“What if that’s what the wind was trying to tell me?” I hadn’t thought about it recently, hadn’t connected the tugging wind to the Ziz’s ability to control the winds. Maybe theZizhad tried to send me somewhere. “What if it tried to direct me into the caves—deep into the island. What if it sent those winds in particular? What if it was trying to send a message?”
He blinked. “And you think the message was…”
“That it dropped an egg here.”
Daziel stared. “What?”
“Not recently. Centuries ago. Millenia. Look at Talum. We’ve formed around a crater. What caused the crater?”
He shook his head helplessly.
“You don’t know,” I filled in. “No one does; it’s always beenthere. A volcano, some say. But what if it was an egg that fell from the sky, so large it could flatten cities?”
“I wouldn’t expect the egg to survive the fall,” Daziel said, but he sounded thoughtful, not disbelieving.
“Maybe it had a really thick shell.”
He laughed but not mockingly. More astonished. “And the reason the wind pushed you would be…”
“Because I was working on the spell to heal the Ziz. It knew I wanted to heal it—or, well, I was just working on the fragments, I didn’t know about the Ziz yet, but maybe it guessed. Or it didn’t have much focus, like your magic doesn’t, but maybe it said, ‘Send someone who will help to my egg.’ ”
“I feel obligated to point out this is all conjecture,” Daziel said.
“It’s a theory. And until it’s proven wrong, isn’t it worth investigating? Unless you have a better idea.”
Daziel shook his head, grinning wryly. “I have no other ideas.”
“Then we should look. Underneath the water, maybe, between here and the islet.”
“Through the caves. The wind directed you to the caves.”
Which caves, though? Without the wind guiding me and opening up hidden routes in solid walls of rock, I had no idea where to start.
Or maybe I did.
“At the Rocks,” I breathed. “The Rocks is all caves, and they go deep. We’ll start there.”
We left a note for Aunt Tirtzah—she probably wouldn’t stop us, but why take the risk?—and headed for Testylier House. Thousands of stars filled the night sky, a dusting of diamonds, a whirl of white.
“If there’s an egg, we might still need to cast the spell,” Daziel said. It’d be the worst of ironies if the beast hatched only to die because it had no parent to care for it, especially when we had a spell designed to strengthen the Ziz’s health. “Which means,” he added apologetically, “we should complete the betrothal.”
I closed my eyes. Of course, “I’d rather do this if we were sure. Of us.”
He drew his signet ring from his finger. “I am sure of us,” he said, his voice and gaze steady. “I want to give this to you, not because it will allow us to tap into a greater magic but because I want to marry you.”
My heart twisted. Too many feelings overwhelmed me, joy and disbelief and hope. My protest came out weak. “Eighteen is too young to get married.”
He smiled and parroted back what I’d said to others when they raised the same objection. “It can be a very long engagement. I love you, Naomi. I want to marry you.”
Warmth spread through my whole body, leaving me flushed and dazzled. I couldn’t believe he’d said it, the words I’d craved so badly but been too scared to say myself. “I love you too.”
“You don’t have to say it back,” he said, looking mulish. “Just because I did.”
I started laughing. A pure exhilaration made me feel as if I was going to float into the sky. “I wouldn’t. I do.”
Hope started to dawn in his eyes, like he’d been just as scared and uncertain as me, as though it had been a terrible risk to say the words, but he’d done it anyway, even though he hadn’t known what he’d hear in return. “Really?”
“Really.” I flung my arms around him, and he caught me with asurprised gasp. I burrowed my face in his neck, luxuriating in the feel and the smell of him, in the fact that hewasmine, that he loved me, that we didn’t have to let go.
