“Enough,” the Chief Judge said wearily. “One thing at a time. Meira, we’ll have an answer on your funding by the end of the week. After the scroll’s translated, we’ll discuss finding the primordial beast.”
“We can’t wait until then,” Daziel said. “We need to be ready to go with the spell immediately—”
The Chief Judge ignored him, banging his gavel down. “Dismissed. There is only so much world ending I can handle without getting an ulcer.”
~~~
Aunt Tirtzah stayed forfurther Sanhedrin business, so Daziel and I walked to her house alone, me on the sidewalks like a normal person, him zigzagging from wall to lamppost. “We don’t know how long it will take to translate the spell,” he said,frustrated. “We can’t wait to start looking for the Ziz. We have to be ready to cast it as soon as you figure out the words.”
“I know.”
He groaned. “This is impossible.”
“You’ve waited five months already,” I said, alarmed. “Surely a little longer won’t matter.”
“Five months ago, the maelstroms weren’t malfunctioning nor was the river flooding, and there weren’t reports of increased earth tremors in other lands.”
His fraying calm worried me. Daziel had been so clear-eyed through all this. I didn’t like him losing his confidence—it turned out I’d been depending on it.
If I wanted to keep the both of us from spiraling into a panic, I needed to shore up our collective morale.
I tried to mimic my aunt and the Lyceum president, the way they spoke with poise and assurance. “Nothing is impossible. We won’t give up. We keep plugging away, and we keep asking for help, and we keep trying.”
He jumped down, landing in a light crouch before me, then straightened. It was night now, the brass lanterns glowing, moths with their feathery wings thick about them. He looked miserable. “Why are you being so kind? When I hurt you so much?”
I shrugged. “What else am I supposed to do? Scream? Cry? We’d still have this to deal with.”
He looked at me with large, mournful eyes. “You could forgive me.”
I laughed, scornful to cover up how deeply I was hurt. “Forgiveyou? I thought you—you— It was all a lie.”
“It wasn’t all a lie. Naomi.” He took my hands in his warm ones. “Nothing about how I feel for you is a lie.”
I stared down at his fingers, so much larger than mine, thick and blunt and disturbingly attractive. I couldn’t talk about this right now. I needed to avoid thinking about us, to focus on politics and quests and research. If I thought about us, if I thought about how he’d broken my heart, it would ruin me.
Before I could speak, the earth shook beneath my feet as though I stood on a ship. I let out a cry, and in a heartbeat Daziel had grabbed me and levitated a few feet off the ground. We stared at the pavement, and at the buildings and trees. Everything shook for ten seconds, twenty. I clutched my arms around him, feeling the beat of his heart, the breadth of his shoulders.
Daziel drifted back down when it appeared to have ended. “What the hell was that?” I asked, stumbling back from him. My body craved a repeat of the brief and sudden embrace, and I thought it best to put some distance between us.
“It felt like a quake,” he said. “Like in Ilthalit.”
“Butwedon’t have quakes,” I said, my voice high-pitched.
“They’re all intertwined,” he reminded me softly. “The Ziz, the Behemoth, the Leviathan. If one weakens, they all do.”
The wind picked up, and the sky rapidly clouded over. I shivered, gazing up. There was no moon to be seen, and very few stars. “Then we better figure out how to find and save the Ziz.”
Twenty-two
A few days later, twodozen people gathered in the common room of Testylier House.
There were the residents: Leah and Jelan and Gilli, even Élodie and Birra, and the other half dozen girls, all of whom had gotten to know Daziel in the last five months. Ezra and Hiram had come with half the knockball team. Yael and Gidon and Stefan with a few friends each, most of whom I hadn’t met.
“Hey, everyone.” It was nerve-racking to have so many eyes upon me. I’d never done public speaking, never been interested in it. “Thanks for coming. I know I was vague about what’s going on. Everyone here knows how the winds are worsening, and people are worried the Maestril won’t come in two or three weeks like it should?”
Everyone nodded.
“Daziel has a theory about why.” I explained about the Ziz, the magic, the scrolls. “Yes, the Ziz is corporeal, not spiritual or metaphorical,” I said, to ward off this shock in advance. “Shedim are more entwined with the natural world and magic than humans; they have knowledge we don’t, including this. We need to find the Ziz so we can cure it.”
