Shadow Scale: A Companion to Seraphina(129)

“I see where this is going,” I said as Kiggs lit the second lantern from the first. “One day Pau-Henoa, the rabbit trickster, came along.”

“Of course he did,” said Kiggs, handing me the lantern. We set off walking again, up the cave-like tunnel toward the locked doors of Castle Orison. “The story is much more complicated and hilarious than I can remember, unfortunately, but the upshot is that Pau-Henoa persuaded Dowl that most of what he had ‘inside’ his house was junk. The mountains were broken; the oceans smelled; vermin were everywhere. Dowl began to throw things away, pitching them ‘outside.’ The one-room shack expanded and expanded until everything we see today—the whole universe—was ‘outside’ Dowl’s house.”

I laughed, picturing the universe bounded by the walls of a house, and Dowl all by himself on the other side of those walls—the “inside.”

“Inside Dowl’s house is nothing now,” said Kiggs in a half whisper, as if this were a ghost story. “Nothing but a desperate, empty longing.”

It was a place that wasn’t a place, an inside that surrounded the outside. I said, “What made you think to tell me all this?”

We’d reached the first of three locked doors; he pulled a key out of his sleeve and waggled it at me. “The paradox of your garden. The garden wall is an inside-out house. The space you think of as ‘inside’ your garden isn’t; it’s outside. Your wider mind, including your mind-fire, is actually inside the house, perfectly contained.”

When I tried to picture it, my thoughts got tied in knots, but one fact stood out to me: the entire point of the wall had been to contain my mind, to prevent it from reaching out to other ityasaari. Of course my mind-fire had to be inside the wall.

Kiggs locked the door behind us, his eyes twinkling in the lantern light. “It just struck me as a way of thinking about it. There is no literal garden, one presumes, and no physical wall.” He took my arm. “I cannot quite believe how merry I feel,” he said, still explaining. “It is a joy and an infinite relief to take action at last—any action. I have felt stymied and incapable, Seraphina, but now here we are walking toward a mystery, just like old times.” He squeezed my arm. “I could tell you a dozen stories.”

Around us the darkness hovered tenderly. We passed through it.



Kiggs knew the castle inside and out. It was riddled with hidden passages, but they weren’t contiguous. We couldn’t get all the way to Glisselda’s suite without crossing empty rooms or, worse, public corridors. I followed Kiggs, hushing when he signaled, removing my boots and carrying them. We sneaked through the boudoirs of sleeping courtiers, and one room where they weren’t sleeping but were eminently distracted.

We finally reached a narrow passage that ran the length of the royal family’s quarters. Kiggs touched a panel door wistfully as he passed, and I wondered whether that led to his own rooms. About twenty yards along, he paused at another door and pressed a finger to his lips. I nodded understanding. He beckoned me closer and whispered, “She will be surprised to see you, of course. Try to wake her gently. There will be a bodyguard in the antechamber and two more guards in the hallway.”

Kiggs released the spring latch mechanism, but the door did not swing inward. He handed me his lantern to hold and tried the latch again. He gave up on mechanical finesse and pushed the door with both hands, then with his back and legs. It wouldn’t budge.

“There’s something in the way of this door,” he said, no longer whispering. “A trunk, or a bookcase. Something heavy, as if she’s deliberately blocked it.” He gave it one last exasperated shove. “So much for speaking with her tonight, before Jannoula knows you’re here.”

“Could I go in through a window?” I said. His expression told me this was impossible. “How about the front door?” The impossibility in his expression deepened, which perversely amused me. “You’ve seen me bluff guards before. What’s the worst that could happen?”

“They arrest you and throw you in the donjon.”

“Which would bring me to Glisselda’s attention,” I said. “Not the entrance I planned, but I’ll work with whatever I get.”

He sighed, poor, long-suffering prince, but led me through the door we’d passed earlier and into a well-furnished suite. He didn’t confirm that these were his rooms, and there weren’t enough books for me to say with certainty—but then, his workspace was up in the East Tower. He wouldn’t have done much here but sleep.

At the door to the main corridor, he took the lanterns back and whispered, “The corridor does a dogleg, so they won’t see you emerge from this room. Peek around and choose your moment. You’ve got your thnik?”

I jabbed a finger at him. This one was a ring.

“I noticed you left the dagger behind,” he said quietly. “I considered bringing it, but decided you were making a principled choice. I hope we don’t regret that.”

I swiftly kissed the edge of his beard. That probably didn’t assuage his worry, but it raised my courage. I stepped outside, and he silently closed the door behind me.

I crept up on Glisselda’s guards, who sat facing each other on stools, engrossed in a card game. They did not see me until I was directly in front of her door. “Hoy, maidy, how’d you get up here?” said the taller guard, craning his neck to peer down the corridor, as if there might be more of me coming.