“Carelessness,” Zaynab muttered under her breath.
“I … I don’t quite know,” Nahri confessed. “We were passing by and I felt …” She trailed off. “I felt the magic emanating from this place, and it reminded me of the palace.” She glanced around wonderingly. “Was this truly a hospital?”
Razu nodded. “It was.” With another snap of her fingers, a smoking glass ewer appeared alongside three chalices. She poured Nahri and Zaynab each a glass of a cloud-colored liquid. “I spent some time here as a patient after failing to dodge one of my creditors.”
Zaynab took a cautious sip and then promptly spit it most inelegantly back into the cup. “Oh, that’s definitely forbidden.”
Curious, Nahri tested her own glass, coughing at the intense burn of alcohol as it ran down her throat. “What is this?”
“Soma. The preferred drink of your ancestors.” Razu winked. “Regardless of Suleiman’s curse, the daevas of my day had yet to entirely lose our wildness.”
Whatever soma was, it admittedly left Nahri feeling more relaxed. Zaynab looked ready to bolt, but Nahri was enjoying her time more and more with each allusion to Razu’s felonious past. “What was it like back then—when you were a patient, I mean?”
Razu gazed pensively at the hospital. “It was an astonishing place, even in a city as magical as Daevabad. The Nahids must have treated thousands, and it all hummed along like a well-oiled wheel. I’d been hexed with a rather contagious streak of despair, so I was treated in quarantine over there.” She tilted her head toward a crumbling wing, then took a sip of her drink. “They took excellent care of us. A bed, a roof, and warm meals? It was almost worth being sick.”
Nahri leaned back on her palms, contemplating all that. She knew hospitals fairly well; she’d often snuck into Cairo’s most famous—the majestic, old bimaristan in the Qalawun complex—to steal supplies and wander its depths, fantasizing about joining the ranks of the students and physicians crowding its lofty corridors.
She tried to imagine how that bustle would look here, the hospital whole and filled with Nahids. Dozens of healers consulting notes and examining patients. It must have been an extraordinary community.
A Nahid hospital. “I wish I had something like that,” she said softly.
Razu grinned, raising her chalice in Nahri’s direction. “Consider me your first recruit should you attempt to rebuild.”
Zaynab had been tapping her foot, but now she stood. “Nahri, we should go,” she warned, motioning to the sky. The sun had disappeared behind the hospital walls.
Nahri touched Razu’s hand. “I’m going to try and come back,” she promised. “The three of you … are you safe here? Is there anything you need?” Though Razu and her companions were probably more capable than Nahri at taking care of themselves, she felt suddenly protective of the three souls her family had freed.
Razu squeezed her hand. “We are fine,” she assured her. “Though I do hope you come back. I think the place likes you.”
Ali gazed at the edge of the rocky cliff, squinting in the desert’s bright sunlight. His heart was beating so fast he could hear it in his ears, his breath coming in ragged bursts. Nervous sweat beaded on his brow, soaking into the cotton ghutra he’d wrapped around his head. He raised his arms, shifting back and forth on his bare feet.
“He’s not going to do it,” he heard one of the other djinn goad. There were six of them there atop the cliffs bordering the village of Bir Nabat, and they were all fairly young, for what they were doing required the sort of recklessness youth provided. “Little prince isn’t risking his royal neck.”
“He’ll do it,” another man shot back—Lubayd, Ali’s closest friend in Am Gezira. “He better do it.” His voice rose. “Ali, brother, I’ve got coin riding on you. Don’t let me down!”
“You shouldn’t be gambling,” Ali shot back anxiously. He took another shaky breath, trying to work up his courage. This was so dangerous. So unnecessary and foolish, it was almost selfish.
From beyond the cliff, there was the sound of reptilian snuffling, followed by the sharp, unpleasant tang of burnt feathers. Ali whispered a prayer under his breath.
And then he took off, sprinting toward the cliff edge. He ran as fast as he could and when the cliff gave way to air, he kept going, hurling himself into empty space. For one petrifying moment, he was falling, the distant, rock-strewn ground he was about to be dashed upon rushing up …
He landed hard on the back of the zahhak that had been roosting along the cliff face. Ali gasped, a thrill racing through his blood as he let out a cry that was equal parts terrified and triumphant.
The zahhak clearly didn’t share his enthusiasm. With an offended screech, the flying serpent took to the sky.
Ali lunged for the copper collar that a far more enterprising djinn had slipped over the zahhak’s neck years ago, tightening his legs around the creature’s sleek, silver-scaled body as he’d been instructed. Four massive wings—misty white and billowing like clouds—beat the air around him, snatching the breath from his lungs. Resembling an overgrown lizard—albeit one with the ability to shoot flames from its fanged mouth when harassed by djinn—this particular zahhak was said to be over four hundred years old and had been nesting in the cliffs outside Bir Nabat for generations, perhaps favoring the familiarity of its nesting spot enough to deal with the antics of the Geziri youth.
One of those youths squeezed his eyes shut now; the rush of the wind and the sight of the ground whizzing beneath him sending another rush of fear into Ali’s heart. He clutched the collar, huddling against the zahhak’s neck.
Look, you fool. Considering there was a chance this ended with him in pieces on the sand below, Ali might as well appreciate the view.
He opened his eyes. The desert spread before him, great sweeps of red-gold sand stretching to meet the bright blue horizon, broken by proudly jutting stands of rocks, antique formations sculpted by the wind over countless millennia. Jagged paths marked the line of long-vanished wadis, a distant stand of darkly lush palms forming a tiny oasis to the north.
“God be praised,” he whispered, awed by the beauty and magnificence of the world below him. He understood now why Lubayd and Aqisa had been goading him into taking part in this most deadly of Bir Nabat’s traditions. Ali might have grown up in Daevabad, but he’d never experienced anything as extraordinary as flying like this.
He squinted at the oasis, growing curious as he noticed black tents and movement between the distant trees. A group of nomads perhaps—the oasis belonged to humans according to custom long set, the djinn of Bir Nabat not daring to take even a cup of water from its wells.
He leaned forward against the creature’s neck for a better look, and the zahhak let out a smoky grumble of protest. Ali coughed, his stomach turning at the stench of the creature’s breath. The gristle of roasted prey crusted its stained fangs, and though Ali had been warned about the smell, it still left him light-headed.
The zahhak obviously didn’t think much of him either. Without warning, it banked, sending Ali scrambling to keep his grip, and then the creature hurtled back the way they’d come, cutting through the air like a scythe.
Ahead, Ali could see the entrance to Bir Nabat: a forbiddingly dark, empty doorway built