“What kind of magic is that?” Fatma asked.
“No idea. Not my temple.”
“Looks like some kind of transmogrification. You’re not into anything like that, are you?”
“Don’t worry. Hathor isn’t turning me into a golden cow, if that’s what you mean.”
“And Sekhmet?”
Siti flashed a lioness’s grin. “Can’t tell you all my secrets. But the Lady is always near.”
Fatma tried to imagine the fierce goddess inside the woman, peering out from behind her eyes. On second thought, she decided that wasn’t an image she wanted to conjure up. She returned instead to trying to judge their location. Somewhere outside the city proper. They’d been riding for almost a half hour, and their guide was tight-lipped on where they were going.
“You really think this is a good idea?”
“Figure we can at least see what this is,” Siti answered.
“What if he’s what you first said? A homicidal maniac? He thinks he’s a crocodile god.”
Siti mocked seriousness. “You think he’s taking us to be eaten by his crocodile minions?”
“I hope you can still tell jokes when we’re being fed alive.”
“Sobek holds no taste for mortal flesh,” Ahmad broke in. “But has excellent hearing.”
Siti laughed while Fatma, a bit abashed, returned to the window. The carriage turned off a main road into one of the old factory districts, where dilapidated buildings rose up about them.
“We get out here,” Ahmad said, flicking away a cigarette butt.
Fatma winced as they stepped onto the dirt roadway, dust settling on her cognac brogues. This had been an early factory district in Cairo after the coming of the djinn. People streamed in from villages, eager for better pay in the bustling city. The factories eventually closed up—moving out to new manufacturing hubs like Helwan and Heliopolis. But many people remained: packed into slums arrayed around the decaying remains of industry.
“This way.” Ahmad walked out ahead. They followed, picking across uneven ground. What passed for houses here were barely shacks: hovels of brick, mortar, even mud. In some, small fires burned, and at times the occasional lamp of luminous alchemical gas.
“Easy to forget places like this exist,” Siti murmured, eyeing old women bearing buckets.
“Modernity has its drawbacks,” Fatma added as several young men ran by excitedly.
“What are all these people doing out so late?”
Fatma was wondering the same. Places like this always had activity, even their own after-hours entertainment. But these people milled about like it was midday. She looked harder. Not milling. Most were headed in the same direction as they were, to a towering old factory building near the slums’ center.
She caught up with Ahmad. “Where are you taking us?”
In answer, he stopped someone: a boy of no more than twelve in an ill-fitting gallabiyah. He scrunched up his snub nose and opened his mouth to protest but froze at Ahmad’s face.
“A bit of your time,” the man hissed. “And something for your trouble.”
The boy’s eyes grew, and his fingers quickly snatched up the coin in Ahmad’s hand.
“God reward you, basha. I mean, djinn.”
Fatma smirked. Honest mistake.
“Tell the lady where you’re going,” Ahmad said.
“To see the man in black!” the boy blurted excitedly. “The man with the gold mask!”
Fatma stared at Ahmad, then back to the boy. “What man in a gold mask?”
The boy recoiled. “They say it’s ill luck to speak his name! But he performs wonders! Wallahi, I have seen them with my own eyes!”
Fatma wanted to press further, but Ahmad released the boy, who promptly ran off. “What’s going on?” she demanded.
He walked faster. “When you told me of a mysterious man at the Worthington estate, I recalled rumors I’ve heard. Whispers, of a man in black, visiting places like this.”
“And you didn’t think to tell me?”
“I wanted to be certain. Until today, I’d thought it a street tale.”
“I haven’t heard about any of this,” Siti said, looking dubious.
“You’ve been away. And while the Temple of Hathor cultivates more upscale worshippers, the acolytes of Sobek walk among the less fortunate.”
“We don’t have an upscale—” Siti began defensively, but Fatma cut her off. This wasn’t the time. Besides, they’d reached the old factory. It turned out not to be much of a building at all but the crumbling frame of one: missing a roof and two sides. In the space, a crowd had gathered in the dozens. She followed their rapt gazes to the top of a wall, where a figure stood speaking.
Fatma gaped.
He was exactly as Abigail Worthington had described—tall and draped in black robes. He wasn’t alone. To his right stood a figure in black shirt and breeches. He remained still, as the tall man’s words echoed in the night.
“… I have come to find my people lost,” he rumbled. “Cairo has become a place of decadence, where wealth is hoarded, while many are left in destitution. Where is the rich man who gives alms? Where is the physician to heal? Where is the promise modernity offered?”
Cries of approval came from the crowd, amid calls to continue. Fatma pushed past Ahmad, striving to get a better look.
“When I first came, I walked among those like you,” the man continued. “Those society had discarded. I have returned now, not among the mighty but the low. To fill ears that will listen! To teach who would learn! To set right what was turned wrong!”
More cries now of consent. Fatma reached the front of the crowd, craning her neck to see. She leaned in close to an old man beside her.
“Uncle, who is this?”
“It is him!” he answered, never lowering his gaze. “The one who has returned!”
“Who?” she demanded. “Who has returned?”
He looked at her this time, his white bearded face incredulous. “They say we should not speak his name, but it is the Great Teacher, the Inventor, the Master of Djinn.” He whispered in wonder. “Al-Jahiz!”
Fatma stared back, stunned. She looked to Siti, who seemed equally dazed.
Ahmad gave a solemn nod. “On the streets of Cairo, in the places we have forgotten, people say al-Jahiz has returned. A mysterious
