The Kingdom of Copper (The Daevabad Trilogy #2) - S. A. Chakraborty Page 0,139

rest of city’s formerly enslaved djinn. Most fled the city, but Issa is too stubborn.” She shook her head. “I wish you would return home, my friend. You would be more comfortable in Ta Ntry.”

Issa scowled. “I am too old for journeying. And I hate boats.” He threw an irritated glance in Ali’s direction. “The hospital made for a perfectly fine home until this one’s workers arrived. They hammer constantly.” He sounded wounded. “And they scared away the chimera living in the basement.”

Ali was incredulous. “It tried to eat someone.”

“It was a rare specimen!”

Hatset quickly interjected. “Since you bring up rare specimens … we are here to speak to you about another elusive creature. The marid.”

Issa’s expression changed, alarm sweeping away his cantankerousness. “What could you possibly want to know about the marid?”

“The old tales,” Hatset replied calmly. “They’ve become little more than a legend for my generation of Ayaanle. However, I’ve heard encounters with the marid were far more common in your time.”

“Consider it a blessing they’ve all but vanished.” Issa’s expression darkened further. “It is not wise to discuss the marid with our youth, my queen. Particularly overly ambitious ones who ask too many questions.” He gave a disgruntled nod in Ali’s direction.

His mother persisted. “It’s not mere curiosity, Ustadh. We need your help.”

Issa shook his head. “I spent my career traveling the length of the Nile and saw more djinn than I care to remember destroyed by their fascination with the marid. I thanked God when I learned it was a madness your generation had forgotten, and it’s not one I’ll rekindle.”

“We’re not asking you to rekindle anything,” Hatset replied. “And we’re not the ones who reached out first—” She grabbed Ali’s wrist, swiftly undoing the button that held the sleeve of his dishdasha flush and pushed it back, revealing his scars. “It’s the marid who came to us.”

Issa’s green eyes locked on Ali’s scars. He inhaled, straightening up like a shot.

Then he slapped Ali across the face. “Fool!” he shouted. “Apostate! How dare you make a pact with them? What ghastly abomination did you commit to convince them to spare you, Alizayd al Qahtani?”

Ali reeled back, ducking a second blow. “I didn’t make a pact with anyone!”

“Liar!” Issa wagged an angry finger in his face. “Do you think I don’t know about your previous snooping?”

“My what?” Ali sputtered. “What in God’s name are you going on about?”

“I think I’d like to know as well,” Hatset said sharply. “Preferably before you start beating my son again.”

Issa stormed across the room. With a burst of fiery sparks, a locked chest popped out of the air, landing with a dusty thud. Issa threw it open and plucked out a papyrus scroll, waving it like a sword. “Remember this?”

Ali scowled. “No. Do you have any idea how many scrolls I’ve seen in my life?”

Issa unfurled it, spreading it on the table. “And how many of those were guides to summoning a marid?” he asked knowingly, as if he’d caught Ali out.

Thoroughly confused, Ali stepped closer. A brilliant blue river had been painted on the scroll. It was a map, he realized. A map of the Nile, from what he could interpret of the roughly drawn borders. That was all he could make out; though there were notations, they were written in a script consisting of bizarre, entirely incomprehensible pictograms.

And then Ali remembered. “This is the map Nahri and I found in the catacombs of the Royal Library.”

Issa glared. “So you do admit you were trying contact the marid?”

“Of course not!” Ali was rapidly losing patience with this hot-tempered old man. “The Banu Nahida and I were looking into the story that the marid supposedly cursed her appearance and left her in Egypt. We heard this scroll was written by the last djinn to see one in the area. I couldn’t read it, so I sent it off for translation.” He narrowed his eyes on Issa. “To you, most likely.”

Hatset cut in. “Would you please tell me what it is about this map that has you so upset, Ustadh?”

“It’s not just a map,” Issa replied. “It’s an evil thing, meant to serve as a guide to the desperate.” He jabbed a gnarled finger at one set of notations. “These mark places on the river believed to be sacred to the marid, and the notes detail what was done—what was sacrificed—to call upon them at that particular spot.”

Hatset’s eyes flashed. “When you say ‘sacrifice’ … surely you don’t mean—”

“I mean exactly as