The mattress shifted, and his fingertips—light as a feather—brushed the side of my face. “I like your combination of prickly and sweet. You don’t like to say nice things, but you do nice things. You stock the food I like and plan things I like. You try to protect me when you think people aren’t being fair. And I like how you think about what’s right and just, and it matters to you. You’re invested in your friends and family. You’re hardworking, and I find your perseverance and dedication incredible.”
My stomach swooped, in a dizzying, heady way, and I felt like I might cry. I hadn’t realized how moving I’d find it, how validating, to have him say this. These were things I liked about myself. I opened my eyes.
He watched me tenderly. “I think you’re very brave to not have stonewalled me when I told you everything. That would have been reasonable. But you didn’t. You went forward because you understood how important saving the Ziz is. That must have been hard.”
I nodded. “This is true.”
He traced my cheekbone, my brow, my ear. I didn’t move for fear he’d stop. “Also, you’re very beautiful.”
I narrowed my eyes. “Now you’re just buttering me up.”
“Eyes like polished wood.” His voice was soft and teasing, but I could hear the earnestness in it. “Long ink-black lashes.” He raised a finger to brush my bottom lip, soft as a butterfly’s wing. “Perfect lips.”
I closed my eyes, bright red.
I could hear the grin in his voice. “Have I embarrassed you?”
“Yes.”
“I’m being honest. Look at me.” He waited until our eyes were locked together. “You’re stunning.”
A tightness in my chest unlocked. “Will you kiss me?”
He barely had to move to bring his mouth to mine. It was different kissing like this than the other times. There were fewer barriers here: no one to perform decency for, no need to stay upright. We were in our own world, where only sensation and heart existed, and I could tell how easy it would be to let it consume me.
But I didn’t. I wasn’t yet ready. So I kissed him until I could tell stopping would be too difficult if we kept on. When I paused, he let out a tiny groan of disappointment but took his cue from me, kissing my forehead and rolling onto his back.
I rested my head on his chest, and we nestled into each other. He pulled me close, drawing my arm across his chest, and I wrapped my leg across his body, securely snuggled into his side.
I let out a relieved breath, released the tension I’d been holding in my body night after night, and nestled closer. I could hear him breathing, feel the thrum of his heart beneath my ear.
In the dark, and the silence, it was easy to admit how much Iloved him, to feel the depth of it, how it stretched to every part of my soul, how it filled me up with intangible energy. I hoped, very much, he loved me. It felt like he did.
I fell asleep.
~~~
The next day, Daziel,Professor Altschuler, the Lyceum president, and I once more arrayed ourselves before the Sanhedrin.
“You have before you copies of our latest work on Scroll 4,” Professor Altschuler said, the excitement in his voice clear. Not only had he achieved two of the biggest goals of his career—both reconstructing the scrolls and beginning to decipher them—but their meaning had weight on the shape of the world. “It shows the scroll contains a spell meant to heal the Great Beast, which, as the shayd Daziel has shared, is paramount. We request immediate help locating the Ziz and the neshem listed to perform the spell.”
“This is an obscene amount of power,” the Chief Judge said. He peered at the Lyceum president and Professor Altschuler. “You’re sure you need this much? Maybe it’s a translation error.”
“We’re not going to cast a spell we’ve never tried before on a divine being,” someone else said. “Besides, this translation isn’t even complete.”
“As laid out on page three,” Professor Altschuler said, though I could tell it hurt him to say this, “there is technically no need to translate the entire spell before performing it.”
This set off a storm of protests and questions, the likes of which made my cohort’s response seem like nothing. It took half an hour before everyone felt like they’d had their say explaining why performing the spell in Language X was madness. Even then councilors kept protesting and only moved on because the ChiefJudge banged his gavel and forced them to in order to keep the meeting on agenda and discuss the next impossible thing: the still-unknown location of the Ziz.
“We have six potential locations,” Professor Altschuler said. He was doing an admirable job as front man for our research; his voice lent the work my friends had done credibility. I’d been shocked he’d agreed, but maybe I shouldn’t have been; this was his passion too. “As you’ll see on page eight.”
There was a ruffle as everyone flipped through their packets. The ruffles managed to sound unfriendly.
“We’ve identified locations worth exploring, based on research into where birds were last seen, where the winds are shaped, and recommendations from rabbis and sailors,” he said. My friends had come up with thirteen potential locations, but we’d decided to mostly give sea-based ones to the Sanhedrin. Daziel would path-jump to the land ones and explore.
“We’ll discuss it,” the Chief Judge hedged. “But you must understand this is a very large ask.”
“As is stabilizing natural magic and saving the country,” Aunt Tirtzah said. “Yet it must be done.”
