Seraphina(57)

Or maybe: I dondt like girls at all. I like Viridius.

It wasn’t that funny, but it gave me enough momentum to untie my sleeve and pull it up.

He froze for three heartbeats and then reached for my forearm gently, almost reverently, cradling it in his large hands, running a finger down the curving band of scales. “Ah.” He sighed. “Now thet all makes sense.”

I wished I could have shared that sentiment, wished it so hard that tears leaked down my cheeks. His expression closed again. I thought he was angry, but I revised that to “protective” when he wrapped me in a crushing embrace. We stood that way a long time. Thank Heaven no one came in; we’d have fueled palace gossip for months.

A passerby would not have heard the enormous black-clad man whisper in my ear: “Sesterleine!”

Little sister.





The Mirror Hymn went smoothly. Behind me the audience rose, and some sang along. I managed to keep reasonable time, although I was not as present as I should have been. I kept replaying those moments with Lars: the one where he’d called me sister, and then the conversation after.

“What is Josef to you?” I had asked him. “What’s going on, and is there any way I can help?”

“I dondt know what you mean,” he’d said, his eyes suddenly cold. “I hev said nothink against Josef.”

“Well, no, not to me,” I pressed on. “But you can’t deny—”

“I ken. And I do. Dondt speak to me of him again, grausleine.”

With that, he had stormed off.

Music surrounded me as I conducted, lifting my heart and bringing me back to myself. The choir belted out the last two lines: Undeserving, we are granted grace / We are a mirror raised to Heaven’s face. I smiled warmly at my singers, and they returned the favor fiftyfold from all around me.

The choir cleared the stage and the symphonia moved in. My work was finished now, and I could dance as much as I liked, meaning exactly once. It was kind of Kiggs to choose a pavano, which consisted of walking in a stately circle. I could manage that.

Servants scurried around, pulling chairs and benches toward the walls, redistributing candelabra, bringing people drinks. I was parched myself; being onstage dries you right up. I made for the drinks table in the far corner and found myself behind the Ardmagar. He spoke grandiloquently to a server: “True, our scholars and diplomats drink no intoxicants, but it’s less a rule and more of a guideline, a concession to your people, who tend toward paranoia at the idea of a dragon losing control. Dragons, like you, have different tolerances. A bit of wine may be taken by one as conscientious as myself, and no harm done.”

His eyes glittered as he took the proffered cup; he looked around at the room as if it were made of gold. Other guests, bright as poppies, paired up in anticipation of the dancing. The symphonia finished tuning and sent a warm chord wafting over the room.

“I haven’t taken human form in forty years,” said the Ardmagar. With a start, I realized he was addressing me. He turned his cup in his fat fingers, giving me sly, sidelong looks. “I forget what it’s like, how your very senses differ from ours. Sight and smell are frustratingly muted, but you compensate with the intensity of the others.”

I curtsied, not wanting to engage him in conversation. More of my mother’s memories might be waiting to pounce on me. The tin box was quiet, for now.

He persisted: “Everything tastes of ash to us, and our scales permit little sensitivity to touch. We hear well, but your auditory nerve connects to some emotional center—all your senses link to emotion, absurdly, but that one in particular … that’s why you make music, isn’t it? To tickle that part of your brain?”

I could tolerate this kind of incomprehension from Orma, but this arrogant old saar irritated me. “Our reasons are more complicated than that.”

He waved a hand and puffed his lips dismissively. “We have studied art from every conceivable angle. There is nothing rational in it. It is, in the end, just another form of autogratification.”

He swallowed his wine and went back to observing the ball. He was like a child gawping at spectacle, dazzled by the vast sensory banquet before him: sweet perfume and spicy wine, the patter of ball slippers, the scrape of bows on strings. He reached out and touched a countess’s green silk gown as she rustled past. Mercifully, she did not notice.

Couples took the floor for a cinque pas. Comonot gazed at them tenderly, as if they were cherry blossoms—not an expression one typically sees on a saarantras—and I wondered how many glasses of wine he’d had. It bothered me that he could stand here playing the sensualist while Orma couldn’t even talk to me without taking precautions against the Censors.

“Is this dance difficult?” he asked, leaning in close. I stepped away from him; he was unlikely to smell my scales while he was in his cups, but there was no point taking unnecessary risks.

“This one intrigues me,” he said. “I want to try everything. It may be another forty years before I take this shape again.”

Was he asking me to dance? No, he was asking me to ask him. I could not decide whether this was flattering or irritating. I kept my voice neutral. “I’ve never danced the cinque pas. If you watch the dancers carefully and analyze the steps, you should uncover repeating patterns, which I suspect parallel the repetitions in the music.”