Shadow Scale: A Companion to Seraphina(75)

My face went hot. I had imagined conversations with gentle, mystical Pelican Man; none of them started like this. I swallowed hard. “There seems to be some misunderstanding,” I said. “You and your fellow ityasaari have nothing to fear from me.”

“Liar!” cried the old man. Wispy white hair stood up all over his head like pale fire. “The mind invader, Jannoula, told Brasidas to expect her agent, the one she sent to collect us. Don’t feign surprise. Brasidas told me all after I unhooked Jannoula from his mind.”

He knew something of Jannoula’s purpose; then he also knew something of mine, but not quite enough. “I realize our goals may look the same from a distance,” I said, trying to sound reassuring, “but I’m not working with Jannoula.”

Pende grunted dismissively and looked away. Camba, on the other hand, watched me intently. “Jannoula invaded my mind against my will when I was a child,” I said. “She has changed the minds and hearts of people I love, and moved them around like marionettes. I know what she can do, and she is no friend of mine.”

Beside me, Ingar stared incredulously, openmouthed. Apparently he hadn’t known how I felt about Jannoula; I could not meet his eye.

I found my words again. “She is no longer in my mind. I got rid of her.”

Camba exchanged a glance with Pende, her fine brows arched skeptically. “It is not possible to unhook her yourself,” she said. “You need the help of another.”

“I didn’t unhook her,” I began, just as it occurred to me that I had hooked the others, including Pende, to myself via their avatars. Would he judge me harshly for that? I continued hastily: “I tricked her into leaving me and blocked her return.”


Camba conferred quietly with the priest, then said to me, “May Paulos Pende place his hands upon your head? He can see something of your future, and something of your past, but he must touch you to do it.”

I hesitated, but saw no other way to convince him to trust me. I waddled forward on my knees. Pende reached with palsied hands, his finger joints burled with arthritis. He placed the heel of his left hand on my forehead and the fingers of his right upon the nape of my neck. His deep brown eyes met mine.

It felt like a bird in my skull, fluttering its wings against the bony confinement. Pende’s eyes widened in surprise, but he knit his grizzled brows determinedly, concentrating. I felt a more agitated bird this time. It pecked at the inside of my head, right between my eyes. I flinched.

Paulos Pende withdrew his hands and cocked his head to one side. “How strange. I can enter the tiny atrium where you keep pieces of other ityasaari—including myself.” He glared sternly. “But I can go no further. The doors to the greater house are locked, and one door was most mysterious. I could not see where it led.”

“Even I can’t pass that door,” I said, believing I knew which he meant. “That’s how I shut Jannoula out.”

He shook his head, faint admiration in his eyes. “I saw no trace of her. You are not her creature. And you have power, or you once did.”

I gaped at him, heat blooming inexplicably in my chest. “I … I did?”

The lines beside his mouth deepened. “You still do, but you’ve bound it all up. You can’t use it unless you release it and yourself. I can’t see your soul-light at all, that’s how entirely closed you are.”

“Do you mean the wall I built around the garden?” I said, trying to understand. “My mind kept reaching out uncontrollably; I had no choice.”

“Oh, there is always a choice,” he said, his false teeth clacking. He straightened them with his tongue. “This piece of myself you are holding: you took it against my will. I require you to let it go.”

“I can do that,” I said hastily. Unfastening Gianni Patto had seemed to produce no ill effects besides my garden shrinking a little. I reached inside, focused on getting to the garden quickly, and unbuttoned Paulos Pende from the fabric of my mind. I bent double, letting the damp moss tickle my forehead, and waited out the wave of anguish. It hurt no less for being expected. When I could finally bear to uncurl again, Pende was watching me curiously.

“That hurt you,” said Pende, sounding surprised. “What are we to you?”

“For years you were my only friends,” I said. But it was more than that, I was beginning to suspect. These pieces of others had become pieces of myself.

Camba heard and translated. Pende’s dark eyes softened a little, and for a moment he almost smiled, but then he turned his hawkish gaze on Ingar and said, “It’s your turn now, little man.”

Ingar squirmed and shook his pale head vehemently.

Pende spoke to Camba, gesturing at the air around Ingar’s head; my Porphyrian wasn’t strong enough to make out all of it, but I understood Camba’s reply: “I see two colors, but which is which?”

Camba could see mind-fire. Abdo had said that ityasaari could learn to see it with practice—Camba had to be a half-dragon. Was Pende teaching her to manipulate it? And if she was ityasaari, why had I never seen her? Had I bound up my mind—as Pende claimed—before finding all of them?

“Paulos Pende needs to touch your head, Batwing,” said Camba flatly, rising and looming over him with folded arms, ready to resume the role of enforcer.

“His name is Ingar,” I said, suddenly sorry for him. “What will you do to him?”