Chapter Five #2
I made a face. “Having a demon infesting my rooms isn’t the right trade-off for peace.”
He perked up. “You’d like to negotiate a different trade?”
“Nope.” I drew back, wary. “You’re not supposed to make deals with demons.”
“Why not? You ‘invented’ me to make your life easier. Let me. I can keep unwanted suitors at bay. I can even help with your schoolwork. You study languages, yes? I might not understand the scrolls, but I understand living languages. You study those as well.”
The offer was surprisingly good. I’d done study sessions with my classmates, but since none of us truly grasped the languages we were learning, we often ended as confused as we’d started. A fluent Keft or Tzorybia speaker would make an excellent tutor.
Still. He was a stranger and a demon. “No bargains. No deals. I’m no fool.”
“No fun, either,” he muttered, sounding aggrieved. He blew out a breath, twisting the rings on his fingers. When he caught me watching, he separated his hands quickly. I wondered if he’d been chastised as a child for hand-wringing. “Look. Did you always know you’d attend the Lyceum?”
Growing up, I’d dreamed of leaving home the way a human in the desert dreams of water, the way a trapped bird dreams of the open sky.
But I hadn’t expected anything. I shook my head.
“If I hadn’t gotten my scholarship, I doubt I’d have left.
” My father was a courier, my mother a seamstress, and my grandmother harvested saffron from crocuses.
I’d probably have wound up helping one of them.
He nodded. “I always wanted to travel—I thought I would. My father said he’d take me with him. My father…” Daziel tensed slightly, and when he continued it was with a lightness I suspected was false. “Always said more than he meant, I think. It took me a while to realize that.”
I didn’t want to feel any sympathy for him, but my chest twisted. My parents had never fallen short of my expectations. I’d been lucky.
“Anyway.” Daziel shook off any low spirits. “I decided I’d explore on my own. Especially when my parents made noises about me taking on more of the family business.”
“Rocks?”
He smiled wryly. “Rocks. A more tedious responsibility than I’m keen on.”
Who’d have thought I’d have fellow feeling for a demon? Apparently growing up had some universals. “I get it. But…why not stay at inns? Why drag me into this?”
He blinked as though confused. “They’d find me.”
I was equally confused. “How is staying with me any different? You think they wouldn’t look for you in a girls’ dorm?”
Understanding dawned on Daziel’s face. “Shedim can sense the location of those they’re connected to,” he explained.
“If someone has a claim on your location—as a parent does on a child’s—you can only be shielded by someone with an equal claim.
Like a betrothed. According to the treaty rules, shedim can’t track humans without permission.
Since I am betrothed to you, I am hidden from them. ”
It took me a moment to process this, and as I did, my mouth fell open. “Are you serious?”
He nodded.
But that meant…if he was only shielded by someone with an equal claim…“We’re not actually betrothed.”
He stared at me.
No. Oh no. The ring, the pomegranate. No wonder he had worked so hard to get me to accept the fruit. My stomach sank. “We are actually betrothed?”
“At least fifty percent.”
What the hell. “I’d like to be unbetrothed. One hundred percent.”
He winced. “That’s more complicated. To deter demons from entering betrothals casually.”
“Complicated?” Daziel was making it sound like betrothals for demons were magical bindings. My breathing came faster. “How complicated?”
Paz cheeped, nervous-sounding, and squirreled himself away down the back of Daziel’s collar while Daziel scratched his ear and examined the ceiling. “Can I get back to you?”
I was going to wring his neck. “And there’s effects to being betrothed? Magical effects, like this location thing?”
“Several.” Daziel looked confused, as though this was obvious. “Depending on how far along the betrothal is.”
“Human betrothals don’t have magical effects,” I said from between gritted teeth, because apparently that needed to be clarified. “What are they?”
He shrugged. “Location-finding. Magic-sharing. Health-sharing—like with your hand.”
This was too much. I focused on the first bit, location-sharing—and blocking. “What were you going to do if some random girl didn’t claim you were betrothed?”
“No plan.” He plumped up a few cushions, looking ready to go back to bed. “I just grabbed the opportunity.”
I closed my eyes briefly. “If I can’t break up with you on my own, how do we undo this betrothal?”
“We’ll have to get it signed off by one of our rabbis and one of yours. And have a court of law approve of the dissolution. And, uh, undergo a period of reflection where we perform ceremonies to help the magic untangle.”
I tried to convey, wordlessly, my renewed desire for neck-wringing.
“Or you can let me stay,” he said hopefully as he slid more horizontally into his blankets. “I’ll help you with schoolwork, I’ll fend off unwanted suitors, I’ll—I’ll clean!”
Nothing about this boy filled me with confidence he knew how to clean. “I told you, I’m not striking a deal with a demon.”
He rolled his eyes. “It doesn’t have to be a formal deal. It can be…an exchange of services. Your service: a place to stay and not ending the betrothal immediately. My services: My brilliant company. Apartment-decorating. Fashion advice—”
Rude. “Thanks, I’ve got the picture.” I rubbed my forehead.
Maybe I was so sleep-deprived I couldn’t think straight, but letting him stay didn’t sound so bad.
Much easier than hunting down multiple rabbis and petitioning the court, which sounded exhausting.
I was so busy with my classes and maintaining my grades for my scholarship…
Maybe it wouldn’t hurt to wait until after the term was over to figure out how to untangle this.
“Help studying, then. Flash cards and quizzing me on theory and language. Chores, maybe, if you don’t break anything. ”
“I’m not going to break anything.” He sounded offended.
I thought about it. I could handle a roommate—I’d always shared a room with my sisters. A boy would be different, but he could stay in the living room.
Someone to clean, to run errands…no more unwanted suitors hunting me…
And a language tutor. Being taught by an expert…
that was an edge scholarship students could rarely afford.
I was good at languages, maybe even great, but so were many people here.
If I wanted to win Professor Altschuler’s esteem, and a scholarship for a second year at the Lyceum, this could be an incredible opportunity.
Besides, it sounded like I didn’t have much of a choice until I found both human and demon clergy members and performed whatever ceremonies were necessary to untangle this magic.
Still, I hesitated. It might be wildly foolish, not to mention dangerous, letting a demon into my life.
“Please,” he said. Maybe he could see how I was on the edge, ready to teeter in either direction. “I can’t go home yet. I only just left. I haven’t seen anything. I won’t be a bother. You’ll barely know I’m here. Please. I don’t know if I’ll get another chance.”
Maybe it was naive, but I believed him. “There’d have to be ground rules. You can’t do anything weird.”
From his curled-up position in his nest, he pulled a face. “I would never.”
“And it’s not a formalized deal. Just an…agreement.”
He nodded. “Of course.”
What the hell. If I was stuck with him until we dissolved this betrothal, I might as well get something out of it. “Let me go tell Leah not to worry. And tomorrow we’ll see Madame Hadar about getting you approved to stay overnight.”