Chapter Three #2
“I have seven brothers and six sisters. It will be some time before they notice my absence.”
And I’d thought having three sisters was a lot. “That’s…a lot of siblings.”
Another wry smile. “I am aware.”
We reached the front of the line. A display of mouthwatering pastries greeted us—lemon tartlets with tightly clustered raspberries, chocolate-glazed éclairs, canelés with caramelized crusts.
Unfortunately, they’d all set me back far too dearly, so I stuck with the order within my student budget.
“A black coffee, please. And a demi baguette.”
“I, too, will have a black coffee and a demi baguette,” Daziel said. He peered at the case and pointed. “Also, these seven pastries.”
“What?” Choked amusement caught in my throat. If this had been happening to anyone but me, I’d have found it hilarious, but as it was, I couldn’t decide if Daziel’s comical demeaner outweighed the preposterous situation. “You don’t need seven pastries.”
“I do.” He sounded deadly serious. “This one has chocolate, and this one has nuts, and this one has fruit. It is necessary.”
The server bagged Daziel’s seven pastries, apparently more willing to face my wrath than a demon’s. Still—“I can’t afford to buy you seven pastries.”
The server placed our coffees and baguettes next to the large white pastry bag. Daziel took everything but one coffee and smiled at me. “It’s all right. We do not need to pay.”
“Uh, yes, we do.”
“No, we don’t.”
“No, you don’t,” the server said dreamily.
I gaped at her, then reluctantly smacked a few bills down and grabbed my coffee before running after Daziel. “You can’t bespell people.”
“I didn’t.” Daziel lifted his baguette, and the salamander nibbled on the corner. “I spoke. Am I not allowed to speak?”
“No.” I grabbed my own baguette from him and took an angry bite, breaking through the flaky crust into yeasty, warm crumb. “No speaking.”
He sighed again, mournful. “If that is what you wish.”
Above us, in their sandstone tower, city bells started ringing the quarter-to melody. I took a long sip of coffee, warming against the morning chill, and I picked up my pace. So did Daziel, perfectly serene in his light jog, as though he was merely taking long steps. “Why are we running?”
So much for not talking. “I’m late. Professor Haik is a stickler; he doesn’t allow you to reschedule exams unless you submit a request in advance.”
“What if you’re sick?”
“Don’t be sick.”
We arrived at the land bridge. Students and horses and neshem-powered carriages crammed the avenue over the water. I led the way at a brisk clip, winding between bulkier, slower groups.
We were halfway before we got stuck, trapped behind a delivery cart piled high with crates of oranges and lemons, and hemmed in by a pack of schoolchildren and their beleaguered teachers, who were apparently taking them on a field trip to the Lyceum.
I heard the cawing first. It came in a wave, a loud, shrieking mass of noise, underscored by asynchronous flapping. In confusion, I—and everyone else—looked up. From the east, sweeping over and down from Talum’s four hills, came a clamoring, jarring cloud, like a blanket pulled across the sky.
At first, I couldn’t parse the horde above me.
Then I realized it was a thousand—ten thousand, a hundred thousand?
—birds, flying above and below each other, enough layers to block out the daylight.
Their wings beat in a massive undulating patchwork.
All types: sparrows and eagles, hummingbirds and falcons.
They shrieked and cawed, their volume as varied as their type, trills and hoots and chirps and harsh kak-kak-kaks.
It made me think of a war cry. Or a warning.
As they dove closer, people shrieked, crouching low and holding bags over their heads.
Horses reared, adding unhappy neighs to the cacophony, and people scrambled away from their hooves.
Someone tripped into me, and I lost balance, my coffee jostled out of my grip, the precious liquid arcing away as I fell.
I barely got out a hand to keep my face from smashing into the pavement.
Pain sliced through my palm and jarred up my arm.
I lay there, stunned, then rolled over to watch the shadow above beating with a hundred thousand wings.
Of all the unsettling, magic-touched things I’d seen in Talum, this was the strangest. I couldn’t imagine it boded well.
Then the birds were gone, leaving disarray behind. The kids—eight, nine years old—screamed and ducked away from the teachers, who tried to wrangle them to safety. A horse kicked dangerously at the air. The cart harnessed to it began to tip, the fruit inside spilling from their crates to the ground.
Daziel ran in to help, grabbing the horse by the back of its neck and pulling it down to all fours.
He said something, and the horse went very still, only its flaring nostrils indicating any discomfort.
I staggered upright and grabbed the cart edge to stabilize it, as a pair of hip-high children stared at me with large, unblinking eyes.
A few oranges rolled between their feet.
I looked over at Daziel, surprised. I wouldn’t have expected a wild demon to help calm the chaos—but maybe I was being unfair.
Around us, people rose from crouches. Clothes were tugged back into place; items from spilled rucksacks gathered.
Daziel released the horse and wove his way through the crowd, passing children and students and merchants until he’d reached the edge of the land bridge, where the breakwater fell several yards into the river.
He stood ramrod straight, staring at the cloud as it dwindled on the horizon.
His salamander crept up to his shoulder and made distressed squeaks.
With one finger, Daziel absently stroked the salamander’s spine, calming him. “You all right, Paz?”
The salamander nodded.
Okay, so the salamander could understand us. Or him. Good to know. Not something to find unnerving at all.
“What’s going on?” My voice trembled, which I disliked. I was used to being steady and capable, to being the one who reassured my younger siblings. “What happened?”
Daziel held his body with a particular stillness, like a cat watching a bauble on a string, trying to decide when to pounce. “The birds have left the city of Talum.”
“What do you mean?” I could hear the agitation in my voice and tried to tamp it down. “For how long? All the birds?”
“I don’t know,” he said. “It’s not good.”
“I didn’t think it was.” My tone came out worried instead of pithy. “What’s going on? Is this—are you connected to this?”
“No,” he said, voice troubled. “But I don’t like it.” He focused on me and frowned. “You’re hurt.”
I followed his gaze and realized my hand was scraped and bloody from my fall. Tiny pebbles had embedded themselves in my skin, and a jagged cut crossed my palm. “Ew.”
“Let me see.” He reached out, and I realized he wanted me to put my own hand within his black talons.
I hesitated. He was a demon, unreasonable and unpredictable.
But he’d calmed the horse, protecting children he had no reason to care about.
He was a demon, but he was also a boy who pouted and wanted an unreasonable number of pastries and to see the world.
A stranger, but maybe no stranger than the boys I’d met at school.
I placed my hand in his.
He sandwiched my hand between his, firm, intimate.
An itch grew around the stinging cut. I tried to pull away, but Daziel was unmovable.
Liquid heat replaced the itch, like water from a hot shower.
The cut became hotter and hotter until all sensation vanished, and I felt fine again.
I pulled my hand out from his, and the cut was gone.
“Neat trick,” I said, unnerved. I’d never seen magic done without letters or speech. “Thanks.”
Daziel tilted his head, and I realized he’d clocked my alarm when his brow furrowed.
He rummaged in his satchel and pulled out the white bakery bag, from which he extracted a croissant with almond slivers.
He held it out, and there was something hopeful and tentative about the gesture. “Have a pastry?”
The kindness of the offer, of comfort in the form of food, softened me. “Can I have a chocolate one?”
Nodding, he replaced the almond and extended another with two bars of chocolate folded into the buttery dough.
I stuffed half the croissant in my mouth and immediately felt better.
Now what? Were a demon visitor and a weird surge of birds excuses for missing my test?
Probably not. “Come on,” I said, and we were off, sprinting across the rest of the land bridge and into the wide, open campus of the fabled Lyceum.
I led him past manicured lawns and fountains, down paths lined by pillared buildings and olive trees.
I ignored the students staring at Daziel as the bells began to toll.
I reached the building where my Theory class took place, pounding up the stairwell, Daziel right behind me.
I careened around a corner so fast someone yelled.
The ninth bell had tolled out its final long, indomitable note when I burst, panting, into the stadium-style lecture hall.
The other students—all forty-nine—turned toward the noise from their seats.
I checked if they were staring at Daziel, but when I looked behind me, the demon was gone.