There was so much I needed to ask. One question didn’t even begin to cover it. I had to ask the most important one.

“If an ifrit is trapped in an ancient earring, what would he hope to achieve by granting three wishes to the owner of the earring, turning said owner into a giant and rampaging through Atlanta, and then repeating this process?”

“How do you know it’s an ifrit?”

“I saw him in a vision.”

“Did he wear jewelry?”

“Yes. Gold with large green stones.”

“Emerald or peridot. So we have a sultan, then.”

Don’t ask a question. He only said one question and there had to be a price for failing to follow the rules. “One would think that an ifrit sultan would wear a ruby, because it’s the color of fire. Humans living in the Arabian Peninsula prize emerald above all stones because it’s green and Arabia is mostly arid. But djinn are not human.”

Roland leaned forward, a sly look in his eyes. “One would think that. Then one would brush up on her geology and learn that the purest peridot is found in harraat, the lava fields in the west of Saudi Arabia. When the volcanoes in the west erupted, they brought peridots with them from the depths of the magma chambers. The djinn treasure these stones because they were bathed in the fiery lifeblood of the planet. Only the highest ranks of the ifrits wear them.”

A waiter came to refill his coffee.

“God created men from clay and djinn from smokeless fire,” Roland said, once the waiter left. “Even people not versed in the Qur’an know this line. Have you ever wondered about the meaning behind it?”

“People are made of clay. We are tied to the Earth and soil; our magic is its magic. Also clay soil is almost impossible to enchant.”

“But you can enchant a clay pot.”

I thought about it. “But to make a clay pot, you have to first add water, which holds enchantment, and then treat it with fire.”

“Precisely.”

“So djinn have a lot more magic than we do.”

“Not only do they have a lot more magic, they are magic. They require a large amount of it just to survive. A djinn absorbs the magic from its environment, storing it like a battery. Now let’s take your ifrit, for instance. He is confined to an earring, imprisoned, likely driven mad by the thousands of years of confinement. He wants freedom but he lacks the magic to break free and to exist in our volatile world.”

“The only way he can manifest is by possessing a human host,” I said. “I gathered as much.”