her. You failed all of them. Nahri could have been back in Daevabad right now, with the world and a throne at her fingertips.
I have to get out of here. Ali had a sudden driving need to get out of this claustrophobic little room. To breathe fresh air and put space between himself, Nahri, and his awful, bloody memories. He crossed the room, reaching for the door and stumbling through. He caught a glimpse of crowded shelves, the scent of sesame oil …
Then Ali crashed directly into a small, elderly man. The man let out a surprised yelp and stepped back, nearly upsetting a tin tray of carefully heaped powders.
“I’m sorry,” Ali rushed to say, speaking in Djinnistani before thinking. “I didn’t mean to … oh, my God, you’re a human.”
“Oh!” The man put down the knife, setting it next to the bright bed of herbs he’d been cutting. “Forgive me,” he said in Arabic. “I don’t think I quite understood that. But you’re still here—and awake. Nahri will be so pleased!” His fuzzy brows drew together. “I keep forgetting you exist.” He shook his head, looking oddly undisturbed by such alarming words. “But I am forgetting my manners. Peace be upon you.”
Ali swiftly pulled the door closed, not wanting to wake Nahri, and then stared at the man in open astonishment. Ali couldn’t have said what set him so immediately apart; after all, he’d met plenty of shafit with rounded ears, dull, earthy skin, and warm brown eyes like the man before him. But there was something entirely too real and too solid, too … rooted about this man. As though Ali had stepped into a dream, or a curtain had been drawn back he’d never realized was there.
“I, er … upon you peace,” he stammered back.
The man’s gaze traced across Ali’s face. “It is like the more I try to look at you, the harder it is. How bizarre.” He frowned. “Is that a tattoo on your cheek?”
Ali’s hand shot up to cover Suleiman’s mark. He had no idea how to interact with this man—despite his fascination with the human world, he had never imagined actually speaking with a human. By all accounts, the man shouldn’t have been able to see him at all.
What in the name of God has happened to magic? “Birthmark,” Ali managed, his voice pitched. “Completely natural. Since birth.”
“Ah,” the man marveled. “Well, would you like some tea? You must be hungry.” He beckoned Ali to follow him deeper into the shop. “I am Yaqub, by the way.”
Yaqub. Nahri’s stories of her human life came back to him. So they really were in Cairo—with the old man she said had been her only friend.
Ali swallowed, trying to get his bearings straight. “You are Nahri’s friend. The pharmacist she worked with.” He glanced down at the small man, Yaqub’s head barely reaching Ali’s chest. “She always spoke most highly of you.”
Yaqub blushed. “That was too kind of her. But my mind must be going with age. I cannot seem to recall her mentioning your name.”
Ali hesitated, torn between politeness and caution—the last time a non-djinn asked for his name, it had not gone well. “Ali,” he answered, keeping it simple.
“Ali? Are you a Muslim, then?”
The human word, a sacred word his people rarely voiced, tumbled Ali’s emotions further. “Yes,” he said hoarsely.
“And your kingdom?” Yaqub ventured. “Your Arabic … I’ve never heard an accent like that. Where is your family from?”
Ali grasped for an answer, trying to piece together what he knew of the human world and match it to his djinn geography. “The Kingdom of Saba?” When Yaqub merely looked more perplexed, he tried again. “Yemen? Is it the Yemen?”
“Yemen.” The old man pursed his lips. “The Yemen and Afghanistan,” he muttered under his breath. “Of course, the most natural of neighbors.”
But questions about Ali’s family had sent darkness rushing forward again, despair unfurling and creeping through him like vines that couldn’t be beaten back. If he stayed here and tried to make small talk with this curious human, he was going to slip up and unravel whatever story Nahri had already spun. The apothecary walls suddenly felt close, too close. Ali needed air, the sky. A moment alone.
“Does that lead outside?” Ali asked, raising a trembling finger at a door on the other side of the shop.
“Yes, but you’ve been bedridden for days. I’m not sure you should be out and about.”
Ali was already crossing the apothecary. “I’ll be fine.”
“Wait!” Yaqub protested. “What