Shadow Scale: A Companion to Seraphina(66)

Loud Lad dusted himself off and picked his way toward me along the ravine edge. I clasped his hands in mine and a whirling vision overtook me.

My consciousness emerged dizzily, hovering near the ceiling of a parlor in Castle Orison. I knew every detail of the room: the harpsichord with a sunburst inlaid on the lid; the satin curtains, opulent Zibou carpets, and overabundance of cushions; the wide gout couch where Master Viridius, my erstwhile employer, reclined with his feet up. He closed his eyes and dreamily waved one bandaged hand, conducting the earsplitting music that filled the room and surely threatened to break the windows again.

Opposite the old man, Lars gingerly balanced his muscular bulk on an ornate chair and played a double-reed instrument, a soprano shawm. It took a lot of air—his face reddened right to the roots of his hair—and was correspondingly loud.

A wave of homesickness bowled into me. I would have given anything to be in that firelit room improvising harmonies, sore ears notwithstanding.

Lars glanced toward my vision-eye, aware of me watching him—or aware that I had taken hold of his mind-fire in the garden? How did it work, exactly? He played to the end of the piece. Viridius cried, “Bravo! My second theme needs polish, but it’s coming.”

“My dear,” said Lars, examining the reeds of his instrument, “you remember I toldt you thet Seraphina can look upon me from far away? Well, she does so now.”

“Indeed! Can she hear me?” Viridius looked up at the wrong corner of the room, drawing his bushy red brows together, and spoke with exaggerated slowness: “Hel-lo, Se-ra-phi-na, we all miss you here.”

Lars smiled fondly at the older man. “I wantedt you to know so you don’t think I am talking out loudt to myself. So, Phina! Goodt evening to you.”

I didn’t know you played shawm, I said, amused.

“I am picking it up again after a long time,” he said, his big fingers fluttering on the finger holes, playing the shadow of a song. “But it is not exactly a shawm. It is the Samsamese bombarde.”

It’s loud, I said.

His round face split into a grin.

I continued: Listen, I need you to take a message to the Queen and Prince Lucian.

“Of course. But hev you lost your quigutl locket?”

It was stolen—this was awkward—by your brother.

Lars frowned. “My brother? He was at the Erlmyt?”

No one was at the Erlmyt, but Queen Glisselda knows that. I need you to tell her that the old Regent is dead, probably murdered in a coup. The new Regent is … is Josef.

Lars hung his head and sighed bleakly, his shoulders sagging. Any news of his brother was hard for him to bear. Until he had taken up with Viridius, Lars had never had an easy family life; his father had killed his mother upon learning Lars was half dragon, and then Josef had killed their father in revenge. Something had stopped Josef from killing Lars, but brotherly love had never seemed to be part of the equation.

“How did this happen?” he asked.

“What has your brother done now?” Viridius stage-whispered from across the room, ready to get indignant on his behalf. Lars waved him off irritably.

Please tell Viridius, I said. If Jannoula checked in on Lars before he could tell the Queen, she might stop him. Certainly, Josef did not want Glisselda to know; I assumed Jannoula agreed. Nothing would stop Viridius from passing the news along.

“But you haven’t toldt me everything,” snapped Lars. “Did my ferdamdte brother kill the Regent himself?” Viridius clapped a bandaged hand to his mouth. Lars pinched the bridge of his nose and continued, “Why wouldt the earls and bishops make him Regent after thet? It takes a consensus to invest a new Regent.”

A consensus of everyone, or merely of those present?

“Those present,” he conceded, shaking his head. “This is why the highland earls feel sometimes, eh, shut out.”

Well, the highland earls don’t know yet. As for the others … I hesitated. Ingar had been there; was a consensus of one enough? How would Lars react if I mentioned Jannoula? I dared not chance it. Queen Glisselda needs to know this immediately.

“We will tell the Queen at once,” said Lars, meeting Viridius’s eye. Viridius nodded vigorously and reached for his polished walking canes.

Tell her also that I won’t be reporting in until I get a replacement thnik from the embassy in Porphyry. That could be two weeks or more.

Viridius was rising awkwardly to his feet, saying, “Phina, if you can hear me, come home soon. The choristers have gotten unruly without you. It isn’t the same.”

Tell Viridius I miss his grumping, I instructed Lars, but he wasn’t listening.

I wished I could plant a consoling kiss on top of Lars’s head, but of course I could not really reach him. Viridius did it for me.



I emerged from the vision, and another wave of homesickness hit me.

No, a different kind of sickness.

Abdo, I called with my mind, come back. Quickly. Bring a bucket.

He arrived in time, but only just.

For two ceaseless, churning days, my stomach tried to turn itself inside out. It raged and tempested. I couldn’t stand up. Abdo and Ingar took shifts dabbing my head with a sponge and feeding me spoonfuls of honeyed water, half of which came back up.

You’re green, Abdo informed me one night, his eyes wide. Green as a lizard.

On the third day, I slept at last and dreamed that I was alphabetizing an infinite library that turned out to be myself. When I awoke, I staggered up on deck, blinking in the wind and sunshine, and found that life had gone on without me. The sailors were allowing Abdo to climb the rigging, bandaged hand and all, and Ingar not only spoke better Porphyrian than me but had taken to the sailors’ impenetrable patois like a second mother tongue.