Seraphina(51)

“Turn your back toward Basind,” Orma whispered. “I don’t want him to see me give you this.”

It was a bit late to start pretending he was a law-abiding saar. “Give me what?”


Never taking his eyes off the newskin, Orma pretended to scratch his head. His hand came down and pressed cold metal into mine. It was one of his earrings. I gasped and tried to hand it back. Orma said, “The Censors aren’t watching. A quig modified them for me.”

“Won’t the Censors notice they can’t check in on you anymore?”

“I’m sure they already have. They’ll see to it I get a new pair. It’s happened before. Switch it on if you’re in trouble, and I’ll come as soon as I can.”

“I promised I wouldn’t go looking for Imlann.”

“Trouble may find you,” he said. “I have an interest in this particular problem.”

I tucked the earring into my bodice and we turned back toward the table. Basind’s tunic was covered with grubby handprints; his dinner was gone, but it wasn’t clear he’d been the one to eat it. He looked bewildered, or like his face had melted a little.

“We must return to St. Ida’s,” said Orma, extending a hand to me to show Basind how it was done. I shook it, trying to hide my amusement. We never shook hands.

Basind tried it next but he wouldn’t let go. When I finally pried him off, he gave me a look I didn’t dare identify. “Touch me again!” he rasped, and my stomach turned.

“Home,” said Orma. “You have meditation and partitioning to practice.”

Basind whined, rubbing his hand fiercely as if he could recover something of my touch, but he followed my uncle up the tavern stairs, docile as a lamb.

I checked with the tapmaster that Orma had paid for our dinner; one could never be certain he’d remember something like that. I took one last look around this peculiar, smelly slice of interspecies coexistence, the treaty’s mad dream come to raucous life, then took myself toward the stairs.

“Maidy?” said a hesitant voice at my back. I turned to see a fresh-faced young student with chalk dust in his hair. In one hand he grasped a very short straw; behind him an entire table of young men pretended not to be watching.

“Are you rushing off?” He didn’t stammer with his voice but with his waving hands and his nervous blink. “Would you not join us? We’re all human over here—well, except for Jim—and we’re not bad company. We wouldn’t have to talk math. It’s just … we’ve seen no human girls in Quighole since dissection was outlawed!”

Almost the entire table behind him burst out laughing; the saarantras looked baffled by everyone else’s reaction, saying, “But he’s not wrong, is he?”

I couldn’t stop myself from laughing along with them; in fact, I found myself tempted far more by this offer than by Guntard’s invitation to the Sunny Monkey. These chalk-dusted fellows, arguing and scribbling trigonometry on the table, felt familiar to me, as if St. Bert’s Collegium attracted all the most saar-like humans. I patted his shoulder in a comradely fashion and said, “Honestly, I wish I could stay. For future reference: do not underestimate the seductive power of math. If I come again, I shall expect to scrawl on the tables right along with you.”

His friends welcomed him back to the table, hooting and toasting his bravery. I smiled to myself. First those aged knights, and now this. I was evidently the sweetheart of all Goredd. That made me laugh, and laughing gave me the courage to plunge out into the night, away from the warmth of this gathering.





It was late enough when I reached Castle Orison that I wasn’t sure where I’d find Lucian Kiggs. It occurred to me that I could check the Blue Salon, where Princess Glisselda was almost certainly holding her miniature court, but I feared I smelled of tavern—or worse yet, quigutl—and surely by the time I changed clothes and cleaned up, it would be too late and everyone would have gone to bed.

I knew better than that; I just didn’t want to go.

I went to my suite and wrote Kiggs a note:

Your Highness:



I spoke with Orma, but alas, he could not identify the rogue dragon from the knights’ description. However, I forgot to mention to you that the knights claimed one of their own, Sir James Peascod, specialized in identifying dragons during the war. Sir James was there the evening of the rogue’s visit and may have recognized him. I think it would be well worth interviewing him about this matter.



I hope you didn’t put off speaking with Eskar in hopes that I would return with useful information. My apologies for Orma’s vagueness.



I couldn’t work out how to sign off; everything seemed too familiar or ridiculously stiff. I decided to err on the side of stiff, given how I’d begun the letter. I found a page boy in the corridor and handed it off to him. I bid all my grotesques good night and went to bed early; tomorrow was going to be the longest of long days.





The sun rose into a dappled sky, pink and gray like the belly of a trout. The maids were pounding on my locked door before I was done washing; the breakfast hall was abuzz with anticipation. The green and purple banner of Belondweg, Goredd’s first queen, flew from every turret and hung in long drapes upon the houses in town. A line of carriages ran all the way from Stone Court to the bottom of Castle Hill: dignitaries arriving from all over the Southlands. No one dared miss this rare opportunity to meet with Ardmagar Comonot in human form.