Midnight Jewel
Page 41
Aiana dismissed him with a wave of her hand. “I’m not afraid of her anymore.”
I turned to Grant in wonder. As happy as I’d been to hear he’d stay here, I’d felt a nagging guilt about him being denied his homeland after all he’d done. “Then . . . you can go back. Not quite the way you wanted or as soon, but . . .”
“But he can wait,” finished Silas. “What can’t wait is you two. You can’t keep carrying on like this.”
“Carrying on like what?” I asked innocently.
“Don’t play coy. I know where you sleep.” His gaze swiveled to Grant. “Stop it or go make this official on paper.”
Grant didn’t flinch. “See, Mirabel? Compared to him, I’m a fountain of romance.” To Silas, he said, “Relax, we’re planning on getting married.”
“Are you?” asked Aiana, startled. She looked at me for confirmation.
“Yes. Apparently Grant proposed to me. A couple of times. I think.” I thought back to our discussion of proposals this morning and realized there never really had been a question or answer.
“Yes, I did.” Grant shot me a pointed look. “It was a beautiful moment.”
Aiana seemed more surprised by that than him actually proposing. “Really?”
“Why are you so shocked, Sekem? I’m not completely insensitive. I know how proposals work.”
“That’s right,” I added slyly. “He took my hand and asked . . . what was it?” I glanced over at him expectantly.
He recognized the trap. His face was angled from Silas and Aiana, and the look he gave me said, How could you do this to me? I just smiled even more, and after clearing his throat, he said, “Well. I don’t remember the exact wording, but I’m pretty sure I asked if she’d do me the great honor—an honor I know I’m not worthy of—of becoming my wife. I told her she’s incomparable among women and is the brightest, truest thing I’ve ever had in my life—unlike my friends, who are currently staring at me as though they’ve never seen me before. And I also said I’d be slightly less cynical and do everything in my power to make sure her days and nights were unbelievable. Unbelievably happy, I mean.” He paused. “Oh, and it was definitely an actual question. To which she replied . . . ?”
I received the expectant look now, and I said, “Yes. Definitely yes.”
I think I answered a little more seriously than he expected. He faltered a moment, and I probably had “that look.” Recovering his composure, he turned to the others and said, “Are you satisfied now?”
Their speechlessness answered for them.
Later, while Aiana and Silas discussed a favor he’d asked of her, I pulled Grant aside. “Did you decide to stay with me before or after Aiana offered to go back with you?”
“Are you doubting me?” He angled his head to peer more closely at my face. “I can’t tell if this is designated serious time or bantering time.”
“I’m starting to think it’s all the same. And I believe you . . . except you didn’t actually answer.”
“I figured the profound sincerity in my face answered for me. Look, the whole reason I found the note in Silas’s office after the trial was because I’d decided to stay. If I’d intended to leave that day, I would’ve been gone. I knew how I felt about you a long time ago, way before she offered. I just had a lot of things to figure out. Like how to acknowledge I had feelings. Obviously, I excel at that now, after that incredible speech I gave. Did you hear it?”
“I heard it.” I took his hand and laced our fingers together. “I’m actually still kind of stunned. I don’t need Cedric Thorn’s brother.”
“Well . . . I also needed to get you to say ‘yes’ in front of witnesses. In case you changed your mind.”
“Now you doubt me?” I laughed.
“Just a precaution. I wouldn’t have given you a close name if I doubted you.”
I took a step back. “You did not.”
“I did.” He wore the same self-satisfied look that he’d had when revealing the truth about his monk costume. “Even on my deathbed, I was a hopeless romantic.”
“Deathbed . . .” I wracked my brain for every detail of the last week, scouring anything that could connect. “The cellar.”
“So you were paying attention.” He still had that smug grin. “But apparently not enough to remember. If you only knew, you’d never doubt me again.”
“I already said I don’t doubt you! I was half deaf back then. And I was a little distracted by you bleeding to death in front of me.” The memory was fuzzy and not just because of my hearing. There’d been too much adrenaline, too many raging emotions.
I can’t wander far . . . not when . . . my Saasa is here . . .
“Saasa?” I asked. “What does it mean? Do I have it right?”
“I’ll tell you tonight in bed. During designated bantering time.”
I paused in scrutinizing my memories. “That’s designated bantering time?”
“Eh, I hear it’s all the same.” He put his hand behind my neck and pulled me to him, kissing me far more intensely than I would’ve expected with Silas and Aiana across the room. He drew back from the kiss but kept me close a few moments longer. “See you later, Mirabel.”
He left to take care of an errand Silas had asked him about previously, and I later found myself walking back to Wisteria Hollow with Aiana.
“Hey,” I asked her. “What does Saasa mean?”
“Saasa?”
“It was something Grant said. After he’d been shot and we were waiting for help.”
Aiana studied the road ahead as she thought. “It means axe. Also bubbly. Oh, wait. Saasa? Is that what you mean?”
“Isn’t that what I said?”
“You said Saasa.”
“They sound the same! What’s that one mean?”
“It’s a path made out of rocks. People use them in front of their homes.”
I shook my head. “Never mind. Sometimes your language is more annoying than fascinating.”
“Weren’t you deaf then?” she asked.
“Only partially.” I thought back to Grant’s face at Silas’s. “I’ve got it right. Or, well, I’m close.”
After several minutes of quiet walking, Aiana suddenly said, “There’s also Saasa.”
I withheld a sigh. It sounded like all the other variations. “What does it mean?”
“It’s like, oh, I can’t think of which of your angels it’s named for.” She gestured in front of her, like she might grasp the meaning from the air. “The star that doesn’t move. The wayfarers’ star.”
I stopped walking. “Ariniel’s star.”
“Right. That’s the one.”
For Balanquans, Ariniel’s star is the wayfarers’ star—the star that always brings you home, no matter how lost you are. The only thing a wanderer can count on.
A smile began to creep over my face.
I can’t wander far . . . not when . . . my Saasa is here . . .
Aiana studied me curiously. “Do you think that’s it?”
“Without a doubt,” I said.
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