Author
The City of Brass
In eighteenth-century Cairo, Nahri survives by selling false magic to wealthy clients, even though her unexplained healing ability is real. A ritual performed as part of a con unexpectedly summons Dara, a formidable djinn warrior who recognizes something in Nahri that she cannot explain. Their flight from Cairo carries her into a hidden supernatural world and eventually to Daevabad, a brass-walled city divided by dynastic conquest, religious loyalties, ethnic hierarchy, and memories of violence. There Nahri becomes entangled with the ruling Qahtani family, especially the principled but politically inexperienced Prince Alizayd. The novel combines an adventurous journey with court intrigue, gradually shifting its central question from whether magic exists to who controls the history and institutions of the magical world. As the opening volume of the Daevabad Trilogy, it establishes a conflict in which inherited identity can confer power while also trapping individuals inside struggles b…