The City of Brass (The Daevabad Trilogy #1) - S. A. Chakraborty Page 0,9

smell of a long-extinguished cooking fire and the shrieks of fighting cats. The spiky crenellations and smooth domes of the tombs cast wild shadows against the sandy ground. The ancient buildings looked neglected; Egypt’s Ottoman rulers had preferred to be buried in their Turkish homeland and therefore hadn’t seen the upkeep of the cemetery as important—one of many insults they’d visited upon her countrymen.

The temperature seemed to have dropped rather suddenly, and Nahri shivered. Her worn leather sandals, threadbare things long overdue for replacement, padded on the soft ground. There was no other sound save the jingling coins in her basket. Already unnerved, Nahri avoided looking at the tombs, instead contemplating the far more pleasant topic of breaking into the basha’s house while he was in Faiyum. Nahri would be damned if she was going to let some consumptive little brother keep her from a lucrative take.

She hadn’t been walking long when there was a hush of breath behind her, followed by a flit of movement she caught out of the corner of her eye.

It could be someone else taking a shortcut, she told herself, her heart racing. Cairo was relatively safe, but Nahri knew there were few good outcomes to a young woman being followed at night.

She kept her pace but moved her hand toward her dagger before making an abrupt turn deeper into the cemetery. She hurried down the lane, startling a sleepy cur, and then ducked behind the entrance to one of the old Fatimid tombs.

The footsteps followed. They stopped. Nahri took a deep breath and raised her blade, getting ready to bluster and threaten whoever was there. She stepped out.

She froze. “Baseema?”

The young girl stood in the middle of the alley about a dozen paces away, her head uncovered, her abaya stained and torn. She smiled at Nahri. Her teeth gleamed in the moonlight as a breeze blew back her hair.

“Speak again,” Baseema demanded in a voice strained and hoarse from disuse.

Nahri gasped. Had she actually helped the girl? And if so, why in God’s name was she wandering around a cemetery in the middle of the night?

She dropped her arm and hurried toward her. “What are you doing out here all alone, child? Your mother will be worried.”

She stopped. Though it was dark, sudden clouds veiling the moon, she could see strange splotches staining Baseema’s hands. Nahri drew in a sharp breath, catching the scent of something smoky and charred and wrong.

“Is that . . . blood? By the Most High, Baseema, what happened?”

Clearly oblivious to Nahri’s worry, Baseema clapped her hands together in delight. “Could it really be you?” She circled Nahri slowly. “About the right age . . . ,” she mused. “And I’d swear that I see that witch in your features, but you otherwise look so human.” Her gaze fell on the knife in Nahri’s hand. “Though I suppose there’s only one real way to tell.”

The words had no sooner left her mouth than she snatched the dagger away, her movements impossibly fast. Nahri stumbled back with a surprised cry, and Baseema laughed. “Don’t worry, little healer. I’m no fool; I’ve no intention of testing your blood myself.” She wagged the dagger in one hand. “Though I think I’ll take this before you get any ideas.”

Nahri was speechless. She took Baseema in with new eyes. Gone was the flapping, tormented child. Her bizarre declarations aside, she stood with a new confidence, the wind whipping through her hair.

Baseema narrowed her eyes, perhaps picking up on Nahri’s confusion. “Surely you know what I am. The marid must have warned you about us.”

“The what?” Nahri held up a hand, trying to protect her eyes from a sandy gust of wind. The weather had worsened. Behind Baseema, dark gray and orange clouds swirled across the sky, obliterating the stars. The wind howled again, like the worst of the khamaseen, but it was not yet the season for Cairo’s spring sandstorms.

Baseema glanced at the sky. Alarm bloomed in her small face. She whirled on Nahri. “That human magic you did . . . who did you call for?”

Magic? Nahri raised her hands. “I didn’t do any magic!”

Baseema moved in the blink of an eye. She shoved Nahri against the nearest tomb wall, pressing an elbow hard against her throat. “Who did you sing for?”

“I . . .” Nahri gasped, shocked by the strength in the girl’s thin arms. “A . . . warrior, I think. But it was nothing. Just an old zar song.”

Baseema stepped back