Shadow Scale: A Companion to Seraphina(50)

“Can I see him before I go?”

“He’s in surgery now to reconnect the tendons of his hand,” she said. “Don’t worry, Dr. Belestros is the best dragon physician the count could buy.”

I wouldn’t even get to say goodbye. “What about Josquin?” I said.

“Belestros has him sedated. He was in terrible pain all night,” said Dame Okra mournfully. It was the first inkling of sadness she’d shown for her distant cousin, but it didn’t last. Her smile reasserted itself. “You can’t see him, either, but you could write him a letter. I know he’s your friend.”

She’d delivered a terrible amount of difficult news at once, but underneath my shock and sorrow, something else bothered me. I tried to untangle my feelings and see it clearly, to no avail until Dame Okra said, “All this struggle is going to be worth it in the end, Seraphina, when we’re all together as we were meant to be.”

That didn’t sound like Dame Okra at all.

The cheerfulness. The turnaround on Gianni. The conversation she’d been having with herself …

I had been so preoccupied with Josquin’s injury last night that I hadn’t seen what had happened right in front of me. Before Gianni had screamed or Josquin had fallen off his horse, Dame Okra had had a premonition.

Her mind had reached out to Gianni and found Jannoula.

I studied Dame Okra’s froggy face. The blissful expression wasn’t Jannoula’s; Dame Okra didn’t look the way Gianni did when Jannoula spoke through him. Blanche had said Dame Okra hadn’t slept; might Jannoula have spent all night talking to her? Persuading, manipulating … even changing?

If Dame Okra had been contacted by Jannoula, how did that work? Was it like hearing Abdo’s voice, or could Jannoula have wormed into her more deeply, as she’d done to Gianni and to me? I remembered how she’d altered my thoughts and emotions, but also how they had snapped back into place when she was completely gone.

I remembered how she could linger in my head and listen to my conversations.

I said, “Show yourself, Jannoula.”

Dame Okra’s expression sharpened at once, her bulgy eyes narrowing to feline cunning. “Hello, Seraphina,” she said with Jannoula’s flat inflection. “I don’t suppose this really counts as a surprise, but it is pleasant nonetheless.”

Surprise or not, I felt sickened. “Release Dame Okra. Leave her at once.”

Jann-Okra shook her head, tsking. “And you immediately turn things unpleasant. Why, Seraphina? Dear Okra’s mind reached out to me. I’d tried knocking—it worked with Gianni, and other unsuspecting innocents—but she wouldn’t answer. She was very closed off; I couldn’t reach her any other way.”

Dame Okra had been so adamant about not letting anyone into her mind. She must have heard Jannoula’s “knock,” but her suspicious nature kept her from answering. Gianni would not have had the wit, but who were these others? Someone had told her about my search.

“I’ve made an old woman a little less lonely,” Jann-Okra was saying. “You overheard her talking to me, surely. How could you not? She has a voice like a mule.”

I glowered. “I heard.”

“Why begrudge her my company if she enjoys it?” She leered nastily, an expression Dame Okra’s face was already quite good at. “I’m tempted to teach you a lesson. I could speak to you in your head again, through Miss Fusspots, and make you unfasten her, like you did Gianni. I could make you eject everyone from your garden, one by one, until you are truly, utterly alone.”

She smiled bitterly. “You’ve never appreciated how lucky you are. Your mind reached for the rest spontaneously. I had to go looking, but my diligence reaps a good harvest at last. I have sought and I have found. Seeing them all in your head helped me. You were my map.”

“Why?” I asked. “Why are you doing this?”

She looked mildly surprised. “I want exactly what you want, Seraphina: the half-dragons together at last. We’re on the same quest; I consider you my helpmate.”

“I’m not doing this for you!” I cried.

She wasn’t listening; her eyes had suddenly gone glassy. Her wrinkled cheeks paled, and a sheen of sweat glistened on her forehead. I leaned forward, holding my breath, hoping that this was the opening salvo in some internal war, that Dame Okra was fighting back. The old woman was so pugnacious that I couldn’t imagine her not battling Jannoula. If anyone could hope to defeat her, surely—

Her eyes refocused and Jannoula’s voice said: “So that’s her famous sense of premonition. Intriguing, and surprisingly painful.” She rubbed Dame Okra’s padded belly and swallowed like one fighting nausea. “The vision pleased me, however. Seraphina, you have helped me whether you meant to or not, and in mere moments you will learn how I’ve helped you.”

There was a knock at the front door.

One of Dame Okra’s maids scurried past the library to answer it; after a hushed and hurried exchange of words, the visitor came clumping down the corridor toward us. Jann-Okra pursed her thick lips into a coy smile. I turned to face the door, bracing myself, not sure whom or what we were expecting.

It was Od Fredricka. Her red hair had tangled into an even wilder mane; mud caked her shoes. She stared with wild eyes, as if she hadn’t slept in days. She stumbled into the library, clasped her hands to her heart, and fell on her knees at my feet.