Carefully she cracked the window open, just wide enough for escape. Then she cast a final glance at the figure in the bed, loosed her form, and flew.
West Broadway was easy to find; she stayed high above it, mindful of the trains. One soon passed beneath her, smaller than its desert cousins but just as noisy. She matched its speed, then shot ahead when it braked at a platform. Soon the streets began to converge as the island narrowed. The ship-dotted bay glittered beyond, as wide and forbidding as the ocean at Jaffa. At last West Broadway angled into Greenwich Avenue, the track turning to follow. One intersection, two, three—and there it was, the corner of Washington and Carlisle.
It was evening now, and there were fewer people about. She descended and hovered, looking around until she found the number 116 painted upon a building that sat slightly taller than its neighbors. She thought, They have so many boxes that they must number them to keep track.
She floated up to the roof and looked around. On one corner was a squat, pointed tower, mounted upon spindly legs. In another corner, a doorway led down into the building itself. Warm air rose from the gap beneath the door.
She hovered, gathering courage.
* * *
The Jinni stood at his forge, a breeze tickling the back of his neck.
The shout in Yiddish, the shattering glass. His mind couldn’t let it go. It all felt like a human’s dream now, except that those were rumored to fade upon waking; and instead his remorseless memory brought him detail after detail, showing him each of his missteps. And where had he seen that messenger-boy before? His face, his look of startlement . . .
He frowned, straightened, steadied himself. He hadn’t worked for years without cease simply to let the world best him in an instant. The message and its messenger were gone; what mattered now was the Amherst. If something essential was indeed missing, if some instinct was trying to warn him of a fundamental flaw, then he would listen to it.
He inhaled the smoldering air, pressed burning hands to his eyes, as though it might help him look past what was and see what ought to be. It wasn’t just the cursed glass panes; it was something else . . .
The breeze on the back of his neck grew stronger.
What is it, what’s missing? he thought. Why can’t I see it?
She slipped beneath the door and drifted downward, riding against the heat.
From the ordinary exterior, she’d expected rooms, corridors, furniture—but this was entirely different. She was inside an open metal lattice, a sculpture of some kind. The smell of iron was everywhere. She descended farther and passed through an iron arch that stretched away to either side, undulating oddly. And below it—
A steel moon, hanging in midair.
She halted, pulled back. Other steel circles were arrayed beneath it, each lower than the one before—not floating, she saw now, but attached like leaves to a central pole that ran from the roof to the ground. Was it a kind of human weapon, like the ship at Jaffa? She descended past the rim of the first gigantic circle, then the next and the next, waiting for some purpose to reveal itself. She saw no one, human or otherwise—only steel and more steel.
Something glowed in the darkness below her—and now she heard the muted rumble, the familiar noise of conflagration. A red rectangle appeared, a bed of coals, its surface rippling with flame. Next to it stood a man. He wore a leather garment that hung about his neck, and tattered trousers. He stood with his hands pressed to his eyes. At one wrist, a wide iron cuff glowed with heat.
It was him! The iron-bound jinni! But—
Doubt seized her. She’d known he was trapped and unchanging; she’d seen his exact likeness in Sophia’s mind—and yet, like the building, this was not what she’d expected. He seemed . . . small, to her eyes. Worn, tired. Human. And if this was his building, did that mean that he lived here, with an ominous steel tree looming over him?
“Why can’t I see it?” he muttered.
She must have made some noise, or moved in the air. He put a hand to the back of his neck, absently, as though he’d felt a breeze—and then he stiffened.
Slowly the iron-bound jinni turned his head—
—And he saw a formless apparition, beautiful and blazing.
His senses knew the truth before his mind could understand it. It was impossible—and yet she couldn’t be anything but what she was. No memory could cast such warmth; no delusion would stare back with such apprehension. This was a jinniyeh.
“Who,” he said—and then once again, “Who,” not a question but an exhalation, as though from a blow to his stomach. His body’s long-dormant instincts were roaring to life, urging him: Change shape! Match her, rise into the air, and fly!
His body shuddered against the iron’s grip. He staggered, took a step toward her—and went sprawling.
She reared back in surprise as he tumbled to the floor.
What had happened? Was he injured? His eyes were squeezed shut—against the sight of her? Six directions, could he no longer stand even to look at his own kind? No, this wasn’t what she’d wanted! She backed away through the air.
He lurched to his feet again. “No, wait!” he called—but she was rising quickly now, fleeing him as he stumbled toward the column and its staircase. “Wait!” He was climbing, but she was quicker; she dodged the edge of a steel moon and kept going, up through the arches to the door, slipping herself beneath the crack—
—And by the time he climbed through the arches and threw open the door to the roof she was only a glimmer in the air, flying away north.
* * *
The jinniyeh flew back to Washington Square Arch and then hung above it, berating herself as the sun rose. What had she done?
Yes, she’d thought he’d be different; and she certainly hadn’t imagined him living inside that horrible iron building, with its moons
