Shadow Scale: A Companion to Seraphina(78)

I quietly ventured a peek behind Abdo’s curtain, just to check on him. Getting him together with Pende was going to be harder than I’d realized, and I did not like the idea of Abdo suffering in the meantime. I listened for steady breathing to tell me Abdo was asleep, but I heard nothing.

Once my eyes adjusted to the near darkness, I saw that Abdo had propped himself on an elbow and was staring back at me.

I hoped it was Abdo and not Jannoula. I approached cautiously.

“How are you feeling?” I whispered, drawing back the curtain on the window so the moonlight illuminated us. His sleeping mat took up half his alcove. I sat beside him on the wooden floor, my back against shelves of Naia’s ledger books.

Abdo lay down and was silent for some moments. At last he said, I feel awful. When we were on the ship, Jannoula ignored me most of the time. Maybe she was busy, maybe it was simpler to watch you through Ingar. For several days she’s hounded me, though, and especially these last hours. She’s come after me with such terrible force that I feel like my head might split open.

I felt a rush of horror just under my ribs. She was taking revenge for Ingar’s release, I had no doubt.

“I don’t suppose you can let her through to talk to me?” I realized as I spoke the words that this was a terrible idea, but I was itching to pick a fight with Jannoula myself.

Abdo was shaking his head vehemently, the whites of his eyes reflecting the moonlight. If I let her seize me while I’m awake, I’m sure she’ll never let go. I have to push against her every minute. He wrapped his arms around his head and began to weep soundlessly. I’m scared to sleep. I’m scared to move. I have to concentrate.

My heart was breaking for him. I said, “Pende pulled her out of Ingar’s head; he could do the same for you. We could go to the temple of Chakhon first thing tomorrow morning.”

He sobbed harder, his breath coming in ragged gulps. I didn’t know what to do. I took his good hand between both of mine, sympathetic tears blurring my vision, and I hummed softly, a Southlander lullaby. His breathing slowly calmed; he wiped his eyes with the back of his useless hand.

I should go to the temple and let him fix me, he said. But it feels so much like defeat.

“What do you mean?” I asked, stroking his hand.

Pende invaded my mind, too, said Abdo. Not literally, but I felt his expectations as creeping, strangling vines. He said my mind was the brightest in ten generations and that only I could be his successor. His hopes were going to swallow me right up, and … I had to push back. I would have disappeared otherwise.

You needed to dance, I said silently, feeling I understood him. I’d left my father’s house, despite the danger of exposure, because I needed to play music, to grow into myself and my own life away from him. I remembered how assertive Abdo’s dance had been the first time I saw him, how it seemed to be a way of underlining his presence in the world.

He inhaled shakily. I’ll come with you to the temple. I hate it, but I’m in too much pain. I can’t keep fighting her forever.

“Pende can’t keep you against your will,” I said firmly, not sure whether that was true. Getting Jannoula out of Abdo’s head was surely the first priority, though; we’d face the repercussions of letting Pende help after that was sorted out.

Abdo was soon asleep, in spite of himself. I hoped Jannoula would have mercy and let him stay that way. He still had a tight hold of my hand, and I couldn’t disentangle myself without waking him. I lay upon the wooden floor beside his mat and somehow found my own portion of sleep.



A few hours later, I was startled awake by the realization that I’d forgotten to tend my garden again. I closed my eyes and quickly went to check on it. The denizens were all calm and quiet, as if nothing had happened; it was becoming more and more apparent that they didn’t rely on my daily vigilance. I spent several minutes walking in circles before I realized I was looking for Pelican Man—Pende’s grotesque—and that I wasn’t going to find him or his topiary lawn.

Once again the garden seemed to have shrunk. The trees in Fruit Bat’s grove were shorter; I could pick oranges that used to hang out of reach. Did the garden contract when I neglected it, or was it simply more apparent after a longer absence? I wanted a way to measure the change. I imagined two large standing stones, one on either side of Miss Fusspot’s rose garden. I named them the Milestones, even though they weren’t a mile apart, and I paced between them three times to be sure my count was accurate. They were forty-nine paces apart. I would remember that, and measure each time I was here.

I returned to myself and stretched, achy from sleeping on the floor. Abdo had released my hand, so I got up, closed his curtain, and tiptoed across the apartment to the narrow bed Naia had meant me to sleep in. I lay awake some hours longer, fretting over my garden’s diminution. As hard as I tried, I could not figure out what it meant.

I was awakened again, after the sun was well up, by the sound of many voices speaking Porphyrian too rapidly for me to understand. I emerged from the guest room, blinking blearily, and found myself unexpectedly faced with a couple of dozen people packed into Naia’s main room. They wore the bright tunics and trousers of the lower city, many with fish-gutting knives at their belts or their hair tied back with colorful fabric. A pile of children bounced and giggled on the couch; a pair of women unwrapped hot dishes of barley, eggplant, and fish, turning Naia’s writing desk into a buffet table.