World that was denied us. He had said that to me, once upon a time, but hadn’t elaborated. Now I thought I finally had the opportunity to get some clarification.
“What does that even mean?” I asked. “If we’re getting all biblical here, I thought God created the world for mankind.”
A weary smile. “The djinn were here first, but then God made man, and thought mankind His greatest creation. The djinn were told to bow down to man, as the angels did. But my people had been given free will, and they refused to bend to a thing they saw as lesser than themselves. And so the djinn were banished from this world, and lived on planes of existence the human mind could only dimly comprehend. Even that banishment did not keep us away completely, but we could not make our permanent home here, not as a u
