Chapter Seven
Seven
I flinched, surprised by Daziel’s abrupt disappearance. Guilt followed. I hadn’t expected Daziel to be so insulted—or hurt?—that he left. I’d thought I was being reasonable. But the professor had been rude, and Daziel didn’t have anywhere else to go.
“I’m sorry,” I said softly, in case Daziel could still hear me. With a sigh, I headed back to the classroom.
Professor Altschuler was nowhere in sight, but my cohort swiveled in my direction. “He wants you in the scroll room,” Yael said.
Swallowing, I nodded and headed up a floor. I knocked twice before entering. “You wanted to see me?”
Professor Altschuler stood, gazing downriver. From here, you could see the uninhabited islet west of Talum, a black streak dividing the blue of river and sky.
He turned, his gaunt expression even more drawn than usual, his face half-silhouetted by the setting sun.
“It is not safe to consort with demons,” he said.
“They are not human, even if they take human form. They do not reason the way we do, or have the same morals.” His lips tightened briefly.
“I am given to understand they offer certain…carnal pleasure—”
Horrible, I hated this, no. “It’s not like that,” I said hurriedly, because even if it had been, I’d rather jump out the window than discuss my sex life with a professor. “We’re—it’s—he’s my tutor. He’s nice.”
Professor Altschuler regarded me as though he’d never met such an imbecile. “Demons are not ‘nice.’ ”
I swallowed. The majority of humans would probably describe demons as mischievous or dangerous, but maybe that was because humans and demons usually encountered each other in more stressful situations than hanging out on the sofa. “Daziel’s nice.”
“Daziel,” he repeated. He ran his fingers along his bookcase, stopping at a thick, weathered tome. “Did he tell you his lineage?”
“Yes.” He definitely did. “Daziel, son of…”
Well, no one ever called me detail-oriented.
Professor Altschuler sighed and released the book. “You are making a mistake.”
Was I? Or was the professor? In the last five days, Daziel had been nothing but funny and thoughtful and annoying. Maybe I was making a mistake, but maybe the professor was prejudiced.
An unpleasant silent stretched, and the professor’s expression soured when he realized I wasn’t going to agree with him. “Your personal life is not my concern, but you cannot bring the demon back to my seminar,” he snapped. “I won’t have him in my class or meddling with my scrolls.”
I nodded, and we headed back to the classroom, where Professor Altschuler set out the parameters for a new technopaignia spell he wanted to try.
Technopaignia spells were written in the shape of an object to strengthen the magic.
In this case, we’d write the spell in the shape of scrolls, hoping to remind the fragments of what they’d once been.
Like with each new spell, our cohort’s job would be carving charaktêres into a large piece of plywood, then painting the words with neshem oil.
For complicated spells like this, spellcasters often carved charaktêres into porous materials, which absorbed more neshem then clay or glass or paper.
This created reserves for the spell to draw on so the caster didn’t need to scramble in the middle to add more.
We’d layer paper over the plywood so the neshem wouldn’t dampen the fragments, which we’d place on top.
“Is everything all right?” Yael asked once the professor had departed. We divided the spell in quadrants and began writing out the charaktêres before carving them with our stylos, to make sure the spacing worked. “With the demon?”
Her concern unnerved me. Things had to look bad for her to ask me the first personal question since we’d met. “We’re fine.”
“How long have you known each other?”
“Um…” With Stefan in the room, I didn’t want to admit I’d made up the betrothal.
He’d been one of the first to ask me out; though not in the School of Government, he came from a high-ranked family in Aolong, and I figured he’d been told to make connections here.
He’d backed off quick after learning about my demon betrothed, though.
“A year. Though we don’t see each other often. The engagement was—sudden.”
Silence fell, as per usual. But Yael had opened the door for conversation. Maybe we could be friends. I cast about for something to discuss. Maybe we could get past the competition between us—
“How can you still be so slow at writing charaktêres?” Stefan asked me. “Man, the candidates must have been rough your year.”
Never mind.
When we finished preparing for the spell, Professor Altschuler returned with a colleague and three of his staff. All nine of us read the spell together.
It didn’t work.
“Failures can be as useful as successes,” Professor bat Rachel said, aiming for a positive spin. But we’d had enough failures here.
Dismissed, I headed out, my stomach twisted. The spell hadn’t worked, I didn’t know if I’d have a scholarship next year, and on top of everything, I’d hurt Daziel’s feelings.
An unsettling, lukewarm rain started to fall.
The rainy season wasn’t due for another few weeks, but thick, plump droplets burst on my shoulders and the pavement like slow tears.
At least it wasn’t too cold, though the rain increased from a slow patter to a fast and soaking downfall.
I ducked under a shop’s awning to wait it out.
Everything looked dark and shiny, the world washed clean and smelling of petrichor.
“Fine,” Daziel said. I jumped, looking wildly around before locating the demon seated on the top of a wrought iron lamp. His face was shadowed, but a familiar loftiness shaded his voice. “I accept your apology.”
Relief washed through me, tinged by pique that he’d reappeared in the haughtiest possible manner. I shot him an arch look, relieved to be back to trading quips. “Did I apologize?”
He jumped down, landing lightly on his feet. “Earlier.”
So he had been listening, and it had mattered to him. I studied him, this strange, wild boy. “I’m sorry I didn’t tell Professor Altschuler not to be a jerk.”
He shrugged. He wore a scarf thrown haphazardly over his shoulders, new shoes in a buttery dark leather, and silver cuffs around his wrists.
“Did you go shopping?”
“I asked a gentleman who shared my box at the opera where he had acquired his coat, and he recommended an establishment.”
I blinked several times, not sure which part of this to respond to first. “You went to the opera?”
“At first I went in because everyone was well dressed and the building so pretty, but then I stayed because I was amazed.” He still looked amazed. “The drama! The vocal acrobatics! The costumes! Afterward, I wanted to look as sharp as everyone else.”
My lips quirked up. Of course he had.
He lifted an umbrella I hadn’t noticed and stepped out into the downpour. Impossibly, when rain hit the umbrella, it slid off in a long arc, creating a dry dome at least six feet in diameter.
I stepped under the dome, which moved with us as we walked. I craned my neck to take it in, trying not to gape. “How are you stopping the rain?”
“Magic. Shall we head home?”
Human magic couldn’t do anything like this. “We’re not headed home.” I grinned, not without trepidation. “It’s Friday. We’re going to the pub.”
Wonderment slid over Daziel’s face, as though I’d announced I was taking him to a ball on Society Hill. “I have never been to a pub before!”
I snorted and led him through the winding streets of the Scholars’ Quarter, stopping at a wooden door, which couldn’t muffle the storm of noise behind it. “Get ready, then. And stay close.”
I pushed the door open into the packed pub.
With beer both cheap and good, people always crowded in here, and it’d become my friends’ de facto meeting place.
Rain dripped off the people closest to the door, while musicians strummed their guitars and heckled their listeners into tossing coins.
I elbowed my way past students with sloshing pints, the floor already sticky beneath my feet.
My friends squeezed around a table in the back—my floormates, along with Ezra and Hiram.
We’d met the boys during orientation, and we’d all bonded over being scholarship students.
Ezra was loud and boisterous, with an opinion on everything.
He had uncontrollable black hair, large ears, and he asked a hundred questions a minute.
He was in the School of Humanities, like me and Leah, though he complained about the government so much I wondered why he wasn’t in school to change it.
Hiram was quieter, shorter, and very handsome, with a tendency toward dour pronouncements.
He came from the Taro Islands, like so many sailors did in Port Naborre, and spoke with a soft, lyrical accent.
Like Gilli, he’d enrolled in the School of Science.
Nerves tightened my chest as we approached.
I hadn’t known the boys long enough to know how they’d react to Daziel, and I didn’t want to mess up this new friendship group.
Back home, I hadn’t had a group like this.
I had my sisters, and I was friendly with my age group in the village—Abel and Hila and Keren and Mendel—but I’d always felt too intense around them, like I cared too much.
This group fit me, and I didn’t want to mess it up.
“Hi, guys.” I slid onto the edge of the bench, bumping Leah’s hips with mine to encourage her to squeeze down. Daziel perched next to me. I gave a floppy wave, trying to swallow my nerves. “This is Daziel.”
They’d heard of him already, of course, but Hiram and I shared no classes, and Ezra and I only had class on Mondays. “I thought you were joking,” Ezra said, astonishment clear. “You’re actually betrothed to a demon?”
Daziel leaned forward, beaming—happy, I suspected, to tease some gullible humans. “We are.”
The boys drew back.