Everyone blinked, then started talking at once. Just like the Sanhedrin, really. Ezra’s voice rose above the rest, cutting through the confusion and wonder and getting straight to the point. “How?”
I spread out my hands helplessly. “No idea. So we’re turning to you for help. If the Sanhedrin isn’t going to take this seriously, we’re going to put together our own council.”
There were a few nervous laughs. “The Ziz is one of the Great Beasts,” Birra said, like we were idiots. “If the rabbis and the sages can’t find it, I don’t think a handful of students will be able to, even with a shayd helping us.”
“Doesn’t mean we can’t try,” I said firmly.
“How? What do we even know about the Ziz?” one of the fourth-floor girls said.
“Maybe more than we think,” Yael said, and I smiled at her. “We start with what we do know, no matter how big or small, and move forward from there.”
Another fourth-floor girl, who studied art, fetched an easel, and another a few mythology books. We slowly crafted a list of what we knew.
~King of the Birds
~Controls the wind
~Real big?
~Giant eggs squash cities
~One of the three Great Beasts (along with Leviathan and Behemoth)
~Very old??
~Stands in ocean?
“Let’s go through each one by one,” Jelan said from where she sat next to Gilli, her steady manner providing some much-needed calm. “See if that jogs anything in our minds. What does King of the Birds mean?”
“All the birds listen to it?” Ezra offered.
“The birds left,” Yael said. “What if they knew the Ziz was hurt and went to it? They went northwest.”
“Maybe we could track them,” someone else said.
“Maybe someone already did,” Gilli said, gnawing at the end of her pencil. “Someone must have, right? Must have charted the path they took when they left? Maybe people across islands and other countries also took note.”
“Definitely.” I wrote downFind out the path the birds took.“Anything else about the birds?”
“Birds roost,” one of the knockball boys said. “High up. So maybe we want to look in the mountains?”
We worked through each bucket, teasing apart what little meaning we could. “Legend says the Ziz blocks the most violent winds,” one of Gidon’s friends said. “Could we learn something about its location from where winds come from? The Ver and Den winds came more frequently this year—maybe they usually get blocked at some place, and that could inform us—well, of where the Ziz usually is?”
Find out how winds work, I wrote.
“It’s supposed to be in the ocean, right?” Gilli said. “The lore says sailors came across it once, and it was so giant that even though they were in the deepest part of the sea, the water only came up to the Ziz’s ankles, and its head was in the clouds.”
“That’s very big,” Ezra said skeptically. “Surely someone would have noticed.”
“Maybe it just means it’s in the most remote part of the ocean, which is where we should look.”
By the end, we had a list of things to follow up on.
~Find out the path the birds took/last place birds were seen in Ena-Cinnai and direction they were flying
~Find out how winds work/where winds come from
~Talk to sailors about remote mountains and ocean
