Shadow Scale: A Companion to Seraphina(139)

“It’s possible to reflect her mind-fire,” said Camba thoughtfully, sitting up straighter. “I tried something like that once, on an intuition. I stood at the end of the line during St. Abaster’s Trap and pushed the fire back at her with all my will. It stung her like a bee.” Camba rubbed her leg absently. “She was furious. That’s when she made Gianni throw me down the stairs.”

I winced. “It didn’t incapacitate her, though?”

Camba shook her head. “It hurt enough that she doesn’t let me participate in the trap anymore. I can’t even climb the tower. Also, she takes a precaution: she stands in the middle of the line instead of at the end. If anyone reflects fire back at her, it will roll past and carry on down the line. If both ends reflected it at the same time, though, perhaps she would be caught between two waves.”

“Was it hard to reflect the fire?”

“You must be consciously present,” said Camba, making a bowl of her hands, as if that were where awareness might be centered. “You have to time it so that just as it reaches you, you harden against it.”

“I can’t participate in St. Abaster’s Trap because I’ve bound myself up. You can’t participate. There’s only one of us who might be able to help,” I said, thinking of Nedouard, “and I don’t know if his mind is strong enough.”

“Ingar would help,” said Camba. Ingar lolled at the end of the bed, humming tunelessly. “We would need to explain the plan when he’s lucid, so he understands. You could trigger his mind-pearl at the last moment.”

That would require me to go to the top of the tower while they practiced, and Jannoula had never yet let me do that. Surely I could bluff her; to my surprise, I rather looked forward to trying.

“Won’t Jannoula learn the triggering word if I say it aloud?” I asked.

Camba scoffed. “It’s subtly pronounced, and he only wakes if you speak it exactly right. Ingar has a finely tuned ear for language, even in this state.”

The word was guaiong, antique Zibou for “oyster”—Ingar’s little play on the idea of mind-pearls, I supposed. I practiced saying it, under Camba’s patient tutelage; there were entirely too many vowels. It took a quarter of an hour, but I finally resurrected Ingar’s will consistently. He understood the plan and approved. I practiced a few times more, until a dire headache overtook him and we had to quit. He lay with his head on Camba’s lap, and she rubbed his forehead.

Camba’s eyes held a cautious hope. “If this succeeds, I will try to unhook Jannoula from the others,” she said softly. “I can’t reach out to them without opening the door that would let her fully into my mind. I’ve tried it; even when she was sleeping, she noticed immediately. I can’t help anyone else when I’m fighting for sovereignty of my own mind. If she were incapacitated, though, I could surely free the others.”

“What about yourself?”

Camba shook her head. “I don’t know. Pende always said it’s impossible to free yourself, but perhaps it depends on how inert she is.”

I nodded slowly, wondering if there was a way to keep Jannoula incapacitated. Nedouard might have some drug that would do the trick. I would talk to him next.

I left Camba’s and crept through the sleeping tower to Nedouard’s room on the fifth floor. He was awake. I entered silently, closed the door behind me, and whispered in the old doctor’s ear, “I have a plan for tomorrow.”

“Don’t tell me too much.” His beak made his whisper a challenge to understand. “I’ve evaded her interest so far, but she could pry anything out of me if she wished.”

I told him what he was to do, and no more. He scratched his ear uncertainly. “I’m not sure I can do what you ask,” he said. “Is that really all it takes to reflect the fire? I simply will myself to be a mirror?”

“Yes,” I said firmly, hoping it was true, trying not to let him see my doubts.

“Pray it works,” said Nedouard. I kissed his cheek in parting, trying to reassure him, though I no longer had any notion whom or what to pray to.



Goredd’s last peaceful morning dawned drizzly and gray. I stumbled down to breakfast, having barely slept, but before I could sit, Jannoula was at my elbow. “Today’s the day,” she said breathily in my ear. “You’re coming with me.”

“Coming where?” I said, instantly wary, but she only smiled in answer and steered me out of the tower, across the puddle-flecked courtyard, and into the palace proper. Down some corridors, up some stairs, and into the royal family’s wing of the palace we went, stopping before a familiar door. The guards grunted and nodded, barely looking at us.

I entered the airy gold-and-blue sitting room. The table still stood before the tall windows, where once they’d fed Queen Lavonda her breakfast, and seated there were two of my dearest friends. Kiggs was on his feet at once, his face disconcertingly clean-shaven and his dark eyes twinkling; Glisselda, dressed for council in her stiffest brocades, smiled radiantly and cried, “Surprise!”

Her expression took me aback more than the word; she hadn’t looked so merry in nine months. I smiled back, momentarily forgetting the Saint at my elbow.

“We’ve got council in half an hour, but we hoped you’d take breakfast with us,” said Kiggs solemnly, tugging at the hem of his scarlet doublet. “Blessed Jannoula said it’s your birthday in two days, but we’ll be too preoccupied to celebrate properly then.”