“I was just asking.” Gilli made a face, then turned earnest. “Want to stay here tonight?”
I nodded fervently. “Please.”
A few hours later, right before losing consciousness on Gilli’s couch, I reached up to check on my amulet, as I often did, then down to touch the red string tied around my wrist, the one my grandmother had given me before I left home. The one offering protection from demons. The one old story spinners said would fall off when you were about to meet your husband.
It was gone.
Three
“This is fine,” I mutteredthe next morning, returning to my rooms after Gilli and Jelan left for class. “I’m so fine. No demons anywhere.”
This evening, I would demon-proof the place, but for now, I didn’t even have time to shower if I wanted both to eat breakfast and to run through my Intro to Theurgy and Thaumaturgy Theory exam flash cards again. I rubbed neshem oil on the charaktêres on my comb, muttered the spell, then raked the teeth through my greasy curls. It restored them to halfway decent shape. As I braided my hair back into one thick plait—no time for anything else—I glanced out my window at the wind flag raised on the weather pole. Tan with white stripes: a medium-strength dry wind from the west. The clouds swirled slightly too vibrant a pink against the blue sky, making me frown. Though I’d only been in Talum a month, I’d noticed the strangeness of the winds and weather, and the whole student body talked nonstop about how something must be off with the magic that governed the natural world.
I tried not to think about it, nor about my missing bracelet. It wasn’t as though red string would have kept the demon away when everything else failed. And the silly old story about meetingyour husband after losing your bracelet didn’t mean anything. Grandma said when she’d met Grandpa, she’d yanked her string off, marched up to him, then acted shocked to find it gone. You made your own destiny.
It just shook me up, that was all.
Fully dressed, I stepped out of my bedroom—and found Daziel sitting on the sofa, once more readingA Household Guide to Demons, his red salamander resting on his shoulder.
“No!” I cried, half-inclined to stomp my foot. I was infuriated instead of scared—hard to be alarmed by a boy reading a book with a friendly-looking lizard.
But he had promised to leave me alone.
Daziel looked up. His face was just as strange as yesterday—the planes and angles a little too sharp, the pure blackness of his eyes unnerving. But it was impossible to deny how strikingly handsome he was, too, even if it unsettled me. “Good morning.”
I supposed this was why you were supposed to ward against demons—they were notoriously difficult to get rid of. “You can’t be here.” I pulled on my boots and started lacing them up. “You promised to leave.”
“I didn’t specify for how long.”
I grabbed my blazer off the hook, exasperated. This was like arguing with my youngest sister, Selah, who thought arguments were about semantics instead of the heart of the matter. “I take it you’re a law student, then.”
He answered my snipe as though I’d been serious. “Shedim study the laws, but that isn’t my specialty.”
“What’s your specialty, irritating people?” I stomped into the hall.
Daziel followed me to the stairs and down, his footsteps unnervingly light. “I can carry your bag.”
I clutched it tighter. No way I was handing over my possessions, no matter how much they weighed. Also, I didn’t want to give him a reason to feel less guilty about being a pain. “No. It’s mine.”
“It looks heavy.”
“I carry it every day. It’s fine.”
He narrowed his eyes. Apparently I’d finally managed to annoy him. “Are you always this unaccepting of help?”
“Are you always this hard to get rid of?”
As we reached the third-floor landing, the door to the stairwell swung open. I froze. Oh no. How was I supposed to explain a demon walking down the stairs with me at seven thirty in the morning?
Élodie stepped out. She glanced up, her composed expression morphing into one of abject surprise and, worse, alarm. Her mouth fell open. “Naomi…?”
I grimaced. “Hey.”
“Um—who—I mean—” She swallowed and schooled her expression. Apparently, Élodie, unlike me, had mastered politeness in unexpected situations. This made me grumpy. “Honored to meet you. I’m Élodie bat Amit.”
“One of Naomi’s friends?” Daziel bowed. “The honor is mine.”
Élodie’s gaze flickered to me, her shock deepening, I expected, at the logical conclusion that this demon was my betrothed. Unexpectedly, satisfaction flared through me. While boys might buy my excuse, girls saw through it. Élodie and Birra definitely knew I’d made everything up.You know, Birra had said pityingly,after I turned down a boy in our Intro to Household Magic class,you don’t have tolie. Henri’s a great guy, and it’s not like you’re going to get anyone better. Especially not…She’d looked me up and down, as though my very being made the reason self-evident.Well, you know.
