Shadow Scale: A Companion to Seraphina(46)

He considered. “I presume she can enter your mind no further than the cottage door. Unless she likes sitting alone in darkness, she’ll lose interest and keep herself to herself.”

Herself seemed a terrible place to be; I still wished I could have saved her from it. This guilt was going to rankle a long time.

I tapped my flute thoughtfully against my chin, grateful to Orma for helping me. I wished I might have embraced him, or told him I really did love him, but that was not his way. Not our way. I contented myself with saying, “If you hadn’t noticed—and cared enough to warn me when you did—I don’t know what would have happened.”

He snorted, pushed up his spectacles, and said, “Give yourself some credit. You heeded my warning; I wasn’t sure you would. Now let’s start with the suite by Tertius.”





Jannoula’s voice from Gianni’s mouth brought everything back. I fled Gianni’s cell, pushing past a confused Moy, and rushed up to my room at Palasho Donques. I buried myself under blankets and spent the whole night reliving it all: the violation, the horror, the guilt, the sorrow.

At first light, I pounded on Josquin’s door. It took him some minutes to answer, bleary-eyed and tucking his shirt into breeches he’d evidently just put on. “I’ve been thinking,” I said, my words pouring out in a miserable rush. “We shouldn’t take the wild man back to Segosh.”

“What are you proposing?” said Josquin hoarsely. I really had awakened him, it seemed. “Release him back into the wild?”

If Jannoula could make him talk, she could propel his taloned feet after us, the way she’d walked me through the world. Whatever she was after, I wanted her nowhere near me. “Shouldn’t Lord Donques incarcerate him here, where the murder happened?”

“He would have preferred that, yes,” said Josquin, folding his arms. “I burned through rather a lot of his goodwill yesterday, convincing him to let us take the creature back to Segosh.”

“Then he’ll be happy you’ve changed your mind.”

“And the next time I have to negotiate with him or anyone else?” said Josquin sharply. I recoiled at the rebuke; I had never seen him cross before. “I speak on Count Pesavolta’s authority,” he said, “but I have to be circumspect with it. He’s no hereditary monarch, ordained by Heaven, whose caprices none may question. He rules by the goodwill of his baronets. I’ve spent enough of Count Pesavolta’s capital here to make myself uncomfortable. If I throw it back in Lord Donques’s face, suddenly my credibility—and the count’s—would be in question. It would unbalance the whole economy of rule.”

I could see no argument to make; he understood the peculiar politics of Ninys, and I did not. I acquiesced with a little bow and set off toward the infirmary to see Abdo. Josquin, perhaps sensing that he’d been hard on me, called after: “If you’re worried about our safety, Seraphina, we’ll have him bound. The Eight know what they’re doing.”


I turned to face him, walking backward a few steps while I bowed again, smiling to cover the unnameable dread in my heart. The Eight might bind Gianni’s limbs, but it was the person who’d bound his mind who scared me.



We reached the capital in half the time it had taken us to reach the mountains, thanks to good Ninysh roads, a guide who knew them all, and the fact that we were no longer actively searching for anyone. Josquin knew where to change horses and where it was safe to ride after dark. Gianni Patto, his hands bound and a lead line tied securely around his torso like a harness, kept up with the horses easily. He made no aggressive move toward anyone, and his ice-blue eyes remained benignly unfocused.

I watched him like a hawk, but Jannoula did not speak through him again. At night, in my garden of grotesques, there was an ache where Tiny Tom had been.

Abdo was in pain and barely spoke. The monk’s blade seemed to have severed more than just the tendons of his wrist; it had pierced his buoyant spirit somehow. How would the injury affect his dancing? Being robbed of music would have been a mortal blow to me; dancing surely meant as much to him. The Eight took turns riding with him, even the ones who’d made St. Ogdo’s sign. He was a child, first and foremost, and that brought out their empathy. He sat curled on the saddle horn, resting his head upon a gleaming breastplate.

Darkness had fallen and mist was rising over the lowland farms when the torches of Segosh finally winked into sight ahead of us. The two youngest of our guards gave cries of joy and spurred their tired horses onward, racing for the city gates.

“Youth is wasted on the young,” laughed Moy, who was carrying Abdo.

Shouts of alarm rang out from the gatehouse ahead; our bravos replied with something vaguely obscene. Seven weeks’ travel, and my Ninysh had increased by only the rudest words. The gatehouse guard returned the compliment, and there was laughter all round.

The city gates opened, iron hinges complaining shrilly. Upon a tiny pale donkey, swearing heartily herself, Dame Okra Carmine rode out, followed by a man in dark robes. Reflected torchlight danced upon her spectacles; a smirk played on her lips. “Don’t look so astonished,” she called, spurring her wee steed forward. “My premonitions of you, Seraphina, give me a very particular stomachache, like eating bad beets.”

“I think of myself as more of a turnip,” I said, parrying insult with absurdity.