Shadow Scale: A Companion to Seraphina(153)

Camba was healing; she began to take her first hobbling steps around the palace gardens with a cane. Pende, alas, was not so fortunate. I had been hoping against all reason that Jannoula’s departure might bring about some kind of recovery for the old priest, but he still lay inertly, his condition unchanged.

Ingar brought him outside into the wan autumn sunshine to watch Camba practice walking. The old man stared at nothing, his wattled chin sunk to his chest.

I was helping Camba keep her balance while Ingar adjusted Pende’s lap blanket. “I feel terrible about Paulos Pende,” I said quietly, adjusting my arm around Camba’s waist. “If I could have unbound myself sooner, maybe—”

“I also tend to blame myself first,” said Camba. Her head was still shaved for mourning, though she’d rehung her golden earrings. “The world is seldom so simple that it hinges on us alone. Pende played his own part. He told you your mind was bound and that it was a problem, but did he make even the slightest attempt to help you?”

“He doesn’t deserve this,” I said, unsure where her argument was leading.

“Of course not,” said Camba. “And neither do you deserve all the blame. Sometimes everyone does their best and things still end up wrong.”

While I considered this, Ingar approached us, smiling widely. I ceded my place to him. “I think we can keep the old man comfortable as we travel,” said Ingar. “There are carriages designed for invalids, with good springs so they don’t jostle too much. I’ll take Phloxia to procure one; if there was ever anyone born to deal with merchants, it’s her.”

I noticed the pronouns. “You’re going back to Porphyry, Ingar?”

“I didn’t get enough time at the library,” he said, kissing Camba on the cheek. Camba kissed his bald head.

“Your own library is here now,” I said, surprised that I wanted him to stay.

His eyes softened apologetically. “I’ve read all the books in my library.”

“Of course,” I said. “How silly of me.”

I embraced them both together. Camba held on to me for a long time.

“You will come to us in Porphyry again,” she said. “There will always be a place for you in our garden.”

“Thank you, sister,” I said, my voice constricting.

The Porphyrians were ready to leave within three days. It hurt to let them go, but it hurt the most with Abdo.

The boy, bless him, had not stopped talking since he arrived, but at least he’d finally worked out how to whisper. It hadn’t been trivial; he could broadcast his voice to the entire city if he wished. We had all been subjected to random bursts of Abdo’s spooky, disembodied voice. Speaking softly, or to just a few people at once, took more finesse.

On Abdo’s last evening, I joined him, Kiggs, and Selda in a small parlor in the royal family’s wing of the palace. Abdo seemed finally to have realized he was leaving, and was quieter than usual. “You’re welcome to stay,” said the Queen gently. “We have plenty of good uses we could put you to. Maybe even devious uses.”


Abdo shook his head. “I have to get home.” He looked at his fingers, the strong and the still, twisting in his lap. “I need to make up with my mother. When I saw …” He paused, as if looking for the words. “What was it like for you, Phina, when you opened your mind wide and saw everything?”

Blood rose to my cheeks. I hadn’t discussed it, except for what I’d told Kiggs (which seemed a bit embarrassing now). I didn’t feel capable of talking about it. “There was a great brightness and, um … Imagine what it would look like if you could see music, or thought.”

Glisselda’s gaze grew distant, as if she were trying to picture it; Kiggs leaned forward, elbows on his knees, and asked, “Was it Heaven?”

That question took me aback, but Abdo answered it: “That’s how your Saints interpreted it. It looked like our gods, to me—not literally, not the way they’re depicted in statues, but the vibrant space between them, where Necessity is Chance and Chance flows into Necessity. The world is as it must be, and as it happens to be, and those are the same thing, connected and right, and you understand and love all of it, because you are all of it and all of it is you.”

“In love with all the world,” said Kiggs, quoting Pontheus.

That was exactly what I’d felt—it almost brought tears to my eyes to remember—but Abdo’s eloquent explanation still didn’t capture it. You couldn’t put words on something like that. Heaven, gods—these were concepts far too small.

I said, “So what happens when you make up with your priestess mother? Will you join the temple you once scorned?” It sounded harsh when I said it aloud, but I did not see how Abdo was going to fit everything he had experienced into the confines of a temple.

But then, I was managing to fit into myself.

“Something like that,” Abdo said, smiling.

“I think that’s very admirable,” said Glisselda, raising her chin and giving me a stern look. “If your priesthood is anything like ours, Abdo, they need good-hearted people like you. You’re going to help your city.”

I couldn’t tell whether I thought that was a bad idea or whether I was just going to miss him terribly.

Abdo took his leave soon after, bowing to Glisselda and shaking Kiggs’s hand. They wished him a safe journey. When he came to say goodbye to me, tears welled in my eyes. I hugged him a long time in silence, and he said to my mind alone: I won’t be far from you, Phina madamina. You don’t go through what we’ve been through together and not leave some of yourself behind.