Chapter Nineteen
Nineteen
I’d been alone with Daziel a thousand times, but this was unlike being alone in my cozy apartment, with its bookcases and warm light.
This room, with its high ceilings and sparse furniture, felt unmanageable.
Too big for me, too big for my thoughts.
They whisked about in all directions but kept coming back to one particular question.
I took a deep breath. “I thought the spell worked because of the binding. But—you’re a high shayd?”
“It did work because of the binding,” he said, black eyes serious. “But…yes. I am.”
Numbly, I sat on the edge of the bed, an elegant thing with posters and linen sheets. “Why didn’t you tell me?”
An almost-weary expression flickered across his face. “Does it matter?”
“That you’re a high shayd? No. That you lied to me? Yes.” I tried to think of a reason, a way to make this palatable. “Was it because you’d have to declare yourself to the Council? And then you wouldn’t be hidden from your parents?”
Our gazes connected, and I read his thoughts in an instant.
This wasn’t the reason, but he was weighing if I’d believe him if he served it back; after all, I’d delivered an excuse on a silver platter.
I scooched backward on the bed until my spine touched the headrest, putting space between us.
“Don’t lie to me,” I said, my voice soft and hard at once.
“Why did you tell me you were a wild shayd?”
“I didn’t tell you.” He bowed his head, sounding abashed. “You assumed.”
“I assumed because of your feather markings and talons.” I swallowed. “Are those not…real?”
He grimaced. “I can hide them, as high shedim usually do, if that’s what you mean. But you’ve seen what I look like. So, no, it’s not real, but it’s no less real than if I fully looked like a human.”
I swallowed. “Why did you do it?”
He sat on the foot of the bed, tracing the embroidery on the duvet, blue thread stark against the white linen. He said nothing.
“You have to talk to me,” I said, frustrated.
“My aunt says the treaty negotiations are coming up. Are you here because of them? Are you a spy? Please don’t tell me you pretended to be betrothed to me because of my aunt.
” It would have been the most ironic outcome, if Daziel had been using me to get to her just like the government students had.
“No,” he said immediately. “It has nothing to do with her.”
“But it has to do with something?” When he returned to tracing the embroidery, new threadwork blooming under his touch, I pressed on. “You do have an agenda.”
“…Yes.”
“What is it?”
“I can’t tell you.” His face was so compelling, so familiar and real and mine in a way I’d never thought it would be when I first saw it.
But he wasn’t mine, not really. And he wouldn’t tell me, no matter that he’d used me for months. “Do you think I’m an idiot?”
He jerked his face up, looking shocked. “Of course I don’t think you’re an idiot.”
“Really?” I tried not to cry, trying to freeze my tears by sounding cold as ice. “I let you in so easily.”
“You’re a trusting person. Optimistic.”
I blinked up at the chandelier, hoping the light would burn away any wetness from my eyes. “Optimistic people are stupid.”
“You’re not stupid.”
“I think I’m stupid.” I swallowed, my throat tight and dry. “God, I’m so stupid. Everyone told me I couldn’t trust you. You even told me not to be so trusting. And what did I do? I let you in. I let you stay.”
“Naomi—”
“Are you a spy?” My stomach tightened, and I could feel my grip on my emotions slipping. “About the treaty, about anything?”
He hesitated. “I can’t tell you.”
“Why not?” My voice rose. “Because you don’t trust me? Even though you said you did. Why did you even say that? To get me to so stupidly trust you in return?” I slumped down, curling into a ball. I wanted to pull the duvet over me and block out the world.
“I do trust you. It’s—I—Naomi, I know you. You would tell people.”
“Not if you asked me not to.”
“Are you sure?” His black eyes met mine. “Will you promise now not to repeat what I say?”
I hesitated. I trusted Daziel, but I was also practical, and blanket promises were dangerous.
He arched his brows. “See?”
“That’s not fair.”
His jaw clenched. “I’m not trying to be fair. I’m trying to—” He clamped his mouth shut, then blew out a breath, clearly trying to take things down a notch. “I want to tell you. I just want to do it right. Give me time to figure out how to talk about this.”
“Why should I?” I demanded. I was too angry to deescalate. “You’ve had five months of time. Why should I wait any longer?”
His brows snapped together, and his chin jerked up. “Because I’m a little exhausted from saving all your friends right now.”
His words hit me like a gale, fierce enough to bowl me over and rip the air from my lungs.
I felt impossibly fragile, a glass on the brink of shattering.
“I see.” Instead of disappearing under the impossibly soft linens, I slid out of bed.
I wanted to be as upright and proper as possible, as though it could protect me from further hurt.
I spoke, as icily polite as I could manage.
“Thank you, my lord. You have my gratitude.”
He looked instantly ashamed. Paz poked his head out and made a chiding, chittering sound. “I’m sorry. This is bigger than me. I can’t just blurt it out—”
“Got it.” I couldn’t be in here anymore. I crossed the room.
At the door, I hesitated, one last horrible thought invading. “My aunt suggested even most high shedim wouldn’t have been able to do that spell. That you’re not just high but from the upper echelons of their court. Is that true? Or was it because of the binding?”
Behind me, he was silent a long moment. “The binding made a huge difference. But…it is true.”
And I was just a human girl from a tiny village.
I heard my aunt’s words in my head: What do you think would happen if you, a human girl, married a high shayd?
Do you think he’d stay here with you in Talum after you graduated?
“What are you doing with me?” I said, and I was horrified to hear the wobble in my voice.
“Do you even like me? Why did you—kiss me?”
I heard the creak of the bed, his footsteps as he came closer. “Naomi—”
He tried to catch my hand, but I yanked it away. I whirled, breathing hard, my control snapping. “Don’t touch me,” I said. For a moment when I saw his startled, hurt expression, vicious satisfaction flooded me. Then it drained away, and I wanted to sob. I ran.
I spent the next few hours curled up in my aunt’s library, unable to concentrate. I tried to read, but my mind kept slipping.
I wished I could talk to Mom.
Instead, I silently ate the dinner Aunt Tirtzah’s housekeeper brought me, then cried into my armchair and felt pathetic for another few hours.
When it was late enough I thought Daziel might be asleep, I crept back to the room we’d been forced to share.
He’d created a nest of bedding on the floor, and I slipped into the massive bed.
But he wasn’t breathing the way he did when he was asleep. Instead, we lay there in the dark for hours, awake and unspeaking, as the moon drifted across the window and the cold seeped in.
~ ~ ~
When I woke, Daziel was gone.
I could see remnants of his presence—black glitter on his pillow, the mess of his blankets. Paz blinked up at me from the top of the dresser.
“Hello,” I said. I could be mad at Daziel but not Paz. “Are you with me today?”
He cheeped, and I pet the back of his neck with one finger. Feeling slightly better, I took a very long, hot shower, then put on some of the guest clothes stocked in the closet—simple drawstring pants and a boxy shirt. Paz curled up on my shoulder, and we headed downstairs.
Aunt Tirtzah sipped coffee in the dining room.
“Good morning,” I said.
Aunt Tirtzah looked up. “There you are. I wasn’t sure how long you’d sleep.”
I poured a cup of coffee from the pitcher on the sideboard and sat. She’d prepared it the same way Dad did, with cardamom and cinnamon, and it made me briefly, achingly homesick. “Daziel’s not here.”
“The grand duke sent for him for breakfast two hours ago.”
I blinked at her. “The grand duke?”
She lowered her paper. “Daziel is a high-ranking shayd. If he’s involved in the treaty negotiations, we want to make sure he’s well treated.”
“After arresting him. Which…was not treating him well.”
“These things are complicated. Eat something. You barely had dinner.”
I piled my plate with tomato salad, scrambled eggs, and toast. “So he’s…with the duke?” Without me, I thought. It wasn’t like I wanted to meet the duke, exactly, but…it would have been nice to be invited.
“Things will be different now,” Aunt Tirtzah said. “People are scared of shedim but also want their favor.”
“Seems two-faced.”
“Welcome to politics.”
“Hm.” I picked at my food. The scent of the coffee wafted up, bringing with it thoughts of home and my family. I wondered what my parents would think of all this. I wondered if they’d ever hidden anything as big as this from their parents. “What was my dad like when he was my age?”
“Your father…” She looked out the window. “You remind me of him, in how curious you are.”
“Grandma and Grandpa didn’t want him to be a sailor, did they?
” I’d never met my paternal grandparents, who’d died when I was twelve, still estranged from my father.
He had returned to Talum for their shiva and made peace with his sister then.
It was one of his greatest regrets, that he’d never reconciled with them, and that they’d never met me and my sisters.
“No. Our parents were…difficult. They had no money but plenty of pride.”
“How did you get into politics?” I’d never asked before, which embarrassed me.
“I went to the Lyceum for humanities, but I was frustrated by what the Sanhedrin of the time was doing, so I switched to government. I wanted to change the world.”
“And did you? Have you?”