Seraphina(109)

“Moving. Not well. Eskar’s there; she’ll see to his care.” I hoped she would. Was she really no longer with the Censors? She was the one who’d made my uncle look after Basind. Had she known who he was? I wept into Lars’s jerkin.

There was another hand on my shoulder. Princess Glisselda was giving me her handkerchief. “Are these your formidable mental powers?” she asked softly. “You can see your comrades in your mind? Is that how you found me?”

“She can see only other helf-dragons,” said Lars, glaring unnecessarily.

“There are more half-dragons?” whispered Glisselda, her blue eyes wide.

“Mise,” said Lars. “I, myself.”

The princess nodded slowly, her brow furrowed in thought. “And that little Porphyrian boy. That’s who you’re talking about, isn’t it?”

Kiggs was shaking his head, pacing in a futile circle. “I might believe there was one in the world, but three?”

“Four, counting Dame Okra Carmine,” I said wearily. May as well out the whole bunch, although I had a feeling Dame Okra would be irked that I had done so. “There could be seventeen of us together, if I located the rest.” Eighteen, if I found Jannoula, or she found me.

Glisselda looked awed, but Kiggs set his jaw as if he wasn’t buying it.

“You heard Basind call Orma my uncle,” I told him. “Remember how you thought I loved him, how you were sick of guessing? Here’s your explanation at last.”

Kiggs was shaking his head stubbornly. “I just can’t … Your blood runs red. You laugh and cry the same as anyone—”

Lars seemed to grow taller, looming protectively over me. I put a reassuring hand on his arm and told him in my mind: It’s time. I can do this.

The prince and princess stared, mesmerized by how many sleeves and ties I had to undo. I held my bared arm toward them; sunlight flashed off the spiraling silver scales.

The icy wind blew. No one spoke.

Kiggs and Glisselda did not move. I did not look at their faces; I did not wish to read how many different words for disgust must be written there. I tugged my garments back into place, cleared the considerable lump out of my throat, and croaked, “We should get inside and see who else still lives.”

The royal cousins started, as if waking from some terrible dream, and hastened into the cave, ahead of and away from me. Lars put his arm around my shoulders. I leaned on him all the way into the castle, weeping half my tears for Orma and half for myself.





All the palace was in an uproar when we got back, searching for Glisselda; no one but us had known where she’d gone. She stepped out of the tunnels a tired, cold, frightened girl, but within moments, before she’d even heard the fates of her mother and grandmother, she had put her queenliness on and was reassuring panicked courtiers and terrified heads of state.

Princess Dionne had not survived the night. The Queen held on, but barely. Glisselda hurried upstairs to be at her grandmother’s side.

Kiggs went straight to his guards, demanding reports and making sure they had shifted smoothly to daytime duties. They had detained Basind; Kiggs decided he could use a good questioning and hastened off.

Lars and I were left to fend for ourselves. Without a word, he took my arm and led me through twists and turns of the corridors until we reached a door. Viridius’s manservant, Marius, answered. Viridius was shouting in the background: “What kind of whoreson dog knocks before the sun is up?”

“The sun is up, Master,” said Marius wearily, rolling his eyes and waving us through. “It’s only Lars and—”

Viridius darkened the doorway of the bedchamber, hauling himself forward with two canes. His expression softened at the sight of us. “Pardon me, my dears. You’ve awakened an old man on the wrong side of the bed.”

Lars, who was propping me up, intoned, “She needts a place to sleep.”

“She hasn’t a suite of her own anymore?” asked Viridius, clearing cushions and a robe off his couch for me. “Sit, Seraphina, you look terrible.”

“Her true nature is revealedt to the princess and prince,” said Lars, laying a hand on the old man’s shoulder. “She shouldt not hev to face the worldt until she rests, quiet, away from peoples.”

Marius went to the solarium to arrange a makeshift bed for me, but I fell asleep right there on the couch.

I dozed on and off all day. Viridius and Lars kept everyone away and asked no questions.

The next morning I awoke to Lars sitting at the end of my impromptu bed. “The princess was here,” he said. “She wants thet we come to the Queen’s studty when you are dressedt. A lot is heppenedt.”

I nodded blearily. He gave me his arm and we went together. Princess Glisselda had commandeered her grandmother’s massive desk; eight high-backed chairs, most of them already occupied, had been placed in a semicircle before her. Kiggs sat behind her to the left perusing a folded letter; he flicked his eyes toward the door when Lars and I entered but did not raise his head. To the princess’s right, like a gray shadow near the windows, stood my father. He smiled wanly. I nodded at him and followed Lars toward the two empty seats beside Dame Okra Carmine.

Abdo peeked out from behind her ample form and waved at me.

The Regent of Samsam, Count Pesavolta of Ninys, Ambassador Fulda, and the Ardmagar occupied the other seats. The Regent was clad all in severe black, his silver hair brushing his shoulders, while Count Pesavolta was wide, apple-cheeked, and bald; they wore similar sour expressions, however. Lars slumped beside me as if to make himself smaller, casting wary glances at the Regent.