Karachi never slept; it only pretended to.
At midnight the roads thinned, but the noise never really died — it just changed shape. The rush of engines softened into the growl of late buses; the day's heat lingered in concrete and metal. In the alley behind M.A. Jinnah Road, under a dying streetlamp that blinked like a faulty conscience, Aamir Ayyar made a wallet disappear.
"Look, it'll take only a second," he said, voice slick and teasing, flipping a coin through his fingers with the speed of a small miracle. A few rickshaw drivers, shop boys, and a chai-wala leaned closer. The night smelt of diesel, salt, and burnt oil — the perfume of survival.
Aamir lived off moments like this: the half-second when attention broke, the blink where wonder slid in. He snapped his fingers, tossed the coin, and in that blink the wallet vanished from the man's own pocket. The crowd gasped; someone clapped. Aamir smiled — not the smile of a saint, but of someone who'd learned that charm could be currency.
"This is all I've got." he murmured under his breath.
His performance ended with applause and a few coins dropped into an upturned cap. As the crowd drifted back toward chai and cigarettes, Aamir's fingers danced through the leftovers — a watch here, a lighter there. The magician always got paid, even when no one knew it.
He moved through the sleeping market, the echo of his footsteps joining the hum of distant generators. Neon signs buzzed like trapped flies; the words 'Royal Biryani' flickered above him in tired red letters. Aamir's reflection stretched and twisted across the puddles — too tall, too thin, too tired.
He passed the corner tea stall where Babu, the chai-wala, was closing up.
"Late again, Ayyar bhai," Babu said, wiping a cup.
Aamir shrugged. "The city's awake, then why would I sleep?"
Babu smirked. "Because you owe me three cups of tea and one paratha."
Aamir grinned, tossed a coin into the air, caught it — and it was gone.
"See? Debt vanished."
"Magician, my foot," Babu muttered, laughing anyway.
The world, for a brief moment, felt simple — the kind of simplicity that never lasted.
When Aamir reached his rented room — a concrete box above a shuttered hardware shop — he found the electricity gone again. The city was a master illusionist itself: it promised light, then vanished it in smoke. He lit a candle stub, its flame small but defiant, and collapsed on the thin mattress.
From the cracked window, he could see half the city — rooftops like broken teeth, the sea beyond, dark and patient. He thought about his life the way other people thought about dreams: fleeting, unsatisfying, but better than nothing.
He pulled a photo from his wallet — a faded one of his mother, smiling in front of the old shrine at Sehwan Sharif. She'd been a believer in miracles. He'd become one who faked them. Maybe, he thought, that was balance.
A knock jolted him from thought. Three quick taps. Midnight visitors in Karachi rarely brought good news.
"Who's there?" he called out.
Silence. Then, a voice — calm, aged, precise.
"You carry his name."
Aamir frowned, opened the door slightly. A man stood there, dressed in white — too clean for this neighborhood. His beard trimmed short, his eyes reflecting candlelight in a strange, steady way.
"Whose name?" Aamir asked.
The man stepped forward. "Amar Ayyar. The great deceiver. The trickster who walked the Tilisms. Do you know what blood you carry, boy?"
Aamir smirked, masking unease with habit. "Mister, I only walk Saddar, not Tilisms. You've got the wrong Ayyar."
The man's gaze didn't waver. He reached into his cloak and drew out something — a small, brown leather satchel, old but somehow... alive. Its seams gleamed faintly in the candlelight, the stitching golden, unearthly.
He placed it on Aamir's table with surprising care.
"This belonged to him," the man said. "And now, it calls for you."
Before Aamir could protest — the man was gone. No footsteps down the stairwell. No sound of the door. Just gone, as if the night had swallowed him whole.
Aamir stared at the satchel. Its surface was warm under his fingertips, like skin. The symbol on the front — a spiral within a crescent — seemed to pulse faintly, like a heartbeat.
He laughed nervously. "Right. Haunted handbag. Sure."
Then he tossed it aside and blew out the candle.
The moment the light died, a whisper filled the dark.
A whisper that didn't come from outside.
"The trick begins again."
Aamir sat up, heart thudding, eyes searching the shadows. But there was nothing — only the smell of burnt wax and a faint shimmer in the air.