Chapter Seven #2
I accepted the glasses of cheap ale Leah pushed over, passing one to Daziel. I needed to set the situation straight. “We’re not really betrothed. He’s just hanging around a bit.”
“Technically, we’re really betrothed,” Daziel said. I was so used to him sounding chipper that I could identify an undercurrent of irritation. He didn’t like me refuting the betrothal, then.
“He’s a demon.” Hiram sounded suspicious. “Why are you here?”
“To delight in the company of my betrothed and her friends.” Daziel’s glib expression slipped when he sipped his ale. He made a face. “What is this?”
“It’s ale,” Ezra said. “Don’t demons drink ale?”
“Can demons get drunk?” Gilli asked.
“On starlight and moonbeams.”
My friends stared at him, then at me.
“He’s joking,” I said. My lips twitched. Daziel was exasperating, no doubt about it, but I could see how everyone being constantly agog at your existence might prod one into light teasing. “He thinks he’s funnier than he is.”
Daziel looked affronted. “I am very funny.”
“He’s here to see Talum,” I told Hiram. “He’d never left home and wanted to explore.”
This broke the ice, particularly for Hiram, who also loved exploring.
Then Daziel asked about the colors Ezra wore, which set the boys off on an overly excited explanation of knockball.
“You should join our league!” Ezra cried.
Ezra was forever trying to recruit people to the club team he captained, which was, by all accounts, actively bad.
“Are you serious right now?” Leah asked.
Daziel tilted his head. “What’s knockball?”
“It’s the best,” Ezra said. “A thinking man’s sport, smart, heady. You’d love it. Demons are fast, right?”
“You can’t have a demon on your team,” Leah said. She flicked a peanut shell at Ezra from the wreckage on the table. “That’s cheating!”
“That’s discrimination,” Ezra said, all superior. “God, Leah, I didn’t realize how prejudiced you were.”
“I am very fast,” Daziel said, looking back and forth between my friends. “With excellent reflexes.”
“Sweet,” Ezra said. “Practices are twice a week on Charing Field—I’ll get Naomi the details.”
Across the room, the musicians returned from a break and burst into an energetic rendition of the popular ballad “Where Has My Love Gone?”—only, they’d tweaked it to be “Where Have the Birds Gone?”
Leah winced. “Too soon.”
“Fast turnaround, though,” Ezra said. “Kind of impressive.”
“Has anyone seen a bird since Tuesday?” Jelan asked.
Everyone shook their head. “Kaylee Shatterly in my Intro to T3 class said her pet parakeet banged his head against his cage over and over until she was afraid he’d kill himself, so she let him go, and he flew away with the mass,” Leah said.
Dark.
The door to the pub opened, and more people gusted in with the rain and wind.
Gilli frowned prettily. I committed to frowning in the mirror later and seeing if I could do the same instead of looking like a gremlin.
“It’s one more strange thing, isn’t it?” she said.
“The birds flying off. The heat the other night. The winds being so strong.”
Ezra thumped his beer glass emphatically on the table. “It’s obvious something’s off with magic. The Sanhedrin needs to investigate it. Or if they can’t figure out the source of the problem, they need to protect people, put shields up or something against the too-strong winds.”
“What’s the Sanhedrin?” Daziel asked.
Another roar from the group, this one disbelieving. Even I shot him a look askance. “The Sanhedrin?” Leah repeated. “The Council? It runs the city?”
Daziel picked up his cup and idly took a bite of it. Glass crunched under his teeth. “We don’t pay much attention to your politics.”
“Daziel!” I cried. Not understanding money and politics was one thing, but this was a step too far. “You can’t eat glasses!”
“Why not?” He looked confused.
“It’s not an ice cream cone, mate,” Ezra said. “They’re not edible.”
“Come on, you pay some attention,” Leah said. This was how all conversations went at the Lyceum: students talking over and under each other, three conversations at once. Luckily, I’d been trained by having three sisters. “There’s a treaty. It gets renewed every twenty years.”
“No offense,” Daziel said smugly, “but I think your lot pays far more attention to us than we do to you.”
I almost grinned at how pleased he sounded. Of course we paid attention! Demons were magical and rare! I didn’t want to give him the satisfaction of impressing me so easily, though, so I rolled my eyes. He grinned back.
“You’re a wild demon, though,” Ezra said. “Do you know what’s going on with the magic? It’s the natural-world magic that’s off, not letterform. Wild demons are close to the natural world, right?”
Leah turned to Daziel sharply. “Do you know? Because if the rains and winds continue to be unpredictable, it could affect my family’s silk harvest. Every family’s harvest. My parents are freaking out.”
“Shedim don’t control natural magic,” Daziel said, his voice gentle. “Natural magic is controlled by the primordial beasts. I’m sorry.”
Our waitress came over, a beleaguered woman who must have subsisted on her irritation at students, because it certainly wasn’t on tips. “You lot buying anything else?”
“Have I told you how beautiful you look tonight, Sophie?” Ezra said.
She regarded him stonily. “You need to purchase something if you want to keep sitting here.”
“We’ll get mixed nuts. You are stunning, Sophie.”
“You need to get more than mixed nuts.”
“Two orders of mixed nuts?”
“Out,” Sophie said.
“Sophie, we have a demon with us,” Ezra said, as though saying please let us stay.
Sophie examined Daziel. She did not look impressed. “And is the demon paying for food?”
Daziel smiled. “I am happy to.” He pulled at the obsidian-black nail on his pinkie. Blood welled up in the bed as the nail began to detach.
Good lord. Was he serious? Nails were not an acceptable form of currency, and I didn’t want to be responsible for bits of demon floating around the black market. I batted Daziel’s shoulder, and he turned to me, startled, letting go of his nail.
“He is most definitely not,” I said firmly. “Sorry! We’re leaving now.” I dragged Daziel out of the pub behind me. Maybe it would be more work than I thought, managing this demon.