Seraphina(21)

“I would trade two thilver,” said the quig, noting where my attention lingered. “That may theem like more than tin ith worth, but it’th mechanically intricate.”


Behind my reptilian companion came the sound of horses. I glanced up, anxious that we would be seen. Quigs had been beaten in this town for harassing human women; I did not care to speculate about what happened to women who treated quigs kindly. The approaching riders stopped at the stable, however, and did not even glance in our direction. Their spurs jingled as their feet hit the paving stones. Each had a dagger tucked into his belt; the steel flashed in the lamplight.

I felt some urgency to send the quig along home and get myself to Orma’s. I had assumed the smell of saar blood had caused my sudden headache, but the pain had not yet dissipated. Two headaches on two consecutive days could only be trouble.

I extracted my purse from my sleeve. “I’ll trade, but you must assure me that ‘mechanically intricate’ doesn’t mean ‘illegal.’ ” Certain quigutl devices—those that could see, hear, or speak across great distances—could only be carried by saarantrai. Certain others, such as door worms or anything explosive, could be carried by no one.

The creature affected shock. “Nothing illegal! I am a law-abiding—”

“Except for staying put in Quighole after dark,” I chided, paying the quig its silver. It tossed the coins into its mouth. I put the lizard figurine in my purse and drew the leather strings tight.

When I looked up again, the quigutl was gone, vanished completely without a sound. The two riders were hurrying toward me, daggers drawn. “St. Daan in a pan!” one cried. “The sticky shite-eater scuttled right up the side of the house!”

“Are you all right, maidy?” asked the other, the shorter of the two, grabbing my upper arm urgently. His breath was tavernesque.

“Thank you for chasing it off,” I said, pulling myself out of his grasp. My head pounded. “It was panhandling. You know how tenacious they can be.”

Shorty noticed my purse in my hand. “Aw, cack, you didn’t give it any money, did you? That only encourages the vermin.”

“Begging worms!” snarled the tall fellow, still scanning the side of the building, dagger held ready. He looked like Shorty’s brother, with his identical wide nose. I guessed they were merchants; their well-tailored but sturdy woolen clothing spoke of money mixed with practicality.

Tallfellow spat. “You can’t go five blocks without getting hit up.”

“You can’t go into your own cellar but there’s one curled up in a crate of onions,” said Shorty, flapping his arms histrionically. “Our sister Louisa once found one stuck to the underside of her dining room table. It breathed its pestilence all over her Speculus feast and gave her baby the falling sickness. But can her husband defend himself against this invader in his own home? Not without landing in prison!”

I knew of that case. My father had defended the quigutl, but gates went up at the entrances to Quighole, locking its nonhuman denizens in at night—for their own safety, of course. The law-abiding saarantrai scholars at St. Bert’s Collegium had objected; my father had represented them too, to no avail. Quighole became more of a hole.

I wished I could have told these brothers that the quigutl meant no harm, that the creatures seemed unable to grasp the difference between mine and yours when it came to living space, and that pigs smelled just as bad, but no one suspected pigs of harboring malevolent intentions or spreading disease. I could tell the men would not have thanked me for enlightening them.

The brothers glowed, a fierce luminescence just under their skin, as if their innards were molten lead, as if they would burst into flame at any moment.

Oh no. That was the halo, the only warning I got before a vision overtook me. I could do nothing to stop it now. I sat down in the street and curled my head between my knees so that I would not hit it when I fell.

“Are you unwell?” asked Shorty, his voice reaching me in waves, as if he were talking through water.

“Don’t let me bite my tongue,” I managed to say before I collapsed and all my consciousness whirled down into the vortex of vision.





My invisible vision-eye hovered at the ceiling of a room containing three massive beds and a riot of unpacked luggage. Silk scarves in green, gold, and rose were heaped up in a corner, tangled with iridescent beaded necklaces, feathered fans, and strings of tarnished coins. It was clearly an inn; each of the beds could have held six people.

There was only one person in the room now. I knew him, though he’d grown in the years since my last vision and this time he wasn’t up a tree.

A Porphyrian woman stuck her head through the doorway; felted locks as thick as fingers, each tipped with a silver bead, framed her face. She spoke Porphyrian to Fruit Bat, who sat on the center bed with his legs folded and his gaze upon the ceiling. He startled as if she’d broken his concentration. Her eyebrows rose apologetically and she mimed eating something. He shook his head, and she closed the door without a sound.

He stood up, his bare feet sinking into the lumpy straw mattress. He wore Porphyrian trousers and a knee-length tunic, a paedis charm on a cord around his neck, and small gold earrings. He waved his hands slowly through the air as if he were breaking cobwebs overhead. The straw tick didn’t have much spring to it, but he leaped as high as he could and touched the ceiling on the third try.