The Kingdom of Copper (The Daevabad Trilogy #2) - S. A. Chakraborty Page 0,17

ifrit murdered the djinn they took, and in order to free them, the Nahids conjured new forms, new bodies to house their reclaimed souls. Nahri knew little else about the process; slavery was so feared among the djinn, it was rarely spoken of, as if simply mentioning the word “ifrit” would get one dragged off to a fate considered worse than death.

A fate the three people before her had survived. Nahri opened her mouth, struggling for a response. “What are you doing here?” she finally asked.

“Hiding,” Issa responded mournfully. “No one else in Daevabad will have us after what happened to the Afshin. People fear we’re liable to go mad and start murdering innocents with ifrit magic. We thought the hospital the safest place.”

Nahri blinked. “This was a hospital?”

Issa’s bright eyes narrowed. “Is it not obvious?” he asked, gesturing inexplicably to the crumbling ruins around them. “Where do you think your ancestors practiced?”

Razu quickly stepped forward. “Why don’t you two come with me for some refreshments?” she suggested kindly. “It is not often I have guests as esteemed as Daevabadi royals.” She smiled when Zaynab shrank back. “Do not fear, my princess, it is otherwise a lovely disguise.”

With the word “hospital” ringing in her ears, Nahri followed at once. The courtyard was in the same sorry state as the rest of the complex, with roots snaking over its shattered blue and lemon-yellow tiles, yet there was something lovely about its ruin. Dark roses grew lush and wild, their thorny vines twining around a long-fallen shedu statue and the air rich with their fragrance. A pair of bulbuls splashed and sang in a cracked fountain set in front of the cascading boughs of a stand of shade trees.

“Do not mind Issa,” Razu said lightly. “His social graces could use some work, but he’s a brilliant scholar who’s lived an extraordinary life. Before the ifrit took him, he spent centuries traveling the lands of the Nile, visiting their libraries and sending copies of their work back to Daevabad.”

“The Nile?” Nahri asked eagerly.

“Indeed.” Razu glanced back. “That is right … you grew up there. In Alexandria, yes?”

“Cairo,” Nahri corrected, her heart giving its familiar lurch.

“Forgive the error. I’m not sure there was a Cairo in my day,” Razu mused. “Though I’d heard of Alexandria. All of them.” She shook her head. “What a vain, upstart youth Alexander was, naming all those cities after himself. His armies terrified the poor humans in Tukharistan.”

Zaynab gasped. “Do you mean to say you lived in the same era as Alexander the Great?”

Razu’s smile was more enigmatic this time. “Indeed. I’ll be twenty-three hundred at this year’s generation celebration. Anahid’s grandchildren were ruling Daevabad when the ifrit took me.”

“But … that’s not possible,” Nahri breathed. “Not for ifrit slaves.”

“Ah, I suspect you’ve been told that we’re all driven mad by the experience within a few centuries?” Razu quirked an eyebrow. “Like most things in life, the truth is a bit more complicated. And my particular circumstances were unusual.”

“How so?”

“I offered myself to an ifrit.” She laughed. “I was a terribly wicked thing with a fondness for tales of lost fortune. We convinced ourselves that we’d find all sorts of legendary treasures if we could recover the powers we’d had before Suleiman.”

“You gave yourself to the ifrit?” Zaynab sounded scandalized, but Nahri was starting to feel a bit of a kinship for this mysterious hustler.

Razu nodded. “A distant cousin of mine. He was a stubborn fool who refused to submit to Suleiman, but I liked him.” She shrugged. “Things were a little … gray between our peoples back then.” She raised her palm. Three black lines marred the skin. “But it was foolish. I set my masters chasing after fantastical prizes my cousin and I planned to retrieve after I was freed. I was digging through some old tombs with my third human when the entire thing collapsed, killing him and burying my ring under the desert.”

She snapped her fingers and a bolt of silk spun out from a basket sitting beneath a neem tree, arching and expanding in the air to form a swing. She motioned for Nahri and Zaynab to sit.

“It took two thousand years for another djinn to stumble upon me. He brought me back to Daevabad, and here I am today.” Razu’s bright eyes dimmed. “I never did see my ifrit cousin again. I suppose a Nahid or Afshin caught up with him, in the end.”

Nahri cleared her throat. “I’m sorry.”

Razu nudged her shoulder. “You