“They won’t listen to me. They’ll listen to my elders at the treaty renewal but not me.”
We reached the bar and asked for two lemonades. “Maybe not officially, but everyone’s aware of the power shedim have. They wouldn’t ignore you, even if you’re young.”
He raised his brows. “Very shrewd. Planning to follow your aunt into the Sanhedrin?”
I made a face. “You don’t have to want to be a politician to want to have a voice.”
“And what would you say, with your voice?” he asked lightly.
I shrugged, accepting my drink from the bartender and taking a sip of the crisp lemonade. “You’ve heard Ezra say politicians aren’t doing enough to figure out why magic’s off. Maybe you could be a bridge, get humans and shedim to work together to figure out what’s going on.”
“Maybe we should get married.”
I choked on my drink and started coughing uncontrollably. He’d soundedserious, though I knew he couldn’t be. “Excuse me?”
He grinned, eyes gleaming with a teasing glint. “If you’re so keen to be a bridge. It probably would be savvy.”
This boy found getting under my skin far too amusing. “You’re hilarious.”
“I have often thought so,” he said. “I’m glad you agree.”
I barely suppressed the childish urge to stick out my tongue. If the way he was grinning indicated anything, he could tell. “Come,” he said. “Let’s dance.”
“No,” I said, in danger of pouting.
He plucked my drink away and deposited both our glasses on a passing server’s tray. Then he took my hands, his own warm as heated rocks, and widened his eyes. I was very conscious of his fingers wrapped around mine. His exaggeratedly hopeful expression was ridiculous, but it made me smile. “Please, Naomi.”
I glanced toward the middle of the garden, where couples danced around a fountain. It looked fun, but I felt too self-conscious to join. “I don’t know society dances.”
“Neither do I. So we won’t dance them.” He pulled me close, his hands firmly wrapping around my waist. My stomach swooped, a strange, tantalizing fall. I caught my arms around his neck, and then we were twirling.
I’d danced at home with boys, but always ones I’d known my whole life, boys who felt like brothers. They had been group and line dances, too, where you occasionally twirled your partner but spent most of the time in circles or squares. This was different. This was a couple’s dance, with Daziel’s hands at the small of my back.
I didn’t know where to focus or how tightly to hold on to Daziel. But he held me securely, his grip above my hips firm, the heat of his hands burning through the thin silk of my waistband. I tried to look over his shoulder, only for my gaze to catch on Paz nestled under Daziel’s collar, seeming as delighted as a tiny lizard could.
It made me laugh, which helped me relax. Being held by Daziel as he swept me along in dreamlike steps was strangely thrilling. We weren’t dancing like the others. I didn’t know the steps, but my body managed them anyway, pulling me through the motions. It was not a human dance—different parts of it were far toofast, others too slow—and I shouldn’t have been able to follow the way I did. But I didn’t care. It was too much fun.
We danced for an hour, maybe more. Dancing with Daziel was intoxicating, the rush of energy, the joy in his eyes, the way he threw his whole body into the movements. Though we spent every day together, we’d rarely been so close before, and I was intimately aware of the way his body framed mine, how we lined up, how his heat enveloped me. It felt both heady and dangerous, and I wasn’t sure if I was glad the rules of dancing and public decorum kept us apart or if I regretted them.
When we paused, it was only because I needed to catch my breath—Daziel wasn’t even breathing hard. I gulped down two glasses of water while he barely touched one.
“You’re a very good dancer,” a woman said wistfully when I sat on the same bench as her at the edge of the courtyard. She looked a decade older than us but had a timidness I recognized from my sister Michal, who could be shy apart from family.
Daziel threw me a questioning look, and I nodded. “Would you like to dance?”
Her eyes widened before narrowing, and she drew her shoulders back tightly. “I wasn’t angling for an invitation.”
He shrugged. “You looked like you wanted to dance. Naomi can’t keep going. She doesn’t have the stamina.”
“Thanks,” I said wryly.
He looked at me, surprised. “It wasn’t an insult. It’s because you’re a human.”
This boy. I wasn’t offended, but I imagined if someone didn’t know him, they would be. Laughter bubbled up in me. “You’re not helping yourself.”
The woman had loosened up enough to look amused. “If you don’t mind. I’d love to dance.”
“Excellent.” Daziel took her hand and swept her off to the dance floor. As they left, Paz crept up the back of Daziel’s collar and leaped from him to me, landing with a wobble on my shoulder.
