“A very unpleasant Marid. Who I promised never to bother again.”
Angels. They were going to end up being the death of her.
CHAPTER TWENTY-THREE
For the second time in two days, Fatma walked the cells beneath the Ministry. Zagros was still here, but she hadn’t come to see him. What she intended was more dangerous than questioning the librarian—even if he’d tried to murder her. She understood now he had been under the control of the imposter. The djinn she would encounter today was far less predictable.
“You’re quiet,” she remarked, eyeing Hadia who walked beside her.
The other woman nodded. “Visiting with those … supposed angels. Just has me thinking.”
“It can be a lot—even knowing they’re not really angels.”
Hadia shook her head. “It’s not that. Well, not that alone.” She stopped to look at Fatma, who stopped in turn. “They changed our minds around. Got into our heads. And we had no idea. What else might they have changed or hidden from us? Our writings? Our histories? Our holy books? What else might we no longer know? How can we be certain of anything?” Her eyes closed and she released a lengthy sigh before opening them. “How do you deal with the crushing weight of it? Knowing that we’re just people and there are these vast powers pulling strings we may not even know about? I’m supposed to be helping plan my cousin’s wedding next month. But that just all seems so meaningless in the face of this.” She frowned. “I wonder if this is what it must have been like back when al-Jahiz opened the Kaf? To suddenly learn the world you knew wasn’t quite so real. I’m picking an odd time to be philosophical, I know. Maybe I’m having a mental breakdown.…”
Fatma shook her head slowly. “You’re not having a mental breakdown. Every agent has this moment. More than once. This is what it means to work for the Ministry. To understand more than the average person just how strange the world around us has become. It’s what we signed up for. And why it’s not for everyone. But yeah, I sit down and think about it hard sometimes—then I go out and buy a new suit. Because those little things, like planning your cousin’s wedding, that’s what keeps us grounded.” She winked. “Maybe you could expand your hijab collection.”
Hadia laughed slightly and they started up their walk again.
“Remind me what this Marid said again?” she asked.
This was her fifth time asking, but Fatma answered anyway. “That he slept in the hopes of outliving humanity. Also, he granted the last person who woke him the chance to choose their death.”
“And you gave him your name and word?”
“Both.” She’d felt the pact settle into her skin.
“Doesn’t that make it unbreakable?”
“Anything’s breakable. Just means there’ll be a cost.”
Hadia recited a quick dua for her protection, the worry on her face plain. Her gaze wandered to the object Fatma clutched in one hand—a tarnished, pear-shaped bronze bottle, inlaid with gold floral patterns. “They just let you walk out of the Ministry vault with that thing?”
“I was the one who brought it in. Told them I needed to correct the paperwork. No reason to think I’d do something absolutely foolish—like open it.”
“Of course not,” Hadia muttered. “Not unless you had some sort of death wish.”
They stopped at a cell, the furthest down the hall.
“You don’t have to come in,” Fatma said. “If something goes wrong, the wards of the cell should hold him.”
Hadia reached up and took both black truncheons off the wall this time, hefting one in each hand. That was answer enough.
Fatma opened the door to the cell, and they stepped inside, shutting it again behind them. Moving to the center of the room, she knelt and stood the bronze bottle up on the floor.
“We’re really going through with this?” Hadia asked.
“We have to.”
Hadia looked perplexed. “Why do we have to again?”
Fatma handed over a copy of the bookseller’s note, and the woman winced as her memory returned. “Precisely why we need this magic on us broken. We can’t keep this up forever.” She pulled free her janbiya. “Ready?”
Hadia clutched the black truncheons tight and nodded. Fatma pressed the knife to the dragon-marked seal about the stopper and held her breath—before drawing the blade across the wax covering, breaking the reestablished wards.
There was barely time to jump back as bright green smoke burst from the bottle like a geyser. The swirling gas fast took shape, knitting into a broad form somewhat like a man—only far bigger. The cloud coalesced, becoming firmer until it was made flesh. In moments, a full-grown djinn towered before them.
The Marid was as terrifying now as he had been that night—a giant covered in emerald scales, his bared chest heaving, with smooth ivory horns grazing the ceiling. For a moment he stood, silent, coming out of his slumber. When his three eyes opened—a pyramid of burning stars—they took in the cell with one imperious glance, before settling and narrowing on Fatma.
“Enchantress.” The word rumbled in the small space.
Fatma forced herself to meet that scouring gaze. “Great One, I say again, I’m no enchantress.”
The djinn’s green lips twisted. “Yet twice I have been summoned into your presence. Who but an enchantress would dare such a thing? Not that it matters. You have broken your word. Sworn to me by your name. You are already dead.”
He spoke that last sentence as if relating the weather. Fatma steeled herself. “Great One, I would not have awakened you, if not for dire cause.”
The Marid actually yawned. “You mortals always have reasons for breaking your oaths. Excuses for your filthy ways. For your very existence. Just listening to your inane chatter is vexing to my ears.” He raised a clawed hand twice as large as her head, palm open and fingers spread. “Should I remove your bones so that your frail body collapses into pulp? Perhaps replace your blood with scorching sand? Or make you cut out your own entrails
