Ephraim followed, sounding surprised. “Are you waiting for someone else to ask?”
All the boys did this—they wouldn’t take a simple no for an answer. They’d all pressed on against my every excuse. Well, almost every excuse.
If it hadn’t been so infuriating, it might have been flattering—except I knew it wasn’t me they were interested in. It was an introduction to my aunt—a member of the Great Council—that made them so desperate to bring me to the festival where she would be in attendance.
To deter my unwanted suitors, I’d settled on a stronger deterrent, one girls in my village had used for ages. I’d first dropped it glibly, a sarcastic whim born more out of frustration than expectation it would work. “I can’t go with anyone.”
“Why not?” Ephraim thrust his chin forward.
“Because I’m already spoken for.” Around us, a fresh easterly wind tugged at the fronds of palm trees in the plaza. A few birds took flight, though most remained. A small blue-and-orange kingfisher swiveled its head and looked, I swear, right at me. “I’m betrothed.”
Ephraim looked skeptical. City folk thought eighteen was young for an engagement, except in unusual circumstances. “To whom?”
I smiled sharply. Because my circumstance was most unusual and impossible to argue against. “To a demon.”
I wasn’t, obviously, betrothed to a demon.
The lie was so silly I had a difficult time keeping a straight face each time I told it. I’d been shocked it’d worked, actually. But people don’t mess with demons, especially not city folk. At home, everyone has crossed paths with demons a time or two at the border market, where they traded strange feathers or stones, but Talumizans had almost no exposure.
It’s not like I was an expert. I knew the basics: Demons lived in the vast plains in the center of Ena-Cinnai, between the western port cities, like Naborre, and the Lersach River. Some said demons had their own cities in the desert, carved into towering limestone cliffs. Others said they inhabited the cities of ancient human civilizations who’d dared to press into the wilderness only to pay the price with death and ruin. Since the long-standing treaty between humans and demons prevented us from entering their lands, we knew very little.
Just enough to make us blanch, as Ephraim did now. “A demon?”
“Yes.” I turned onto one of the streets branching off the plaza like spokes on a wheel. It sloped down toward the edge of the island, toward the dorms. “He’s terribly jealous.”
“Huh.” Ephraim sounded stumped. “What’s his name?”
“Um.” No one had ever asked for a name before. I cast about. “It’s Daziel.” Many demons’ names ended in-iel, didn’t they? “The demon Daziel is my betrothed,” I said again, trying to sound convincing.
“How did you meet?”
Wow, this boy really wanted details. Usually, people backed off immediately. I’d never spun an in-depth story before, and I floundered. “I’m from one of the northwestern plains villages, close to the borderlands. I was…out picking flowers…and I wandered too close to the wilderness, and there he was. Daziel, my demon betrothed. And we fell madly in love.”
Inwardly, I winced. I was too busy minding my three younger sisters to go out gathering flowers. Plus, I wasn’t stupid enough to linger by the border.
Ephraim, apparently, didn’t have a high enough opinion of my intelligence to find this suspicious. “I didn’t know demons and humans could marry.”
Couldhumans and demons marry? Another thing to which I had no answer. The grandmothers in my village—some with a knowing gleam in their eyes—had warned us about how seductive demons could be. It wasn’t impossible a village girl had run off with a demon before. “I’m sure it’ll be fine.”
“What do you even talk about? With a demon?” When I glanced at Ephraim with likely wild eyes, he held up his hands. “Sorry. Didn’t mean to pry. Mazel tov. When’s the wedding?”
I let out a sigh of relief. “It’s a long engagement. Not until after I graduate.”
He nodded thoughtfully, then refocused. “So, do you have any single sisters or cousins?”
~~~
The wind picked upafter I ditched Ephraim, chimes pealing out as the eastern breeze strengthened. I’d sailed down the Lersach into Talum a month ago, when gentle, humid winds carried memories of sun-soaked summer days. Now, as autumn edged in, the winds had abandoned their warmth, though I’d been told the bitterly cold Trio Winds wouldn’t arrive until winter.
The winds influenced everything here, from fashion to architecture. Testylier House, my residence hall, was a five-story sandstone building with thick walls to block out the wind. The roof barely sloped so the winds would have difficulty peeling tiles away.
The door to Testylier House bore the same emblem as my jacket—an open book against a tree. Inside the foyer, a few worn but presentable chairs stood by the mailboxes. A desk took up most of the space, behind which the dorm’s guardienne, Madame Hadar, often sat. Her sharp eyes caught everything.
I opened my mailbox, anticipation surging at the sight of a beat-up packet with Mom’s handwriting. A creamy white envelope, which I ignored, lay alongside it. I ripped open the packet as I started up the stairs to the fifth floor, where I lived with Leah and two other scholarship students.
Two giggling girls came flying around the bend, their arms linked. They wore long coats with flaring skirts, much more fashionable than our school blazers, and kitten heel lace-up boots I coveted on a soul-deep level. The three of us pulled to an awkward stop.
“Oh, hello.” Élodie bat Amit straightened the sleeves of her royal blue coat. Birra Shachar said nothing, fixing her gaze over my shoulder. They’d piled their hair high and embellished it withjewels and flowers. You’d need wire frames, hair pads, a jar of mousse, and a thousand pins—all of them enchanted—to secure it against the winds. In Talum, the styles of the rich seemed to exist to show they had the resources to be impractical.
