Summary

The novella is narrated in third-person past with a focus on Hamed's perspective. In Chapter One, Agent Hamed Nasr of the Ministry of Alchemy, Enchantments, and Supernatural Entities arrived with his new, rookie partner, Agent Onsi, to the office of the Superintendent of Tram Safety and Maintenance at Ramses Station in Cairo. Superintendent Bashir welcomed them and offered them sudjukh candies in his office, which was decorated with many glamorous old-world decorations, but also filled with paperwork and other mundane items.

The room was stifling hot and had no windows, but Superintendent Bashir was not bothered by the temperature. Instead, he simply lectured the agents on the fact that the tram system was mislabeled because it was really more of a telpher system. The Cairo “trams” moved independently upon their lines, unlike true trams, which were pulled along by single cable lines. Telphers had...