Seraphina(102)

“Of course,” said Kiggs, but the question clearly took him aback. I could see him trying to account for the whereabouts of his grandmother, aunt, and cousin, and coming to the disturbing conclusion that he didn’t know where any of them were.

“I know you don’t know where your auntie is,” said Comonot with a disconcerting leer.

Kiggs and I stared at him in horror. “What are you implying, Ardmagar?” said Kiggs, a tremor in his voice.

“Merely that you aren’t as observant as you think,” said Comonot, “and that—” He broke off abruptly; his face paled. “By all that glitters, I’m as stupid as you are.”

He took off at a run. Kiggs and I were on his heels, Kiggs crying, “Where is she?”

The Ardmagar turned up the grand marble stair. He took the steps two at a time. “Who did the assassin intend to stab,” cried Comonot, “before he settled for Seraphina?”

“Where is Aunt Dionne, Ardmagar?” Kiggs shouted.

“In my rooms!” said the saar, who was panting now.

Kiggs sprinted past him up the stairs, toward the royal family’s wing of the palace.





Comonot and I reached his quarters at the same time; Kiggs had arrived well before us with a few guards he’d picked up along the way. We entered just as a guard rushed back out, and we soon saw why: Kiggs had sent him running for the physician.

Kiggs and the other guard helped Princess Dionne off the floor, trying to get her into a semi-upright position on the couch. Kiggs reached a couple of fingers into her mouth, trying to make her vomit. She obliged, a sticky purple mess right into the guard’s waiting helmet, but she didn’t look any better afterward.

She’d gone green; her eyes showed a disturbing amount of white, and she couldn’t seem to focus them. “Apsig! Wine!” she croaked. The guard, taking that as a request, began to pour her a glass from the bottle on the table, but Kiggs slapped the glass out of his hand. It shattered across the floor.

“The wine has made her ill, obviously,” said Kiggs through gritted teeth, trying to keep his aunt from falling off the couch as she convulsed. Comonot rushed in to help restrain her. “How long have you had that bottle, Ardmagar?”

“That’s not mine. She must have brought it with her.” His eyes grew wide. “Did she intend to poison me?”

“Don’t be an idiot!” said Kiggs, letting his anger run roughshod over his manners. “Why would she have drunk it herself?”

“Remorse at what she was about to do?”

“That’s not how it works, you stupid dragon!” cried Kiggs, his voice choked with tears, wiping foam from her lips. “Why was she meeting you here? Why was she bringing you wine? Why do you think you can come to Goredd and playact being human when you know nothing about it?”

“Kiggs,” I said, tentatively placing a hand on his arm. He jerked away from me.

Comonot leaned against the back of the couch, stunned. “I—I don’t know nothing, exactly. That is, I’m feeling something. I don’t know what it is.” He turned pleading eyes toward me, but I did not know what to tell him.

The physician arrived with three female assistants. I helped them carry Dionne to the bed, where they stripped her, sponged her, bled her, fed her charcoal powder, and examined the wine and vomit closely for clues to which antidote they should use. Comonot, who had no business seeing her unclothed, wandered in unchallenged and stood gaping at her. Kiggs paced the outer room.

A terrible notion struck me. I turned to rush out, but Comonot grabbed my sleeve. “Help me,” he said. “I feel something—”

“Guilt,” I snapped, trying to free myself.

“Make it go away!” He looked nakedly terrified.

“I can’t.” I glanced over at the commotion on the bed; Dionne was convulsing again. I felt a pang of pity for the foolish old saar. We were all at a loss, dragon and human both, in the face of death. I put a hand to his fleshy cheek and spoke as to a child: “Stay. Help as you can; she may yet be saved. I have to make sure no one else dies tonight.”

I hurried out to Kiggs. He sat on the couch, elbows on knees, hands covering his mouth, eyes wide. “Kiggs!” He did not look at me. I knelt before him. “Get up. This isn’t over.” He looked at me blankly. I let myself touch his disheveled hair. “Where’s Selda? Where’s your grandmother? We need to make sure they’re safe.”

That did it. He leaped to his feet. We rushed to their respective suites, but neither Queen nor princess was napping in her own bed. “Glisselda intended to talk to her,” Kiggs said. “They’re probably together. In the Queen’s study, or …” He shrugged. I turned that direction, but he grabbed a lantern, caught my arm, and took me through a concealed door in the wall of the Queen’s bedroom into a maze of passages.

The way was narrow; I walked behind him. When I could stand the silence no longer, I asked, “You heard your aunt say ‘Apsig’?”

He nodded. “The implication seems clear enough.”

“That Josef gave her the wine? Was it intended merely for the Ardmagar, or—”

“Both, without question.” He looked back at me, his face in shadow: “Aunt Dionne was supposed to have met Comonot at the cathedral.”