Seraphina(17)

“With respect, master, I wasn’t even hired a month ago.”

“Do you think I don’t know that?” His mouth worked up and down; he stared at his bandaged hands. “Forgive me,” he said at last, his voice rough. “It is a bitter thing not to be able to do everything you are accustomed to. Die while you’re young, Seraphina. Tertius had the right idea.”

I did not know how to respond to that. I said, “It’s not as dire as it seems. Each of your many protégés will attend; the program is half filled already.”

He nodded thoughtfully at the mention of his students; the man had more protégés than most people have friends. It was nearly time for Princess Glisselda’s lesson, so I corked the ink and began hastily cleaning my pen with a rag. Viridius said, “When can you meet with my megaharmonium fellow?”

“Who?” I said, placing the pen in a box with the others.

He rolled his red-rimmed eyes. “Explain why I write you notes if you don’t read them. The designer of the megaharmonium wants to meet you.” Apparently I continued to look blank, because he spoke loudly and slowly, as if I were stupid: “The enormous instrument we’re building in the south transept of St. Gobnait’s? The me-ga-har-mo-ni-um?”

I recalled the construction I’d seen in the cathedral, but not the note, which I must have overlooked. “It’s a musical instrument? It looks like a machine.”

“It’s both!” he cried, his eyes alight with glee. “And it’s nearly finished. I funded half of it myself. It’s a fitting project for an old man on his way out of this life. A legacy. It will make a sound like nothing this world has ever heard before!”

I gaped at him; I’d glimpsed an excitable young man inside the irascible old one.

“You must meet him, my other protégé. Lars,” he proclaimed as if he were the Bishop of Gout Couch, speaking ex cathedra. “He built the Comonot Countdown Clock in the cathedral plaza, too; he’s a veritable prodigy. You would get along famously. He only comes by late, but I shall persuade him to visit at some reasonable hour. I’ll tell you when I see you this evening at the Blue Salon.”

“Not tonight, forgive me,” I said, rising and pulling my harpsichord books off one of Viridius’s cluttered shelves.

Princess Glisselda held a soiree almost every evening in the Blue Salon. I had a standing invitation to attend but had never gone, despite Viridius’s pestering and snarling at me. Being guarded and cautious all day left me exhausted by evening, and I couldn’t stay out late because I had a garden to tend and a scale-care regimen I couldn’t skip. I could tell Viridius none of that; I had pled shyness repeatedly, but still he pushed.

The old man cocked a bushy eyebrow and scratched his jowls. “You will get nowhere at court by isolating yourself, Seraphina.”

“I am exactly where I wish to be,” I said, thumbing through parchment sheets.

“You risk offending Princess Glisselda by snubbing her invitation.” He squinted at me shrewdly and added: “It’s not quite normal to be so antisocial, now is it?”

My insides tensed. I shrugged, determined to give no hint that I was susceptible to the word normal.

“You will come tonight,” said the old man.

“I already have plans tonight,” I said, smiling; this was why I practiced.

“Then you will come tomorrow night!” he cried, bursting with anger at me now. “The Blue Salon, nine o’clock! You will be there, or you will find yourself abruptly out of employment!”

I could not tell whether he was bluffing; I didn’t know him well enough yet. I took a shaky breath. It wouldn’t kill me to go once, for half an hour. “Forgive me, sir,” I said, inclining my head. “Of course I’ll come. I had not understood how important it was to you.”

Keeping my smile raised like a shield between us, I curtsied and quit the room.





I heard them giggling from out in the corridor, Princess Glisselda and whichever lady-in-waiting she’d dragged along with her this time. It sounded like an agemate, from the pitch of the giggle. I wondered, briefly, what a giggle concerto might sound like. We would need a chorus of—

“Is she very, very cranky?” asked the lady-in-waiting.

I froze. That question couldn’t pertain to me, surely?

“Behave!” cried the princess, her laugh like water. “I said prickly, not cranky!”


I felt my face go hot. Prickly? Was I really?

“She’s good-hearted, anyway,” added Princess Glisselda, “which makes her Viridius’s opposite. And nearly pretty, only she does have such dreadful taste in gowns and I can’t work out what she thinks she’s doing with her hair.”

“That might be easily corrected,” said the lady-in-waiting.

I’d heard enough. I stepped through the doorway, fuming but trying not to confirm my reputation. The lady-in-waiting was half Porphyrian, judging by her dark curls and warm brown skin; she put a hand to her mouth, embarrassed at being overheard. Princess Glisselda said, “Phina! We were just talking about you!”

It is a princess’s privilege to feel no social awkwardness, ever. She smiled, gloriously unashamed; the sunlight through the windows behind her made a halo of her golden hair. I curtsied and approached the harpsichord.