Intrigued? Read on to discover the synopsis and an excerpt from A Practical Guide to Dating a Demon by Hannah Reynolds, which releases on February 3rd 2026.

As a scholarship student at the magical Lyceum, Naomi would rather focus on deciphering ancient scrolls than dating. Especially since the only boys asking her out are less interested in a night in Naomi’s company than an introduction to her influential aunt.

So Naomi devises an excuse to turn down her persistent suitors: She claims to be betrothed to a demon.

Her story works perfectly. Until she arrives home one night and finds the demon Daziel lounging in her rooms, insisting he’s her betrothed. Naomi knows he’s lying—after all, the betrothal was never real—but the gorgeous and infuriating demon is surprisingly resistant to her banishing spells. And with his penchant for baking and home décor, it’s not so bad having him around.

Besides, she has other worries—like the ancient scroll she’s trying to translate, and the way the city’s magic has become suddenly unstable. But the more Naomi learns about the scroll, and the more she gets to know Daziel, the more it seems like she might be at the center of something bigger than she could have imagined.

ONE

In the city of Talum, the winds were strong, the magic thick, and everyone knew each other’s business.

My floormate, Leah, nudged me as we crossed campus. It was late in the ­day—​­the setting sun painted the Lyceum’s marble buildings a tawny gold, and warblers sung from leafy branches as students laughed and shouted. “Your latest suitor,” Leah said with a wicked grin.

I groaned. Sure enough, a boy in a gray blazer lingered before the open brass gate. Beyond, a land bridge led from the Lyceum’s peninsula to the rest of the island. Everyone crossed here to leave campus, so it was a great place to catch someone. “Let’s hide.”

“Too late.” Leah’s brown eyes were bright, her expression impish. “What number are we up to now?”

“I’m not telling.” We slowed, other students swirling around us. The majority of us wore ­school-​­issued blazers made of ­twill-​­worsted wool to protect against the winds. They varied in color based on which of the five Lyceum schools we attended, but the gold emblem emblazoned on the breast remained the ­same—​­an open book against a stylized tree. Leah and I wore blue, for the School of Humanities, paired with sensible blouses and trousers tucked into sturdy boots.

Leah smirked. “Eight, is it?”

“Seven,” I corrected quickly, as though one fewer were any better. Leah cackled while the boy caught sight of us.

Ephraim was ­reed-​­thin with freckles stark against his pale face. We had the same Old Cinnaian language class, and we’d worked together on a project last week. He seemed smart and nice enough, save an irritating habit of ­second-​­guessing my work.

“Naomi.” He wiped damp hands on his pants and swallowed hard enough to bob the amulet around his neck. “Hi.”

My father’s advice about confronting mice back home flashed through my mind: They’re more scared of you than you are of them. I suppressed a sigh. “Hey, Ephraim.”

“Well, I’m off.” Leah sounded delighted to leave me in this awkward situation, which would make a good story for her tomorrow. “You two have fun.”

I shot her a pleading look. If she stayed, maybe I’d avoid Ephraim’s inevitable question. “Aren’t we walking home together?”

She shook her head, the crystal studs in her ears glinting in the ­early-​­autumn light. “I have a date.”

We’d both been in Talum only a month, but Leah had already gone on more dates than I had in my entire life. Admittedly, I’d been on none. I was torn between admiration and exhaustion at her social life. “Right. See you later.”

“I’ll walk you home.” Ephraim spoke unsmilingly, as though a graver utterance had never been made. He was a serious boy, as all these ­gray-​­blazered School of Government boys seemed to be. Their school’s main requirement seemed to be a dour expression and the inability to take a ­joke—​­or a hint.

I tried not to sound pained. “Sure.”

We crossed the land bridge over the Lersach River into Issachar ­Quarter—​­the Scholars’ ­Quarter—​­where students and academics lived in shoulder‑­to‑­shoulder buildings above bookshops and cheap pubs. I decided to nudge Ephraim and get this over fast. “What’s up?”

“Oh. Uh.” He gave me an appraising look as we turned up Avenue de Bedzin, which cut through Issachar Quarter like an artery. Wind tugged at our clothes. City fashion favored trousers instead of long skirts like back home; without weights in the hem, skirts could easily gust up. People usually wore their hair either short or braided, and I’d bound my own long brown curls in the student style of four braids knotted at the nape.

But despite my best efforts at looking presentable, my ragged shirt had come untucked from my secondhand trousers, and the sole of one boot was ­half-​­detached. Even the frayed red string around my wrist looked ready to disintegrate. Like the amulet around my neck, I wore it to protect against demons. Superstition said if it fell off, you were about to meet your spouse.

I hoped Ephraim noticed the bracelet was still securely tied.

He cleared his throat, obviously steeling himself against my dismal appearance. “Are you going with anyone to the graduation festival?”

And there it was.

I wish I could say seven boys had asked me to the Lyceum’s festival because of my dazzling beauty and wit, or for my skill at languages, which had landed me my scholarship.

This was not the case.

“No, Ephraim,” I said tiredly. “I’m not going with anyone to the festival.”

“Really.” Ephraim braced his shoulders. I could almost taste his nervous anticipation. “You’re not?”

“Nope.” The avenue opened onto one of the quarter’s main squares, where loud music and rowdy debates drifted from pubs. We cut across the plaza, passing elderly folk playing games of strategy. Globes of ­neshem-​­powered light blazed in ­wrought iron lamps to hold back the darkness. Children chased each other around the bronze statues at the plaza’s center, which depicted the three primordial beasts of ancient mythology: the Behemoth, a ­desert-​­dwelling monster; the Leviathan, a sea serpent with piercing eyes and brilliant scales; and the Ziz, a ­griffin-​­like bird with a wingspan capable of blocking out the sun.

Ephraim took my hand and pulled me to a stop, his skin clammy with sweat. “Would you like to go with me?”

Oy. I tugged my hand from his grasp and kept walking. “Thanks, but no.”

Ephraim followed, sounding surprised. “Are you waiting for someone else to ask?”

All the boys did ­this—​­they wouldn’t take a simple no for an answer. They’d all pressed on against my every excuse. Well, almost every excuse.

If it hadn’t been so infuriating, it might have been ­flattering—​­except I knew it wasn’t me they were interested in. It was an introduction to my ­aunt—​­a member of the Great ­Council—​­that made them so desperate to bring me to the festival where she would be in attendance.

To deter my unwanted suitors, I’d settled on a stronger deterrent, one girls in my village had used for ages. I’d first dropped it glibly, a sarcastic whim born more out of frustration than expectation it would work. “I can’t go with anyone.”

“Why not?” Ephraim thrust his chin forward.

“Because I’m already spoken for.” Around us, a fresh easterly wind tugged at the fronds of palm trees in the plaza. A few birds took flight, though most remained. A small ­blue-​­and-​­orange kingfisher swiveled its head and looked, I swear, right at me. “I’m betrothed.”

Ephraim looked skeptical. City folk thought eighteen was young for an engagement, except in unusual circumstances. “To whom?”

I smiled sharply. Because my circumstance was most unusual and impossible to argue against. “To a demon.”

I wasn’t, obviously, betrothed to a demon.

The lie was so silly I had a difficult time keeping a straight face each time I told it. I’d been shocked it’d worked, actually. But people don’t mess with demons, especially not city folk. At home, everyone has crossed paths with demons a time or two at the border market, where they traded strange feathers or stones, but Talumizans had almost no exposure.

It’s not like I was an expert. I knew the basics: Demons lived in the vast plains in the center of ­Ena-​­Cinnai, between the western port cities, like Naborre, and the Lersach River. Some said demons had their own cities in the desert, carved into towering limestone cliffs. Others said they inhabited the cities of ancient human civilizations who’d dared to press into the wilderness only to pay the price with death and ruin. Since the ­long-​­standing treaty between humans and demons prevented us from entering their lands, we knew very little.

Just enough to make us blanch, as Ephraim did now. “A demon?”

“Yes.” I turned onto one of the streets branching off the plaza like spokes on a wheel. It sloped down toward the edge of the island, toward the dorms. “He’s terribly jealous.”

“Huh.” Ephraim sounded stumped. “What’s his name?”

“Um.” No one had ever asked for a name before. I cast about. “It’s Daziel.” Many demons’ names ended in -​­iel, didn’t they? “The demon Daziel is my betrothed,” I said again, trying to sound convincing.

“How did you meet?”

Wow, this boy really wanted details. Usually, people backed off immediately. I’d never spun an in‑­depth story before, and I floundered. “I’m from one of the northwestern plains villages, close to the borderlands. I ­was . . . out picking ­flowers . . . and I wandered too close to the wilderness, and there he was. Daziel, my demon betrothed. And we fell madly in love.”

Inwardly, I winced. I was too busy minding my three younger sisters to go out gathering flowers. Plus, I wasn’t stupid enough to linger by the border.

Ephraim, apparently, didn’t have a high enough opinion of my intelligence to find this suspicious. “I didn’t know demons and humans could marry.”

Could humans and demons marry? Another thing to which I had no answer. The grandmothers in my ­village—​­some with a knowing gleam in their ­eyes—​­had warned us about how seductive demons could be. It wasn’t impossible a village girl had run off with a demon before. “I’m sure it’ll be fine.”

“What do you even talk about? With a demon?” When I glanced at Ephraim with likely wild eyes, he held up his hands. “Sorry. Didn’t mean to pry. Mazel tov. When’s the wedding?”

I let out a sigh of relief. “It’s a long engagement. Not until after I graduate.”

He nodded thoughtfully, then refocused. “So, do you have any single sisters or cousins?”

***

The wind picked up after I ditched Ephraim, chimes pealing out as the eastern breeze strengthened. I’d sailed down the Lersach into Talum a month ago, when gentle, humid winds carried memories of ­sun-​­soaked summer days. Now, as autumn edged in, the winds had abandoned their warmth, though I’d been told the bitterly cold Trio Winds wouldn’t arrive until winter.

The winds influenced everything here, from fashion to architecture. Testylier House, my residence hall, was a ­five-​­story sandstone building with thick walls to block out the wind. The roof barely sloped so the winds would have difficulty peeling tiles away.

The door to Testylier House bore the same emblem as my ­jacket—​­an open book against a tree. Inside the foyer, a few worn but presentable chairs stood by the mailboxes. A desk took up most of the space, behind which the dorm’s guardienne, Madame Hadar, often sat. Her sharp eyes caught everything.

I opened my mailbox, anticipation surging at the sight of a beat‑­up packet with Mom’s handwriting. A creamy white envelope, which I ignored, lay alongside it. I ripped open the packet as I started up the stairs to the fifth floor, where I lived with Leah and two other scholarship students.

Two giggling girls came flying around the bend, their arms linked. They wore long coats with flaring skirts, much more fashionable than our school blazers, and kitten heel lace‑­up boots I coveted on a ­soul-​­deep level. The three of us pulled to an awkward stop.

“Oh, hello.” Élodie bat Amit straightened the sleeves of her royal blue coat. Birra Shachar said nothing, fixing her gaze over my shoulder. They’d piled their hair high and embellished it with jewels and flowers. You’d need wire frames, hair pads, a jar of mousse, and a thousand ­pins—​­all of them ­enchanted—​­to secure it against the winds. In Talum, the styles of the rich seemed to exist to show they had the resources to be impractical.

My aunt had suggested I befriend girls like these, Talumizans from powerful families, but we had nothing in common, save family members with the same job.

Aunt Tirtzah served as one of the six representatives of the Judahite tribe on the Great Sanhedrin, the highest court in the land. I only grasped how important people considered my aunt when strangers went out of their way to be ­nice—​­or invite me to the graduation festival. She had a palatial house on Society Hill, the most exclusive neighborhood in the city. But the house was hers only as long as she served on the Sanhedrin. She wasn’t really wealthy, not like these two. And these girls knew it.

“Hi.” I forced a smile. “How are you two?”

“Great,” Élodie said. “Heading out for the evening.”

“We got invited to a party at the Rocks,” Birra burst out, as though she couldn’t help herself. I tried to keep my stab of jealousy off my face. The Rocks lay on the southern side of the island, and I’d never heard of ­first-​­years attending the upperclassman parties there.

“What are you up to?” Élodie asked, scrupulously polite. She was in the School of Government, and I’d have been shocked if she didn’t run for the Sanhedrin herself one day.

“Studying.” If I didn’t maintain high grades, I’d lose my scholarship and be sent home. “I have an Intro to T3 test tomorrow.”

They both winced. Intro to Theurgy and Thaumaturgy Theory was required for ­first-​­years and unanimously hated. “Good luck,” Élodie said, and the two of them were gone.

Continuing up the stairs, I skimmed my family’s letters hungrily. Dad reported on his current woodworking project and asked about my classes; Grandma gossiped about neighbors and my sisters; Mom said everyone loved and missed me, reminded me to eat well and get enough sleep, and asked if I’d made friends.

I swallowed hard. I wouldn’t tell my family and worry them, but it hadn’t been easy to adjust to life as a Lyceum student. I loved Talum, and I’d been lucky to bond with the girls on my floor, but I felt out of my depth at school. While I might have been the most dedicated student in my village, I was nothing special at the Lyceum. Dad had tried to warn me, but I’d been too excited to listen.

Dad had grown up in Talum. He’d left at seventeen to become a sailor, to his parents’ dismay, then met my mother on leave in Port Naborre and never gone back. He knew what the city was ­like—​­and he had been right. The brightest student in a high plains village was considered deeply mediocre at the fabled Lyceum. I had an ear for ­languages—​­my mother’s mother had spoken to me in her singsong southern dialect since I was a child, and I’d picked up foreign tongues from sailors in Port ­Naborre—​­but I didn’t have eighteen years of formal study.

Sighing ruefully, I skimmed my sisters’ letters, though the last envelope nagged at me. Better to get it over with fast. I ripped it open.

Dear Naomi,

I am hosting a festive gathering next month, on the 22nd. I will send a carriage for you at six. Please confirm you have an appropriate outfit. If not, I will send something.

Aunt Tirtzah

My stomach clenched. I’d met my aunt only once, and I wasn’t eager to repeat the experience. Also, what did “an appropriate outfit” entail?

A skittering up the stairs distracted me. I had no time for unwanted suitors, a looming exam, and a mouse. Cautiously, I took another ­step—​­and saw something glowing red with a long tail whip around the bend.

I blinked. Surely I hadn’t seen a salamander. ­Salamanders—​­according to ­legend—​­were born from stone calcite burned for seven years in fires built of myrtle wood. They died as soon as they were removed, their blood used to make one impervious to flame. It’d been a long day; I was imagining things.

At the top of the stairs, a worn carpet lined the wooden floor, threadbare from thousands of footsteps over the years. Lights glowed in ­old-​­fashioned brass sconces, etched with the standard spell for lighting; the four of us had a schedule for painting them every morning with neshem oil so they didn’t run out of power. At the end of the hall was my favorite detail: stained glass windows depicting olive trees.

Four doors faced each other, leading into matching sets of rooms. As I neared mine, I slowed. Something was off. Light glowed from the crack beneath the door, and I never left my lamps on. A faint scent, like the wind blowing off the desert, made the back of my neck prickle.

Had Leah been home, I’d have knocked on her door, but she was gone, and so were the ­others—​­Jelan and Gilli had a late class today. If I was smarter, more cautious, or less tired, I would have called in ­reinforcements—​­the gendarme, or a rabbi, or someone from one of the other floors at least. But wasn’t it usually your imagination when you suspected a villain was hiding in your shower? I braced myself and opened the door.

Someone was sitting on the sofa.

The air around him wobbled, distorted like the shimmer above a fire. His bronze skin glowed from within. Perched on his shoulder sat a small, luminous red salamander.

When I entered, he looked up from the book in his lap, which I recognized as a present from my mother: A Household Guide to Demons. His eyes were a pure, glossy black, no whites, no irises. His mouth turned up at the corners. “Hello, darling,” he said, and his voice sounded like smoke, silvery and strange. “Welcome home.”

TWO

Students at the Lyceum of Talum belonged to one of five schools: the School of Science, the School of Humanities, the School of Engineering, the School of Government, or the School of Religious Studies. Each taught students to write new spells and adjust old ones in their specialization. My yearlong scholarship came from the School of Humanities.

Which meant, notably, I had no clue how to defend myself except through biting social commentary and deflective humor. So instead of tossing out a banishment or containment spell, I defaulted to my baser instincts.

I screamed.

The demon winced and covered his ears. The salamander darted beneath the neckline of his crisp white shirt.

“Who are you?” I looked around frantically. It turned out I didn’t own weapons. The living room consisted of soft, pretty ­things—​­the thick carpet, several throw pillows and blankets, curtains. I had a lamp with an outrageous fringed shade, but it was on the other side of the ­room—​­next to the demon. Besides, it was large and unwieldy and I might be too weak to swing it. “What do you want?”

“I’m Daziel.”

“What?” How did he get in here? I glanced at the mezuzah on my doorframe, which should have kept demons out. It appeared intact. Pressing my palm to my collarbone, I felt the firm disk of my amulet, still there. What had I done wrong? My gaze caught on my mirror, which I’d lugged from a thrift market to the tram and up the stairs. Mom had said I should redo a mirror’s protective castings every six months or keep it covered, and I hadn’t. “Did you come through the mirror? What about the wards?”

“Don’t worry about those,” the demon said, as though I’d been concerned he might get accidentally locked out. “As your betrothed, I have the right to your space.”

My betrothed.

Oh.

This was bad. My mother had told me that naming a demon risked drawing one’s attention. I’d thought I was being clever, but now I realized I’d been very, very stupid.

Taking a deep breath, I studied the demon before me. He looked my age and mostly human, save the fathomless black eyes. Faint lines formed a pattern of shimmery feathers along his neck, disappearing under his shirt collar. His nails were black and came to a point like talons. Gleaming black stones filled the gauges in his ears, and a giant ring with red stones encircled his right pointer finger. No necklace, unlike most ­Ena-​­Cinnaians, who wore amulets both for protection and to show our tribal ­allegiance—​­like the Naphtali amethyst around my own neck.

A wild demon, I ­suspected—​­as intelligent and savvy as a human but chaotic, prone to mischief and capricious behavior.

I tried to remember what A Household Guide to Demons said about ridding one’s home of a wild demon, but I’d barely flipped through the book. I fell back on childhood spells, more superstition than magic, singing a protective song my grandmother had taught me for when I walked alone outside the village.

The demon blinked and didn’t move.

Okay. Fine. Sidling along the wall, I snatched from my bookcase a miniature shofar Dad had given me when I was twelve. When I blew it, the ram’s horn emitted a piercing sound, but the demon didn’t flee.

Instead, he frowned. “You’re very loud.”

The audacity. “You broke into my rooms.” I blew the shofar again, louder. When I tried a third time, no sound came out. I stared at the shofar, betrayed and bewildered, before transferring my gaze to the demon. “What did you do?”

“Do you want the technical explanation about how I stopped the molecules from vibrating?” I couldn’t tell if he was in earnest or teasing ­me—​­I thought it might be the latter, but he was too inhuman to read. “I find usually humans don’t.”

“What?” I had no idea what he was talking about. I had no idea what was happening. I had no idea I was so bad in a crisis. “What are you doing here? You can’t just make things not work. That’s—​­unsettling. And rude.”

“Sorry.” He didn’t sound apologetic; he sounded put out. The little salamander popped out of his shirt and curled up in a ball on his shoulder, resting its narrow head on its hindquarters. Its eyes were as black and glossy as the demon’s. “But I think it’s rude to cast spells to banish shedim with malicious intent when I have none.”

Demons weren’t always malicious, but they might accidentally ruin your life for the entertainment value. Especially wild demons, known for seeking larks and pleasure at any cost.

On the other hand, ­Ena-​­Cinnaian demons upheld the same laws of hospitality and good behavior as humans did. They considered themselves scrupulously polite. This demon had called me rude, so maybe I should backpedal. I softened my voice. “Do you mind sharing why you’re here? Is there something I can help you with?”

“I’m visiting.”

Right. Because that was normal, demons visiting the Scholars’ Quarter. “If you need a place to stay, you could try one of the local inns. The Drowned Pelican at the end of the street is supposed to be very nice.”

He turned his gaze to me. Unnervingly, when his onyx eyes moved, iridescent color crossed them like light striking black mother‑­of‑­pearl. “Why would I stay at an inn instead of here, with my betrothed?”

Unease curdled my stomach. I started shaking my head and didn’t stop. “That’s just a story I tell to get guys off my back.”

“You said ‘I’m already betrothed’ and ‘to the demon Daziel.’ ” He smiled, incisors sharp like a carnivore’s. “We are madly in love.”

A horrible thought burbled up. If this demon’s name really was Daziel, I might have accidentally summoned him. Which could be very bad.

Millennia ago, humans and demons warred. Demons consumed human vitality, and humans bound demons for their power. Demons were pure magic, while humans could only manipulate magic. Spellcasters used bound demons to power letterform magic instead of using neshem crystals as we did today. The demon wars led to the empty cities in the ­wilderness—​­and a treaty renewed every twenty years.

Summoning a demon probably wasn’t illegal by itself, though what did I ­know—​­it could be against the treaty. It was definitely illegal to bind demons. “You’re not bound to me or anything, are you?”

The demon tilted his head; one of his dark curls fell across his forehead. “Isn’t a betrothal a type of bind?”

“I release you,” I said once hurriedly, then twice more to make sure. “I release you. I release you.” I opened the door to the hallway. “You’re free! I’m so sorry.”

He stared at me. The tiny salamander stared at me. “I was joking. I ­meant—​­because it’s a vow? Vows bind you together?”

“Demons joke?” That was almost as startling as anything else. I glanced out the door. What if I lured him outside, like a pesky fly, then ran back inside and closed the door?

He frowned. “Where are you going?”

“Just—​­a nighttime stroll.” I took a few steps. “Maybe you want to come with me?”

For a moment I didn’t think he’d fall for it, but then he flowed to his feet and followed me over the room’s threshold and into the hall. I backed up to the stairwell. He took another step too, and another. Wow. Okay, this was working. I smiled, tentative relief growing, and he began to smile back.

Then I lurched forward and past him in a mad dash toward my rooms. I slammed the door so hard the clap reverberated up my arms and in my ears.

But I’d done it, the demon’s surprised expression etched into my mind.

Letting out short, fast breaths of relief, I turned the lock. It’d worked. I’d vanquished a demon.

I turned around and saw the demon sitting on the couch.

My mouth dropped open. “You’re kidding me.”

He looked irritated. “That was also rude.”

“It wasn’t—­” I swallowed my words. I wasn’t getting into a fight about courtesy. “Look. I’m sure I’m ­very—​­flattered—​­by your attention, but there’s been a misunderstanding. You’re not my betrothed. I don’t want a betrothed! Like, thank you for coming out here, I appreciate you taking the time, but if you could ­just . . . go, that’d be great.”

His tone and expression were perfectly pleasant, as though this was a normal situation. “We are betrothed.”

Surely this demon didn’t actually think we were engaged?

Okay. If there was a demon in my rooms who wouldn’t leave, I needed to leave. I could go to Madame Hadar, the guardienne. If she didn’t know banishment spells, she should at least know who to contact. I wouldn’t be thrilled to approach ­her—​­her nephew had asked me out, and admitting I’d lied about a demon betrothed wouldn’t look ­great—​­but needs must.

Or maybe Gilli and Jelan were home by now. I wasn’t used to asking others for ­help—​­I was used to being the oldest sister, the one in ­charge—​­but this problem was too big for me alone.

I headed back to the door.

“I’m not following you this time.” He sounded worried and sulky, and his arms crossed tightly over his chest.

“Fine.” I felt a little better, a little more in control. It was hard to fear a pouting boy, no matter his species. “But I know better than to stay in my rooms with a demon.” I grabbed my keys and headed out.

Sure enough, the demon Daziel followed, scowling as I knocked on Gilli’s door. “Why are ­you—­”

It swung open. A petite, pretty girl stood there in white loungewear. She’d threaded ribbons through her pigtails and tied them in a bow at the top of her head.

“Naomi, hi,” Gilli said with a sweet smile. When we’d first met during move‑­in, I thought her earnestness might grate on me, but she turned out to be inescapably endearing. “What’s up? Want to come in?”

“Thanks.” I felt an awkward shyness. Though I liked Gilli and Jelan, we’d only known each other a month, and we hadn’t spent as much time together as me and Leah; mostly, we were either in separate duos or a group. “I’m having a bit of a night.”

Inside, Jelan sat in an armchair. She wore half her hair shaved and the rest kept in a tight coiled braid. I’d only ever seen her in black, save her red School of Engineering blazer. While Gilli’s family seemed to have some ­money—​­her mother was a navigator, a coveted position aboard ­ships—​­I suspected Jelan needed every last bit of her scholarship.

“What’s ­going—­” Gilli began, then froze, gaping.

“Hello,” Daziel said.

Gilli shrieked. Jelan grabbed a protective bowl from the bookcase. Speaking in a low, steady tone, she began turning it up and over, as though capturing something inside.

“This is Daziel,” I said.

“I’m Naomi’s betrothed,” Daziel said brightly.

“What?” Gilli said, which was a fair reaction, because it was also mine. Then her face transformed, like a theatergoer’s when the farm boy was revealed to be the prince. “Oh my god. Your demon betrothed.”

Jelan hesitated in her casting.

“He’s not,” I protested. “You guys know it’s a fake excuse.”

“Right,” Gilli said uncertainly, looking back and forth between us. “But . . . he is a demon. Who says he’s your betrothed. And you say you have a demon betrothed.”

“I’m lying! We’re both lying! We’re not betrothed!”

“We are betrothed,” Daziel said cheerfully.

The girls exchanged bewildered glances. Neither Gilli nor Jelan were likely to have practical knowledge of demons. Gilli’s family lived right outside Talum, while Jelan came from the capital city of Maurino, ­Ena-​­Cinnai’s southern neighbor. Cities were heavily warded against ­mazzikin—​­small ­spirits—​­and usually avoided by wild demons, like Daziel, who preferred space and nature. High demons occasionally visited cities for society entertainments or treaty negotiations, but ordinary folk had nothing to do with them. Besides, high demons knew how to behave in human ­society—​­they might be more powerful than their kindred, but they were also more predictable, and so not as alarming.

“Can I crash with you tonight?” I asked Gilli. “I can’t figure out how to banish him.”

“Have you tried, um, blowing a shofar and spitting?” Gilli asked.

“The shofar, yeah, but not spitting.”

Daziel looked astonished. “Are you going to spit on me?”

“No?” Gilli responded timidly. Which, also fair. It was one thing to read about spitting on a demon and quite another to spit on a very real one.

“I won’t spit if you leave,” I said. “Which you should, because even if you’re allowed in my rooms, it can’t be proper for you to be in Gilli’s uninvited.”

He frowned, but he couldn’t dispute that, not if he cared about hospitality. “You won’t stay here forever. I can wait at home.”

I almost choked. At home? Meaning my rooms? Presumptuous. “I might stay here tonight, though.”

He scowled, looking as petty as my sister Adina. This felt weirdly ­reassuring—​­the more he reminded me of a teenage boy and the less of a strange, magical creature, the more ­sure-​­footed I felt. “Since you’re so insistent on avoiding me, even though I came all the way out here to be with ­you—​­we could strike a bargain.”

This didn’t assuage my wariness. “What kind of bargain?”

“I don’t think you’re supposed to strike bargains with demons,” Gilli whispered. Jelan shook her head.

He smiled, all sharp teeth and black eyes. Not so human after all. He held out a round red fruit: a pomegranate, which he definitely hadn’t been holding a moment before. “Accept this gift. Then I’ll leave.”

I loved pomegranates. They were high on my list of favorite fruits. But there were a lot of stories about people eating fruit, and I couldn’t remember any ending positively.

“Am I missing something?” I asked my friends. “Because on the surface, this sounds good.” I narrowed my eyes at Daziel. “Is the pomegranate bespelled? Do I have to eat it?”

“It’d be a waste of a perfectly good pomegranate if you didn’t,” Daziel said with some asperity. “But no. And it’s not bespelled. It’s not magical. It’s a pomegranate.”

I glanced at Jelan, for she was one of the smartest people I’d met. “How good are demons at lying?”

“Very good.”

“A rude and baseless stereotype,” Daziel scoffed. “Will you accept it?”

I hesitated. “You’ll leave if I do?”

He nodded.

I took the fruit.

Daziel smiled. And vanished.

Sheer relief descended. It hadn’t been a trick. I hadn’t made a terrible call, dooming myself and my friends. He’d kept his word and left.

“Wow,” Gilli said faintly. She leaned over, her nose close to the pomegranate as she examined it, the lavender bow in her hair fluttering. “Do we eat it?”

“No,” Jelan said.

“No,” I agreed.

“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.

The post Read The First Two Chapters From ‘A Practical Guide to Dating a Demon’ by Hannah Reynolds appeared first on The Nerd Daily.

Intrigued? Well read on to discover the synopsis and an excerpt from Hannah Reynolds’s Summer Nights and Meteorites, which is out May 21st 2024.

Jordan Edelman’s messy dating days are over. After a few too many broken hearts, and a father who worries a bit too much, she’s sworn off boys—at least for the summer. And since she’ll be tagging along on her father’s research trip to Nantucket, she doesn’t think it’ll be too hard to stick to her resolution.

But hooking up with the cute boy on the ferry doesn’t count, right? At least, not until that cute boy turns out to be Ethan Barbanel. As in, her father’s longtime research assistant Ethan Barbanel, the boy Jordan has hated from afar for years. And to make matters worse, Jordan might actually be falling for him.

As if that didn’t complicate her life enough, Jordan’s new summer job with a local astronomer turns up a centuries-old mystery surrounding Gibson’s Comet—and as she dives into her research, what she learns just might put her growing relationship with Ethan in jeopardy.

One

My therapist told me recently that instead of making lists about things I hated (Ethan Barbanel, Benjamin Franklin,

death, entropy), I should make lists about things I loved, or even liked, or, at the very least, could appreciate in the moment.

And so: I liked the seventy-five-degree June day. I appreciated the cup of Dunkin’ in my hand. I liked all the fishing boats filling the port of Hyannis.

Dad loves boats. He took me to harbor after harbor every time we visited the Cape, explaining the difference between sloops and bowriders, daydreaming out loud about the kind we’d get if we were the kind of people who could afford boats, as opposed to a widowed historian and his seventeen-year-old daughter. And while I liked looking at the small craft, I couldn’t really picture myself sailing down the Charles River. Maybe because most of those people dressed a little differently from my normal all-black outfits and combat boots.

However, people underestimated the greatness of combat boots, which went on my list of things I appreciated (specifically, their arch support). I’d taken the CapeFlyer from Boston to Hyannis, and good shoes were crucial as I hauled my two suitcases from the train station to the harbor. I maneuvered my load down the sidewalk edging Hyannis’s port, passing men loading giant cages onto a weathered fishing vessel next to elegant catamarans.

When I neared shouting distance of the ferry building, I dropped into one of the many Adirondack chairs lining the green. Forty minutes until my ferry left, and it hadn’t arrived yet, either, though people already waited by the dock. I closed my eyes and leaned my head back, trying to let the sunshine and lapping water soothe me. How bad could this summer be? Most people would be thrilled to spend three months on Nantucket.

When I opened my eyes a few minutes later, a boy sat in the chair closest to me, eating pizza out of a box. Broad shoulders, aquiline nose, and an easy confidence in the way he took up space. Too good-looking and exactly my type. I’d dated guys with his same rangy frame and smiling eyes before, and they’d been all flirtation and flattery right up until they dumped me.

Two women walked by dressed in capris and light blouses. They paused in front of the boy. One, wearing a wide-brimmed straw hat and bedazzled sandals, made an exaggerated expression of awe.

“Is that a salad on your pizza?”

I glanced at the pizza. There did, in fact, appear to be a pile of arugula on top.

The boy in the chair, too, contemplated the pizza and the green leaves. “Sure seems to be.”

The women both laughed. “What is that, arugula?” “Yup.”

“I love arugula on pizza,” the second woman said. “Makes me feel so healthy. Where did you get it?”

I tuned out the rest because, honestly, how much could one listen to a conversation about arugula on pizza, attractive boy notwithstanding?

Yet not five minutes after the women walked on—seriously, the chair boy had probably only eaten two bites—another woman paused before him.

“Isn’t that a good-looking pizza!”

I stared at her, astonished. I knew Hyannis was an hour and a half outside the city—a small seaside town on Cape Cod—but did people seriously talk to strangers here? About pizza? Not that pizza wasn’t a worthy topic of conversation, but you couldn’t pay me to talk to a stranger.

Well. Okay. I’d talk to a stranger who looked like Chair Boy.

Still, did all these women seriously consider this boy hot enough to strike up a conversation? Chair Boy was around my age. If not jailbait, close to it.

Maybe people were being friendly and I was ridiculously standoffish.

Beyond Chair Boy, a large, multistory ferry cruised into place. My ferry. Probably my neighbor’s ferry, too. I snuck another glance at him, our eyes briefly meeting before I tore mine away and focused on my phone. God, he really was my type, with an extra hint of confidence and arrogance in the way he lounged. Come to think of it, I usually would strike up a conversation with someone who looked like him. But I wasn’t going to, not today, not anymore. It’d occurred to me recently, given the stream of guys I’d hooked up with who made me feel like shit afterward, that I was the common factor. I selected boys who never wanted anything to do with me long-term. My selection criteria needed to be severely recalibrated.

So I wasn’t going to engage with the kind of boys I usually engaged with anymore. I wasn’t going to date or hook up with anyone this summer. I wasn’t.

I glanced over again and found him glancing at me.

And my mouth parted, and I started to say, You’re basically a walking advertisement for that pizza place, aren’t you? Only the grace of yet another person pausing to greet Chair Boy saved me from myself, this time an older man who apparently actually knew the guy. Not one to look a gift horse in the mouth, I headed for the ferry, checked my luggage, and got in line for the Grey Lady IV.

My shoulders slowly climbed toward my ears as I took in the passengers around me. I’d known the summering-on-Nantucket aesthetic would be different from mine, but I hadn’t expected to feel quite so out of place. Everyone seemed to have received the same memo about their outfits: faded blues and salmon pink, men in Sperrys, and more women with blond hair than allotted by nature. No one else wore mostly black. Which, fine. Most people at school didn’t, either. But I’d never felt uncomfortable dressed in black lace or fishnet tights before; I’d felt stylish. Interesting. Edgy.

It felt different wearing my clothes in a sea of beige and pearls. I’d picked my outfit carefully this morning because I was dressing for Ethan Barbanel, who I hated, who I’d never met.

I’d wanted armor, so I chose an outfit my friends said made me look both hot and badass, and which made me feel untouchable. A black top to highlight my red-and-black tartan skirt (Alice + Olivia, thrifted for twenty dollars at the Garment District). My trusty combat boots, dangly black earrings, and cat-eye eyeliner. A bored crew member scanned my ticket’s QR code and I boarded the ship, winding my way up several staircases until I reached the top outdoor deck. Somehow I’d chosen the slowest line, but plenty of seats were still open. Including one by the rail, where Chair Boy sat, having miraculously arrived before me.

Don’t do it, I told myself. Nope. Don’t. You’re done with hot, bro-y boys. They’re bad news bears.

I did it. I took the seat on the other side of the aisle from him, also facing the water. But I didn’t look at him as the ship pulled out from the dock, Hyannis’s harbor falling away behind us. At least I had that much control.

An announcement came on about rules and regulations. To my right, women in tank tops with Greek letters poured White Claws into thermoses; boys in ACK baseball caps ate slimy-looking ham sandwiches. I noticed my shoulders had drawn up again, high and tight, and forcibly relaxed them. I wasn’t being shipped off to Forks or anything, forced to handle pewter skies and brooding vampires. Plenty of people would give an arm and a leg to visit Nantucket.

Across the aisle, Chair Boy laughed. A loud laugh. A look at me laugh.

I steadfastly did not look at him. I might have chosen my seat

precisely to put myself in this position, but surely I had some willpower left? Surely I could keep myself from sliding down a slippery slope proven, time and again, to leave me feeling bad about myself.

He laughed once more.

I couldn’t help it. I couldn’t. I glanced over inquisitively. Our gazes collided.

He broke into a wide, contagious grin and nodded at a family standing by the rail. “They’re all wearing the same socks. Even the dog.”

Sure enough, the family of five wore navy socks with white anchors. Even the mini Bernedoodle.

“Isn’t the whole point of dogs not to need footwear?”

“I’m not sure the whole point of dogs is not to need footwear,” he mused. “There’s gotta be something about hunting in there.”

“And being our best friend.”

“They do a great job there.” He tilted his head. “You got a dog?”

This could be so easy. He wanted to talk, and I could talk an ear off an elephant.

I’d told myself this summer would be different. This summer, I wasn’t getting involved with anyone. Maybe in the fall, when I started college, I could start a relationship with someone kind and smart and genuinely interested. But right now, I was going to prove I was absolutely emotionally stable, and the easiest way to do so was to avoid romantic entanglements altogether, and to focus on helping my dad.

But. Screw it.

I wasn’t actually on Nantucket yet. The summer hadn’t really begun. I still had this one short, high-speed ferry ride.

And just like that, my entire posture changed as I relaxed and smiled. “I wish. No dog, just dreams of dogs. You?”

“Two brothers, which is almost the same thing.” I laughed. “Do they shed?”

“Come to think of it, yeah. One—David—has green hair right now, so you always know when it’s his fault.” He nodded at me. “He’d like your outfit.”

There was no judgment in his tone, no slight sneer at his brother and me, and it made me like him more, knowing he appreciated his green-haired brother with good fashion sense. “Oh?” I mirrored him, tilting my head as well. “Do you like it?”

His grin widened. “Definitely.” He swept a hand down, indicating his own body. “What do you think of this?”

I tried to contain an appreciative smirk and instead pasted a considering look on my face. I pulled my eyes over him, lingering on his boat shoes, his salmon-pink shorts, his white cable sweater. Everything was the highest quality, but deeply worn, as though he couldn’t be bothered to replace them. He had tanned skin, though the summer had barely started, like he’d spent two weeks lying on a Mediterranean shore. “I’m very impressed by all the fashion risks you’ve taken. Very avant-garde.”

He nodded, faux-serious. “I know. Nantucket red on Nantucket? It might be too radical. I might be thrown overboard before we reach the island.”

“I could tear off a little black tulle from my skirt and we could tie it around your neck. Help you fit in a little more.”

“Thank god.” He grinned at me. “Is this your first time on the island?”

“Yeah. What about you?” I didn’t leave time for him to answer. “Let me guess—you’re summer people.”

“What gave me away?” he asked. “Was it the tattoo on my forehead that says summer people?”

I laughed. “Yes. You should probably get a hat so you can cover

it up.”

He patted his dark hair delicately. “It would crush my curls.” “Vain.”

“I prefer to think ‘reasonably aware of my positive attributes.’ ” “And is the top one curls?”

“Definitely. Followed by height.”

I laughed again. “It’s important to know what matters.”

“It’s fake, actually.” He pointed at his tanned, muscled calves. “These are platform boots designed to look like legs and feet.”

“Nice.” I pointed at my own boots. “I’m wearing the same

thing. I’m actually a faun.”

He looked startled for a moment, and I wondered if I’d been too weird for him, but then he burst into laughter. “Mr. Tumnus in the flesh. So this is what you do outside of Narnia.”

“Ms. Tumnus to you.”

He draped his arm over the back of his chair. The sun made the dark hair on his skin glow. “So, Ms. Tumnus. What brings you to Nantucket?”

“I like to ride the ferry back and forth. I never actually set foot on Nantucket. Or Hyannis. I live on the ferry.”

He nodded. “I see. You’re a ghost. You died on the ferry a hundred years ago and you’ve never left.”

I tsked. “Usually it takes humans longer to figure me out.

What am I doing wrong?”

“It’s because you’re slightly transparent. And floating a few inches off the deck.”

“Ugh, and here I’d thought I had the floating under control.”

The boat picked up speed, the sudden wind fluttering hats and sunglasses. The crowd of people clustered at the rail staggered inside, clutching drinks in one hand and using their others to hold seat tops as they walked. The roar of the high-speed ferry crashing through the water made it too loud to have a conversation across the aisle, but I tried. “So what’s the island like?”

“What?” he yelled back.

“What’s the island’s deal? Anything I should know?” “You mean, whether or not there’s a Hot Topic?”

I stuck my tongue out. “What’s there to do?” “Looking for a tour guide?”

“You should be so lucky.”

His smile grew. “I should.” He gestured at his ear. “It’s kind of loud. You mind if—” He nodded at the seat next to me.

I bit the inside of my cheek to keep from grinning too broadly. “Yeah, sure.”

He grabbed his backpack and crossed the aisle. I scooted over so he could sit, and when he did, his thigh brushed mine. A familiar, intoxicating rush of anticipation filled me. For a moment, we watched the ship’s spray rushing behind the boat in two long, endlessly colliding torrents. They clashed in the middle, arching and sinking into the water like a sandworm burrowing downward forever. Above, an honest-to-god rainbow formed in the spray’s wake, a shimmer of red and yellow and green dancing above the white foam.

The warmth of the boy beside me was more than welcome given the wind off the sea. He was big and solid, and my heartbeat started pounding, a drum inside my chest. An electric shock of desire surged through me as he angled himself in my direction.

“What do you like to do?” he asked.

I let one shoulder rise and fall, my best Gallic shrug. “I’m really good at long walks on the beach.”

“Well, have I got some good news for you . . .”

I grinned at him. He grinned at me. This was the kind of perfect, delightful flirtation I loved: the kind where you could tell you were both into each other, and you knew it would go somewhere, and the only question was how and when.

“Hey,” he said. “I wanna show you something.”

Ah. Now, and with a cliché. “Seriously? Does that line work for you?”

“It’s not a line,” he said, mock-offended. “I really do want to show you something.”

I raised my brows to show him what I thought of that. But since I did, in fact, want to be shown, I simply said, “Okay.”

“Come on.” He stood with an easy grin on his face, and I returned it, my smile so wide it felt like it would break my face, like it shoved my cheeks open and crinkled up my eyes and made my teeth hurt like a sugar rush.

God, I liked him. He was fun and goofy and hot and I loved

liking someone.

At first, a tiny little part of me reminded the rest. And then they break your heart and then you’re sad.

Moot point. Nothing would happen with this guy beyond the ferry.

“Where are we going?” I asked as he pulled me down a back staircase I hadn’t been aware of, open to the air but currently unused—a sterile place of metal and unexpected privacy.

“Right here.” He paused on the stairs, near the bottom. He turned so he stood on the same stair as me, my back to the wall, his body right in front of me.

“Oh?” I couldn’t get the grin off my face. “And what did you want to show me?”

“This,” he said, and I laughed because it was such a line and he grinned and was kissing me.

God was he kissing me.

Normally, I wasn’t into first kisses. I wasn’t into tender anticipation, into does-he-like-me, does-he-want-to? All the self-doubt and stomach flutters and quivering nerves: no thank you. First kisses were usually mediocre and filled with irritating, nervous uncertainty—I would rather squash all of those and move on. Second kisses, and third: that’s where the going got good, where you didn’t have to feel obnoxious feelings but could concentrate on the good stuff.

This skipped straight to the good stuff.

I twined my arms around his neck and pulled him close. Heat ran beneath my skin, a dizzy, heady fog obscuring the rest of the world so I focused on immediate sensation. His hands ran over my back and slid up my neck, and his fingers dug into the base of my skull, tugging on my hair with just enough pressure to be interesting.

Someone clattered, pointedly loud, down the stairs.

I let out an embarrassed giggle and hid my face in his shoulder, delighted to be caught, delighted to have someone to hide my face in. “I can’t believe we’re making out in a stairwell.”

“I can.” He grinned at me. “I mean, I can’t believe my luck in catching your attention, but having done that all I want is more making out in the stairwell.”

“I think we can arrange that.” I pulled his face back to mine. The next thing I knew, people were coming into the stairwell,

lining up to exit the ferry, and we broke apart. I swallowed unsteady giggles. Chair Boy kept his hand on the small of my back as we joined the disembarking passengers. I hadn’t even watched the island approach, which I’d meant to. Instead, my first glimpse of Nantucket came from the top of the ramp connected to the ferry’s doors—a sea of busy streets bounded by shops and restaurants.

The boy stayed beside me as we shuffled down the ramp. “Want to trade numbers?”

Did I want to trade numbers?

Of course I did. Of course I wanted a steady supply of a hot, funny guy to make out with all summer.

Except I wasn’t going to hook up with anyone this summer.

And even if I had been, this boy was wrong for me.

When I was ready to date again, I wanted a different kind of boy. A soft boy, a cinnamon bun of a boy, warm and pliant and loving. A Peeta to smother me in cakes and to hold me when I fell apart. A boy who didn’t make me fall apart. I didn’t need a boy who I thought about for days and days as he never texted me back, who made me act like somebody I wasn’t just to hold his attention.

“I’m sort of in a weird place right now,” I told Chair Boy, honestly as I could. “So while this was super fun—”

“I get it.” He stepped back, tone cooling. We’d reached the

bottom of the ramp, and we moved aside as other passengers flowed off the ferry. “Just thought I’d ask.”

“Sorry.”

“Don’t be sorry. I had a good time.” He tossed me a smile— only a tad hurt pride, mostly genuine. “Have fun on Nantucket.”

And he turned his back and walked away. I almost yelled Come back!

Instead I stared after him for a long while. Maybe he would

have been perfect. Maybe I’d messed up.

But then, I was good at that.

The post Read The First Chapter From ‘Summer Nights and Meteorites’ by Hannah Reynolds appeared first on The Nerd Daily.

Intrigued? Well read on to discover the synopsis and an excerpt from Eight Nights of Flirting by Hannah Reynolds, which is out now!

Shira Barbanel has a plan: this Hanukkah, she’s going to get a boyfriend. And she has the perfect candidate in mind—her great-uncle’s assistant, Isaac. He’s reliable, brilliant, and of course, super hot. The only problem? Shira’s an absolute disaster when it comes to flirting.

Enter Tyler Nelson, Shira’s nemesis-slash-former-crush. As much as she hates to admit it, Tyler is the most charming and popular guy she knows. Which means he’s the perfect person to teach her how to win Isaac over.

When Shira and Tyler get snowed in together at Golden Doors, they strike a deal—flirting lessons for Shira in exchange for career connections for Tyler. But as Shira starts to see the sweet, funny boy beneath Tyler’s playboy exterior, she realizes she actually likes hanging out with him. And that wasn’t part of the plan.

Amidst a whirl of snowy adventures, hot chocolate, and candlelight, Shira must learn to trust her heart to discover if the romance she planned is really the one that will make her happiest.

And now Tyler Nelson and I would be spending the night in my house, alone.

We faced each other, me in the doorway, him a step down on the porch. Snow swirled in glittering eddies around his feet. Wisps of hair flew out from under his hat, and the cold pinkened his cheeks. Had his eyes always been so bright? So uncomfortable to meet? “Come in.”

“Thanks.” He heaved his bag over the step, bringing a shower of snow into the foyer. He took in the cream-colored walls, the polished wooden floor, the curved staircase leading up to the second floor. A painting of the sea by my grandfather hung across from the door. A vase filled with dried lavender rested on the table below it.

I ignored him and sat on the entry bench to unlace my boots. When was the last time I’d been alone with someone besides family or Olivia? I didn’t have close friends; I’d spent most of my childhood either playing piano or ice-skating, and I had the fuzzy impression everyone else had formed their tight-knit friendships while I’d been at practice. Sure, people invited me to parties and wanted me at their lunch table, but mostly because my family was well known. Or because they read my demeanor as aloof and cool—at least according to one girl I’d overheard in the school bathroom—when really I was just awkward and silent.

And here I was with Tyler, who had a million friends, who was the life of the party. He was warm and friendly and popular, and I was cold and prickly and closed off. I had no idea how to behave alone with him.

Boots off, I jumped up, keeping my coat on since the heating hadn’t yet beat back the chill. Tyler did the same, though he tossed his beanie atop his suitcase. His hair flew about, staticky and fine. “Do you have a towel I can dry my shoes with?”

I glanced at his shoes, which, in their defense, looked very expensive. “Maybe you shouldn’t have worn four-hundred-dollar shoes in a blizzard.”

“Six hundred.”

I rolled my eyes, throwing a tea towel from the coat closet at him. “Here.”

Carefully—almost lovingly—he polished the damp from his shoes, then looked up at me with a smile I had to brace myself against. Too much charm, this boy. “So what’s the plan?”

“No plan.” I brushed away the crusts of snow clinging to my jeans. Wet dark spots stained the fabric. “We can make tea to warm up, I guess.”

“Cool.”

He followed me deeper into the house, silence pressing in on us. The mansion sprawled, having expanded through the centuries. It felt weird to be in Golden Doors without cousins rushing around, without parents and aunts and uncles and Grandpa and Grandma at the steady center of it all. I was used to being alone in New York, but I’d never been alone here. Tyler’s presence relieved me the smallest bit. Well, not Tyler’s, specifically. But I was glad not to be alone.

Still, even empty, Golden Doors had an air of magic. I loved this house and felt at home here more than I ever had in Manhattan. It felt like Golden Doors belonged to me. Silly, maybe. But it’d always been a house for Barbanel women: the gardens designed and maintained by women, the blueprints drawn up by a woman. And I was the eldest granddaughter in the current generation of Barbanels. Golden Doors and I fit each other, a key and a lock.

I led him to the great room, where my family spent most of our time, a space that was equally living room and dining room and kitchen. Large windows and French doors took up one wall, beyond which the lawn spread toward gardens before falling in dramatic cliffs toward the sea. Usually, we could see a line of blue from here, but today the storm blurred out everything. Though only four in the afternoon, the sun had disappeared, plunging the world into a bluish haze. The snow continued to fall, the mounds outside shaped by tempestuous wind.

I switched on the light, outshining the outside world. Now instead of snow and darkness, we saw my grandmother’s impeccable decorating: clusters of soft seating, small coffee tables, a large table for informal dining, a marble island counter separating the kitchen from the rest. I padded across the room, my thick winter socks slipping once on the smooth floor, and entered the pantry at the far end. Tyler kept at my back, his footsteps silent, his presence palpable.

“You can have whatever.” I opened the cabinet where the tea lived: herbal Celestial for Grandma, Lipton boxes for Grandpa, Mom’s Bigelow, and tins of loose-leaf tea. I pulled out orange spice and cinnamon, my comfort pick. Tyler studied the choices like I’d asked him to do open-heart surgery, running his fingers along the fine-grained wooden cabinets, then sniffing several options. After that, he picked up an embossed box and turned it in his hands. Finally he filled a metal ball with a scoop of Earl Grey.

If only I’d been trapped alone for a night with Isaac. I could imagine exactly how it’d go: He’d be polite and charming and kind. We would cook dinner together (never mind that I rarely cooked). We’d light the menorah, our hands over each other’s, our voices mingling. We’d sit on the couch and talk all night. He’d put his arm around me and, then, somehow, we would be kissing . . .

I peeked at Tyler, flushing. I couldn’t be daydreaming about making out with someone else next to him. Stomping back into the great room, I set the kettle on to boil and brought two mugs over to the kitchen island. We dropped into barstools across from each other. “This doesn’t mean we’re friends or anything.”

He placed his tea infuser in his cup. “God forbid. No.”

“I just don’t want you to freeze to death.”

“We have that in common.” He grinned at me. “I, too, don’t want to freeze to death.”

How could he be so easygoing while active discomfort pulled at every corner of my body? But then, he’d always been relaxed and confident, where I felt stiff with most people outside my family. How could I survive the night trapped alone with him? “Do you want to watch a movie or something?”

“Nah. Movies are boring.”

Tyler had a way of making almost everything he said sound reasonable, and I almost wanted to nod in agreement. I shook it off. “The entire point of movies is to not be boring.”

He shrugged off his woolen coat and draped it over the back of his chair. The heat had finally kicked in. “Okay, not boring, but a last resort. There’s more interesting things to do.”

“Like what?”

“You know. Trade our hopes and dreams and plans and secrets.”

I scoffed. “And why would I tell you any of those?”

“Because talking is fun, Shira.”

Was it, though? “Not with strangers.”

“We’re not strangers.”

“Well, we don’t exactly know each other, either. Not really.”

He studied me with the smallest upturned smile, utterly unlike the wide, open smile I was used to seeing on his face. “You used to think you knew me enough to say you loved me.”

I couldn’t believe he’d so casually bring up the most excruciating moment of my life. Even after two and a half years, the reference felt like he’d dumped a saltshaker’s contents onto my innards.

“I was fourteen. I was in love with a different person each week.”

He snorted. “You were in love with me for years.”

He was right, and neither of us had ever acknowledged it to the other before. I could feel my cheeks, hot and heavy, but I refused to flinch. “You wish.”

He leaned forward. “Admit it. You thought I was the sun and moon.”

“For thirty seconds.” The kettle began to whistle, and I busied myself with pouring hot water into our mugs. “Don’t get too full of yourself.” I shed my coat as I dropped back into my seat, suddenly too warm. “And I didn’t like you because I knew you. It was because you’re so—” I waved a hand.

He wrapped his hands around his mug, the steam rising to his face. “So what?”

“So pretty,” I said. “Your genetics do the heavy lifting. It wasn’t because you have a thrilling personality or whatever.”

“Shira Barbanel.” His eyes widened, and he looked unwillingly impressed. “What a burn.”

I shrugged, feeling a little bad but unwilling to back down. “You’re the one who went hard, making fun of a crush from when I was a kid.”

He had the grace to look embarrassed. “Sorry. I didn’t mean to make you feel bad. I guess I got whiplash, going from years of adoration to years of disdain.”

I rolled my eyes. “Must be hard, no longer being the center of the world.”

“Then you admit I was the center of your world.”

“Because I was a shallow child, no other reason.”

His eyes narrowed fleetingly, but then he flashed me the grin I’d spent years adoring. “If I actually tried, you’d melt at my feet.”

“You wish.” I took a large swallow of tea, which burned down my throat and spread tendrils of warmth through my chest. I couldn’t imagine having so much confidence, and it made me want to take him down a notch.

He stared at me for a long, measured moment. Then his gaze flicked down. “You have tiny hands.”

“What?” I said, thrown off completely.

“Your hands. They’re tiny.”

“They are not,” I said, weirdly defensive of the size of my hands. “I played piano.”

He smiled, softer. “Really? I didn’t know.”

“Why would you?” I muttered, and when he kept looking at me, as though intrigued, I cleared my throat. “Um. Yeah. My dad taught me.”

“What do you play?”

Why were we talking about this? I breathed in the orange-and-spice steam from my tea. “I don’t know. Never mind. I don’t play anymore.”

“What were your favorites when you did?”

My favorites. God. Had I had favorites before piano became too much work, one more activity in a long line of things grinding me into dust? Vivaldi and Debussy and Schumann, those had been who I played, but favorites—

“You know, I really liked Cats.”

He let out a startled laugh. “Seriously?”

“Yeah, I loved it. ‘Memory’ did me in.”

“Wow. Who would have thought?”

“I was six, okay?”

“Young.” He raised his hand, fingers spread apart. “But pianists are just known for long fingers, not large hands.”

I raised my hand so he could see it. “It’s a perfectly normal-sized hand!”

He placed his against mine, palm to palm. A jolt of energy went through me at his touch. His hand was, in fact, much larger than mine, and warm. He curved the tops of his fingers around mine. “See?”

“Hmm.” Heat flushed my whole body. “Anyway, it doesn’t matter—”

He intertwined his fingers with mine.

I lost all capacity for speech. He smiled. His thumb stroked my palm.

And I yanked my hand out of his. “You’re an asshole.”

“Come on, Shir, you basically dared me. You said I had no personality.”

“It’s Shira. And that wasn’t personality, it was . . . being smooth.” I sipped my tea, picturing Isaac to calm myself down. Isaac would never play games like this; every time we’d talked, he’d nodded seriously. Of course, our conversations never lasted long and were usually about school or the weather, but he wasn’t the kind of guy who would mock me. “Being charming doesn’t count as a character trait.”

“Why not?”

“I don’t know. Because it’s not real. It’s a surface thing.”

“What’s real, then?”

“I don’t know.” I was, in fact, not entirely sure I had a personality, as opposed to just conforming to all the expectations of the people around me. “Your aspirations, I guess? Your passions.”

“Okay.” He leaned forward, resting his forearms on the countertop. I was hard-pressed not to notice the golden dusting of hair on his skin. “What are yours?”

Oh no. My least favorite question, and I’d walked right into it. “Maybe I’ll save the sea turtles,” I said lightly. “They’re having a time of it.”

“The sea turtles,” he repeated.

“Yep.” I liked turtles; they were like cute old men with flippers. I’d learned if I mentioned sea turtles, people often laughed and moved on. Which was, in fact, my end goal. Because I didn’t like to talk about my future or what I wanted out of life.

I used to think I knew my dreams and aspirations. I knew I wanted to be great. Only it turned out I wasn’t.

Not at piano, not at skating, despite the years and practice I’d sunk into both. Now these things, which I’d once thought might be my life’s passions, hurt too much to get close to. I used to sting with jealousy when I watched professionals, hungering for their talent, their medals, but I could bear the envy because it egged me on, it made me want to be better. I could study and learn from them, and eventually, I would emerge from my own chrysalis, transformed.

Only I never had, and now skating and piano just made me sad.

My phone buzzed. Mom, probably checking to make sure I’d made it to Golden Doors. I hopped off my seat and walked into the hall so we could have a semiprivate conversation. “Hi.”

“Hi. Did you get to the house okay?”

“Yeah. I’m fine. Um—I split a taxi with Tyler Nelson. His house didn’t have power, so he came over here.”

“Oh.” Mom sounded startled, but not unpleasantly so. “Do you two have food?”

“I think so. We haven’t looked yet.” I winced at the admittance. “I’m sure there’s pizza in the freezer or something.”

“Okay, good. Everything’s working?”

“Yeah, it’s totally fine, Mom. What are you guys up to?”

“We’re back at Aunt Liz’s—we got takeout, since no one expected to be here. We’re about to light the menorah. Do you want to FaceTime?”

A deep ache opened in my stomach. Part of me wanted to see her, see the whole family. On the first night of Hanukkah, we always sang “Sevivon” and “The Dreidel Song” and “Light One Candle.” It hurt, the idea they might sing without me. But if I watched everyone from a distance, I’d feel even worse when I hung up. “No, thanks—I need to start decorating anyway.”

“Are you sure? Here, I’ll—”

“Mom, it’s fine. I’ll see you tomorrow.”

“Why did you snap?” she said immediately. “What’s wrong?”

I sighed. “Nothing’s wrong. I don’t want to leave Tyler alone.”

“Okay. Well. We’ll be there tomorrow.”

“Okay. Love you.”

“Love you, too,” she said, and hung up.

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