Ishmael gave a wry laugh. “Well, I look good for my age,” he remarked; the unnatural paleness and the dark circles and the fangs notwithstanding. He wasn’t going to be exact about his age, because this Tariq was still a stranger; but this Tariq was also more than likely family, so he could afford to be a little more honest than usual.
“No one you’d remember, I imagine,” Ishmael said, musing, and cocked his head sideways to suggest, once again, how far age separated them. No one Ishmael remembered, anymore; certainly no one left alive. “But I was once a Zahir, too. I didn’t think there would be – anyone else.”
Perhaps he would have to go back to America and see for himself? But what was he supposed to feel about any of this – was there supposed to be this strange inadvertent pang of loyalty to someone he had never met, just because they might share a distant bloodline? Ishmael had thought he was better than that, more – cut off from those pedestrian ways.
“No one you’d remember, I imagine,” Ishmael said, musing, and cocked his head sideways to suggest, once again, how far age separated them. No one Ishmael remembered, anymore; certainly no one left alive. “But I was once a Zahir, too. I didn’t think there would be – anyone else.”
Perhaps he would have to go back to America and see for himself? But what was he supposed to feel about any of this – was there supposed to be this strange inadvertent pang of loyalty to someone he had never met, just because they might share a distant bloodline? Ishmael had thought he was better than that, more – cut off from those pedestrian ways.
