I handed over a folded piece of paper from my satchel. “I wrote a spell to try it. It’s unorthodox,” I admitted. “More poetic than usual.”
He scanned the paper. His brows didn’t shoot up—he rarely showed so much emotion—but I could see an arch to them, a slight purse of his lips. “Very pretty,” he murmured. “Very…different.” He pinned me once more with his eyes. “I hear you’re still spending time with that demon.”
“Shayd,sir,” I said. “That’s what they call themselves.”
“I hope you understand that the work we’re doing is confidential. Not to be shared with anyone.”
“Of course,” I said, though discussing the work with Daziel was what had gotten me this far. “I understand.”
“Yet he had a hand in this? It has the—theatrical flair—one associates with their kind.”
I stiffened, offended both on Daziel’s behalf and at the idea I would claim someone else’s work. “I wrote it. I asked what his jumping-off point would be. He thinks about magic differently than I do. It makes me more creative. He’s helpful, you know.”
“Hm.” Professor Altschuler held on to my paper, and I began to regret not having made a copy. “I’d hate to have to take you off the project because your loyalties were unclear.”
So much for impressing him enough that he’d renew my scholarship on the spot. “They’re not unclear, sir.”
“Good. See that they remain so.” Professor Altschuler circled several sections in red. “Rewrite this in a technopaigniac form andadd refrains here and here. That will strengthen the magic. Your beginning is too long, and your middle bridge too short. I’ll expect a revised version in two weeks.” He extended the paper back.
I tucked it inside my folder. “Thank you. I’ll have it done.”
He gave me a brisk nod of dismissal, and I left, walking through the mist toward the campus boulangerie. I still felt the high of Professor Altschuler’s all-too-rare praise, but it was dampened by his brusqueness and his disdain for shedim.
As I left the boulangerie, Daziel fell into step from nowhere, taking one of the croissants from my hand. “Did it go well?”
I didn’t startle as I led him up the steps to the library. Apparently I’d gotten used to his appearances. “Well enough. He likes the idea.”
“Good.” Daziel craned his neck back, taking in the library’s pedimental sculpture, which could just be seen through the fog. It showed the symbols of the twelve tribes interacting. The sun, moon, and stars of Issachar took center stage, while my tribe’s symbol, the gazelle, leaped gracefully in the left corner. “We’ve not been in here before.”
“It’s the library.” I hadn’t come here since Daziel appeared, finding the idea of keeping him quietly entertained too stressful. But sometimes a girl needed to do research, like when she had a major spell to write. “You have to be quiet.”
“You have so many rules,” Daziel said. But softly.
The front doors opened into a spacious atrium, all white marble and gleaming statues of scholars. I led him into the main hall, where wooden beams arched high above endless stacks of books. Tables clustered in the center, surrounded by green velvet chairs, almost all filled by students and piles of books—plus, often, the surreptitious remnants of lunch.
Through the stacks we went, into a hall built three hundredyears ago. Burnished wooden shelves held heavy treatises; narrow windows let in slats of light, and the ceiling arched in a dome. Chandeliers hung all down the long hall above wooden tables with brass lamps, and more students filled these seats, quieter than in the main hall.
I found us a spot at the edge of one of the tables. Daziel settled across from me. He spoke sotto voce, scanning the room around us. “So this is where the books live.”
I smiled, pulling notebooks from my rucksack. “I’ll be right back. I have to get a few more.”
He came with me.Refrains for Revealing,Advanced Technopaigniac Forms, and a dusty old title calledThe Elegant Cast, which discussed writing spells inspired by foreign languages. All of which would hopefully help me figure out how to amend the spell as Professor Altschuler had requested.
Daziel carried them back to the old hall. “You don’t have to stay,” I whispered to him. “I’ll be here a couple of hours. You could play knockball or whatever.”
Daziel shrugged. “I have some work to do too.”
At home I often worked in companionable silence with Daziel, usually while he read or crocheted or, recently, tried out recipes. Yet I had no idea what library-appropriate work he had. Foiled by my curiosity, I kept glancing over. I wasn’t the only person covertly watching him—so were half the other students. While they’d become used to him enough not to stare, sidelong looks and murmurs still followed him wherever he went.
Daziel cupped his hands together. When he pulled them apart, a ball of light hovered between them. He began playing with it the way a cat toys with yarn.
I leaned forward, mystified. Looking at the bright sphere didn’thurt the way looking at the sun did, but it didn’t feel comfortable, either. Like the blurred distortion around Daziel, it lookedoff, like there was something behind or beneath it I couldn’t understand.
“What’s that?” I finally whispered across the table.
“Magic,” he whispered back. “Why are we whispering?”
“The quiet thing.”
