the platform where the water tower stood, and braced his hands on the low ledge. The ice and snow vanished beneath his fingers.
“Please.” She was standing behind him. “Please, talk to me.”
“Go away, Chava. Go far, far away.”
“You need—”
“You have no idea what I need!”
She reared back as if slapped.
“You have never known!” He had rounded on her, and stood shouting into the wind.
“Then tell me!” she cried. “You must tell me!”
An apprehensive silence, as though he were about to put a match to a powder-keg—and then: “Do you know what I see, when I look at you? I see a woman who fills herself with the lives of others, who’d throw herself on a pyre if someone wished for it and then curse herself for not burning brightly enough. A woman who wears her own death around her neck, like a present she can hardly wait to open.”
She stood staring, listening, utterly still.
“You are exactly like them,” he said, pointing out toward the city. “You’d make me as meek and obedient as yourself, if I would only allow it. You’d make a human of me—no, you would turn me into you.”
He stepped toward her, and she backed away, hands half raised—but he couldn’t let her go now; he was growing reckless, daring himself onward. “We aren’t good for each other, Chava.”
“Stop,” she said.
“We never were.”
“Stop!”
“You know that I’m right. You know it’s true.”
Her head jerked once, either a flinch or a confirmation. She turned then, as if to go—and all at once he was furious that she’d failed to defend herself, that she’d submitted so quickly, as though to confirm his worst opinions. And on the periphery of his anger lay a terror, waiting to be acknowledged. Arbeely is gone. Arbeely is gone. If she left him there, he’d be alone atop an empty building, with nothing but those words for company.
“Chava—” He stepped forward and grabbed her arm.
Like the uncoiling of a spring, she whirled toward him and punched him in the face.
He skidded backward, beneath the water tower platform. She advanced on him, her expression blank, her eyes flat and empty. He’d seen her like this twice before: on the night she nearly killed a man, and on the day he’d come close to destroying her. Both times, he’d fought her until she returned to herself—but now he made no attempt to struggle. He only closed his eyes as she lifted him from the tar-paper and hurled him upward, into the girders.
Metal rang around him. He landed face-down atop a snow-drift near the roof’s edge and sank through it in a cloud of steam. Dizzy with pain, he levered himself up to one knee, awaiting her. Immediately she was upon him, her hands to either side of his face. She jerked upward, a movement that would’ve ripped any ordinary head from its neck, but instead brought him to his feet. His hands, flailing, came to her waist—and for an instant they stood together as they had on countless nights upon countless rooftops, in the quiet moments before the dawn.
The woman blinked, uncertain. Her hands twitched to either side of his face.
“Chava?” he said.
She convulsed, grabbing at him. Unbalanced, he fell into her; she rocked backward at his sudden weight. The rooftop ledge caught her knee. They staggered, teetered together—and went over.
The Jinni looked up at the falling snow.
For long, confused moments he held himself still. The Golem lay in his arms, curled against him. The ground seemed to be cradling them together. He turned his head, and concrete rubble scraped his cheek.
The Golem stirred in his arms. Her eyes opened, and there was life in them again.
For a moment they only gazed at each other—and then she was scrambling away from him, up and out of the crater they’d made
