Shadow Scale: A Companion to Seraphina(133)

“You can see the entire Mews Valley from the top,” Jannoula said as we traversed one last courtyard, crisscrossed with red euonymus hedges. “It will be the perfect place from which to spring St. Abaster’s Trap.”

Lars and Abdo had bowled me over with Abaster’s Trap when it was just the two of them creating it. Jannoula had many more ityasaari at her disposal. That was a lot of power available to someone I didn’t trust.

Jannoula gazed at the crown of the tower, shading her eyes with one hand. “You realize that we, too, are Saints, as surely as St. Abaster himself.”

“I don’t believe that,” I said.

“Ingar brought me the testament of St. Yirtrudis; I read his translation, but I’d already gleaned that we ityasaari were Saints. It’s in my gift to apprehend these things.”

“The Saints were half-dragons. It doesn’t follow that all half-dragons are Saints.”

“Does it not?” she said, a smile playing on her narrow lips. “Do I not reveal the light of Heaven to humankind? Are we not all ablaze with soul-light? All of us but you.”

I studied her fine-boned face, trying to gauge how much she believed and how much was cynical pretense. She seemed sincere, which only made me more skeptical.

“Even with your stunted soul,” said Jannoula, “it’s still right that you’re here, Seraphina. This is to be the genesis of a new world, a new age of Saints, an era of peace. We will make ourselves a place of safety, and no one will ever harm us again.”

That, or something like it, had been my dream, too. I felt a little queasy.

“You will be my deputy,” she said, taking my arm, smiling as if this were the coziest thing in the world. “We all have jobs to do.”

“And everyone’s happy with this?” I asked, observing her shrewdly. “St. Pende’s been incapacitated, you broke St. Camba’s ankles, and St. Blanche wants to die.”

“Unavoidable casualties,” she snapped. “Everyone’s mind works differently. I haven’t found the easy way into them yet.”

“You lost St. Abdo altogether,” I said, goading her. I couldn’t stop myself.

“You’ve heard a lot of interesting things.” Her smile was brittle, her eyes hard. “From whom? I wonder. You needn’t worry about any of them.”

“I do worry,” I said quietly.

“Well then, perhaps that can be your job,” she said.

Along the western edge of the courtyard, workmen smoothed sand, laying a new flagstone path. “We’re calling that the Pilgrim’s Way,” she said. “It leads into the city, open and unobstructed for any who wish to approach us devotionally.”

We met townsfolk coming out of the tower, old crones, little girls, young wives of good households with servants in tow. At the sight of Jannoula, they pressed hands to their hearts and gave full courtesy. Two girls, maybe five years old, bumped each other as they curtsied, fell down, and burst into giggles. Jannoula pulled them to their feet, saying, “Stand, little birds, and Heaven smile on you.” Their mother, blushing, thanked Blessed Jannoula and led the giggling sisters away.

Was Jannoula showing them her mind-fire? I wished I could tell when she did it.

Jannoula lingered at the tower door, watching them go. “They come to cook for us and do our laundry. They bring fresh flowers, hang draperies, and sweep our floors.”

“How did you merit so much devotion so quickly?” I asked, making no attempt to keep the sarcasm out of my voice.

“I show them Heaven,” said Jannoula, without a trace of irony. “People are so desperate for light.”


She opened the tower door and mounted the spiral stairs. The walls were freshly whitewashed, the steps painted blue and gold. On the first floor, a short hallway spiked off from the stairwell; we didn’t go down it. We paused at the second floor, which comprised a single large room. The vaults of the ceiling were supported by a fat column in the center, like a date tree. Slim arrow loops had been converted to glass windows; a fire roared in the hearth. A lectern at the far end faced rows of stools, arrayed like pews in a chapel. Townswomen dusted the recesses of the vaulted ceiling with rags on long poles, polished the plank floor, and hung garlands of hedge laurel.

Jannoula pulled me back into the stairwell, leading me up two more stories to the fourth floor, where a short hallway ended in four blue doors. She opened one, revealing a wedge-shaped room. “I’ll have your things brought up from your old suite,” she said, leaning in so close she could have kissed me. “Yours is the most coveted room, of course. Directly next to mine.”



By afternoon, eager pilgrims had spirited my possessions—instruments, clothing, books—from my old suite to the Garden of the Blessed. I hovered, supervising, wincing as they banged my spinet on the spiral stairs. The instrument barely fit beside the narrow bed; I stowed my flute and oud under it. Most of my books were left behind, but I was told I could use Ingar’s library, imported all the way from Samsam, which took up the entire sixth floor. I jammed my sheet music into the crowded chest alongside the new gowns Jannoula had insisted I have, all crisp white linen.

My door hinges shrieked like the restless ghosts of cats. Floorboards grumbled crankily wherever I stepped. With Jannoula next door, sneaking out would be difficult; speaking with Kiggs on my thnik would require circumspection. The walls were thick stone, but rafters rested in open notches below the ceiling. All speech risked being overheard.