A Dead Djinn in Cairo Quotes

“And her father always said if people were going to stare, you should give them a show.”
― P. Djèlí Clark, A Dead Djinn in Cairo

“She looked closer at the object she’d mistaken for a bookmark—a length of metallic silver tinged with hints of bright mandarin. She picked it up, holding it aloft as it glinted in the gas lamps’ glare.

Aasim cursed, his voice going hoarse. “Is that what I think it is?”

Fatma nodded. It was a metallic feather, as long as her forearm. Along its surface, faint lines of fiery script moved and writhed about as if alive.

“Holy tongue,” Aasim breathed.

“Holy tongue,” she confirmed.

“But that means it belongs to . . .”

“An angel, ” Fatma finished for him.

Her frown deepened. Now what in the many worlds, she wondered, would a djinn be doing with one of these?”
― P. Djeli Clark, A Dead Djinn in Cairo

“When I was in school in Luxor I would see these photographs of Englishmen and Frenchmen who visited Egypt, before the djinn came. Mostly they were in suits. But sometimes they’d put on a jellabiya and headscarf. I found out they called it ‘going native.’ To look exotic, they said.'

'Did they?' Aasim cut in.

'Did they what?'

'Look exotic.'

'No. Just ridiculous.'

Aasim snickered.

'Anyway, when I bought my first suit, the English tailor asked me why I wanted it. I told him I wanted to look exotic.”
― P. Djèlí Clark, A Dead Djinn in Cairo

“Even now, you fail to grasp the strength of my conviction.” And with those last words, he plunged the three blades through his body—one stabbing into his chest, a second ripping apart the armor surrounding his heart, and a third sliding through the metallic links of his neck. Bright fluid like the blood of a star poured from the wounds. He swayed, then toppled to crash upon the ground and was still.

“Well, that was unexpected,” Siti remarked.”
― P. Djeli Clark, A Dead Djinn in Cairo

“The self-proclaimed angels were silent on the matter—validating no particulars of either faith, and remaining enigmatic regarding their motives.”
― P. Djèlí Clark, A Dead Djinn in Cairo

“Djinn. Ghuls. Sorcerers. Never had to worry about this in my grandfather's day.”
― P. Djèlí Clark, A Dead Djinn in Cairo

“If people were going to stare, you should give them a show.”
― P. Djèlí Clark, A Dead Djinn in Cairo

“That had been a little more than forty years past. Fatma was born into the world al-Jahiz left behind: a world transformed by magic and the supernatural.”
― P. Djèlí Clark, A Dead Djinn in Cairo

“He jutted a shaved round chin at the dead djinn’s naked penis: a midnight-blue thing that hung near to the knee.”
― P. Djèlí Clark, A Dead Djinn in Cairo