Chapter Nineteen #2
“Have I?” She smiled wryly. “Not nearly as much as I thought I would have by now. It takes longer than I realized.” She looked back at her paper. “Won’t your classes be starting soon? Samuel will drive you to the Lyceum.”
“Oh,” I said, taken aback. “I thought I’d take today off. Since. Yesterday was exhausting?”
Aunt Tirtzah put her coffee down. “You thought you would skip classes?”
And this was why I didn’t want to live with family. “I don’t have my books or papers or anything.”
“Then you should probably leave now so you have time to pick them up.”
~ ~ ~
Samuel drove me home to pick up my things and change, and from there to the Lyceum.
Instead of heading to Intro to T3, I lingered by the brass entrance gates at the land bridge, which all students had to cross through to enter the peninsula.
I’d knocked on Leah’s door at home, but she hadn’t answered, and I had to hope I’d beat her to school since I’d traveled by carriage instead of walking.
To my relief, I saw her a minute after Samuel dropped me off, and we collided in a hug. “Are you okay? What happened?” she demanded.
It felt like a hundred years had passed since I’d last seen her. “A million things.” Too many people were looking at us, so I looped my arm through hers and tugged her over to a bench beneath a willow tree, whose draping branches gave us some privacy.
“They’re saying Daziel’s a high demon. That he stopped the storm in its tracks at the Rocks.”
“It’s—sort of. He is a high shayd. That’s not the only reason the spell was so powerful, though.” I told her about the binding, the arrest. Going to the Sanhedrin, fighting. The kiss.
Leah listened, wide-eyed, affirmingly astonished. “How do you feel?” she asked at the end. “You kissed! Finally! But he lied. Do you like him? Do you hate him? Where are we at?”
I groaned. “I have no idea. I wish he would tell me why he was here. I believe he’s not here for my aunt, but what other reason is good enough?”
“I don’t know.” Leah screwed up her nose in thought. “Okay. What do we know?”
“He’s here in Talum,” I said. “More specifically, at the Lyceum. So—maybe he’s here for something we can offer?”
Leah nodded, tapping the toes of her silver boots against the ground as she thought. “The Lyceum has knowledge, I suppose that’s the most obvious. Students—professors. Though it’s not exactly like he’s kidnapped anyone. Neshem stores? Though I’m sure there’s more elsewhere.”
“Knowledge is interesting,” I said. “We could have something in the library…some book or something he wouldn’t have access to otherwise…”
“Does he spend much time in the library?” Leah said doubtfully. “Mostly he’s with you and playing knockball, right? And crocheting.”
“He goes to the opera,” I offered, falling back against the bench and staring up at the willow branches. “Maybe there’s a magical knockball he’s trying to find. But yeah, mostly he’s with me, and the only thing I do is…”
It slammed into me, so hard and fast and sickeningly right I gasped, latching my hand over the bench’s edge for support, the wood smooth beneath my palm.
The scrolls.
Daziel was a high shayd. Which he’d kept hidden so he drew less attention. Betrothed to a girl working on scrolls. Scrolls under the authority of a professor who didn’t like shedim. Scrolls no one could guess the content of.
Something that looks different, he’d suggested. Something you could recognize without needing to know the characters themselves. By recognizing a pattern.
A pattern like a palindrome.
I looked back at Leah, who was regarding me with matching horror. “It’s the scrolls, isn’t it?” she asked. “He wanted to know about the scrolls.”
“He knew what was in them.” I felt sick. “He essentially suggested I look for a palindrome in Language X. Which we found; we found the word ‘Ziz.’ How did he know Ziz would be there? No one knows what the scrolls are about.”
Leah’s face was filled with empathy, her voice soft. “Maybe Daziel does.”
“I have to go.” I scrambled to my feet. “I have to talk to him.”
Leah grabbed my hand, her eyes wide and worried. “Are you sure? I’ll come with you.”
“No, it’s okay. And—” My voice cracked. “I’d like to confront him alone.”
She squeezed my hand. “Do you think it’s safe?”
You trust too easily, I heard him say. Still. “He’s a liar,” I said, my voice trembling. “But I don’t think he’s dangerous.”
Leah gave me a sad smile. “This doesn’t mean he lied about everything.”
“It doesn’t mean he was telling the truth, though,” I said, then excused myself before I burst into tears.
I took the tram to the Society Hill stop, then walked uphill for half an hour past the grand gardens and estates. At least the burn from the climb distracted me from the tightness in my chest. I studied the endless bugs and beetles on my walk. Without the birds, the populations had exploded.
“The councilwoman is gone for the day,” her housekeeper said when I came back, regarding me skeptically. “Shouldn’t you be at school?”
I smiled tightly. “I wasn’t feeling well.”
The woman softened. “Have a cup of tea, then.”
I took the chamomile to the courtyard garden.
At home, farther to the north, nothing bloomed at the end of winter, but here, color had started to arrive.
Almond trees had small pink-and-white flowers; delicate pink blossoms covered pear and apricot trees; even the cherry tree flowers had begun opening.
I breathed in the fragrance, trying to clear my head, and set the white porcelain tea tray on a decorative wrought iron table, my hands shaking.
“Daziel,” I said, his name tasting bitter. Why had I even expected to find him here? Maybe he planned to spend the whole day with Talum’s elite. “Daziel. Daziel.”
“Hello, yonati.”
He stood framed between two cherry trees.
His outfit was even more extravagant than usual, as though along with throwing off the deceit of being a wild shayd, he also no longer cared to fit in with the student aesthetic.
Green silk pantaloons were tucked into embroidered boots; a brocade jacket framed a ruffled cravat.
“Wow,” I said, brutally aware I wore the same rumpled trousers I usually did, and a boring brown shirt, my hair pulled back in a severe braid. “Fancy.”
He smiled cautiously. “Like it?”
I shrugged, consumed with self-loathing. How had I ever thought he was a wild shayd? Even with his black eyes and talons, he radiated the kind of confidence and presence that only came from growing up with far too much power.
“Apparently, the current fashion is for high-waisted pants with a broad band, as set by Mr. Wasterstein, who is considered the arbiter of men’s grooming.” Daziel slung off the jacket and loosened his cravat. “I am less certain about the cravat, but I’m willing to give it a go.”
I caught the whiff of a delicate lady’s perfume. Is that recommended by the arbiter of men’s grooming too? I almost asked but resisted. “Is that what you were doing today? Learning about fashion during your breakfast with the grand duke?”
“Partially.”
“What was the other part?”
He opened his mouth as though to say more, then paused. Cocked his head. “Why did you call me?”
I studied the almond tree before me, breathing deeply. I had to do it. I addressed the pale pink blossoms. “I figured it out.”
“Figured what out?” he asked, stroking a rose on the bush at his side like I might pet a dog, for comfort. The flower curled up toward him, yearning, as though he was the sun itself.
“Why you’re here.”
He stilled. “Did you.”
I took a deep breath and plunged onward. “It’s because of the scrolls.”
He looked at me. Not a look of confusion or realization or surprise. Just a steady, even gaze. Which meant I was right.
Which meant he knew what was in the scrolls.
And if he knew what was in the scrolls, if he was here because of them, he hadn’t coincidentally become betrothed to a girl attempting to decipher them.
“No lies or games,” I said. “Tell me the truth, Daziel. Why are they so important?”
He inhaled deeply, steadying himself. Then he focused on me. His gaze was direct and unwavering. “Because,” he said, “we think they contain knowledge about how to cure the Ziz.”