Shadow Scale: A Companion to Seraphina(22)

He heard the omission, though, and looked up cannily. “I keep my mask on. Who would dare touch me to remove it?”

“Your patients don’t find the mask ominous during years without plague?”

“My patients are so grateful that they don’t mind what I look like.” He cleared his throat and added, “And there are no years without plague. Some years it doesn’t reach the rich, but it always lurks among the poor.”

Nedouard attempted to sip his coffee at last, but his beak was too ungainly for the tiny cup. Dame Okra made a scoffing noise, and Nedouard set his cup down, clearly mortified.

I glared at Dame Okra and said doggedly: “We’ve had many plague-free years in Goredd. There hasn’t been an epidemic in my lifetime.”


“Goredd is different,” said Nedouard, his grizzled eyebrows raised. “Quigutl eat your garbage, so you have fewer rats. It’s rats that bring plague. I’ve done experiments, written treatises, but I’m a self-taught doctor with this …” He gestured at his face. “Who’s going to listen?”

“We will listen. All Goredd will listen,” I said firmly. “I am on a mission to find all our kind. Goredd requires our assistance with the dragon civil war, but once that’s over, I hope we might form a community of half-dragons, supporting and valuing each other.”

Dame Okra rolled her eyes so hard I feared she’d give herself an aneurysm.

Nedouard turned his cup in his fingers. “People rely on me here,” he said.

“You might still help them,” I said. “If your work were taken seriously, you might find a way to prevent these outbreaks, or cure the disease altogether.”

His eyes shone. “It’s tempting, I have to admit. May I think about it?”

“Of course,” I said warmly. “How do we find you again?”

“I live … near where you found me,” he said, looking at the floor.

“You may move your things here, to Dame Okra’s house,” I said. “She has room, and you might be more comfortable.”

Dame Okra bristled, but held her tongue; she’d already agreed to house the Ninysh ityasaari before escorting them back to Goredd. I would hold her to that.

“Take your time and think it over,” I added. “Abdo and I have to seek out two more of our kind in Ninys. It could be six weeks before we’re back.”

Nedouard looked up again, interested. “How many of us are there altogether?”

“Sixteen,” I said, omitting Jannoula and Pandowdy.

His gaze sharpened, reminding me unexpectedly of Kiggs; there was a thinker behind that beak. “Interspecies fertility can’t be high,” he said. “There must be ten transgressing dragons for every one of us conceived. That suggests—”

“Are we quite finished?” cried Dame Okra, noisily piling coffee dishes onto the tray. “If I’m to see a lot of Dr. Basimo in the coming weeks, I shouldn’t like to tire of him all at once.”

Her unfriendliness embarrassed me, but Nedouard took the hint. He rose and shook hands all around; Abdo, who found this Southlander practice hilarious, pumped his arm with particular zeal. I saw the doctor out. “Dame Okra can be blunt,” I said as he put his boots on, “but she has a … a kind heart.” She didn’t, particularly, but I could think of nothing else reassuring to say.

Nedouard bowed cordially, hunched his shoulders, and disappeared into the falling night. Maybe I couldn’t see mind-fire, but I could see loneliness enshrouding him like a cloak. It was an old friend of mine. It weighed him down; he would surely join us.

When I returned to the dining room, I was surprised to see Abdo crawling under the table; Josquin was shifting the coffee set, moving napkins, and peering under plates. Dame Okra was exclaiming loudly to everyone: “Of course I didn’t see him do it! You never catch a professional in the act.”

“What’s happened?” I asked.

Dame Okra whirled on me, pink with rage. “Your bird-man,” she snarled, “has stolen three silver spoons.”



Josquin declined to stay for dinner. “I’m meeting Captain Moy, the leader of your escort, for one last briefing,” he said.

“Is he to know that we’re half-dragons?” I said, more sharply than I intended.

Josquin’s horsey face was well suited to looking serious. “He’s already been told. Was I not supposed to?”

My face felt hot. Would I never get used to people knowing? “It’s just … he won’t be frightened of us, will he?” Fear was less awful than hate, but easier to ask about.

“Ah,” said Josquin, growing thoughtful. “Our history differs from yours. Dragon incursions seldom made it this far south—thanks to Goredd. When Ninysh people learn what you are, I expect they’ll be more curious than fearful.”

“But the Saints themselves call half-dragons an abomination and a vile—”

“And we Ninysh are generally more relaxed about the Saints, too,” he said, smiling apologetically. “We’ve needed less of their help. It’s another lucky accident of history, a privilege afforded by peace.”

Peace was a blessing indeed; the years since Comonot’s Treaty had proved that.

Still, I wasn’t sure I believed him. I’d noticed his horror at Nedouard’s face; he’d tried valiantly to smile at my scales, but queasiness and unease had come first. If the Ninysh were so sanguine about differences, why had Dame Okra always gone to such lengths to conceal her tail?