Shadow Scale: A Companion to Seraphina(84)

He had cataracts in both eyes, but he looked up as if he sensed me and smiled beatifically, his wispy hair fluffing in the breeze like clouds upon the mountaintop. He closed his scaled eyes, raised his chin, and began to sing a low, droning note. The crowd around him quieted to a dull murmur, elbowing each other, as if they knew his singing and treasured it. Above his drone, as light and tremulous as flames dancing on water, keened an ephemeral overtone, a ghostly, whistling harmonic.

This singing technique was called sinus-song in Ziziba. I’d read about it, and speculated upon its mechanics with Orma, but I’d never heard it done. I didn’t know the art was practiced in Porphyry.

After a couple of false starts, I found a way to accompany his ethereal song with my clumsy, earthbound flute. Together we wove a song of sky and sea and the mortals who must live between the two.

A trumpet blared, a brassy knife through the middle of our music, and we cut off abruptly. The crowd parted for a large palanquin draped in white, borne by muscular young men. Behind the gauzy curtains, I could make out three priests of Chakhon, Paulos Pende among them. Worried about the “priestly injunction” Phloxia had mentioned, I turned away reflexively so he wouldn’t see me. I didn’t want to get Newt in trouble for associating with me.

The litter passed and the marketplace resumed its bustle, but my music partner had disappeared into the maze of tables and tents.



Camba wrote back at long last, two weeks to the day after Pende had pulled Jannoula out of Ingar’s mind:

Many thanks for the peculiar syphered journal. As you perhaps anticipated, Ingar can’t stop himself from thinking about it, taking notes, and trying to translate it. He has asked to see you. Come at once, before the day heats up, and we’ll sit out in the garden.



The handwriting, blocky and stiff, was not Camba’s, and for a moment I wondered if Ingar had written the note, pretending to be Camba. Ingar would not have misspelled ciphered, though, not with his language skills. It was most peculiar.

Still, I welcomed the distraction and, unexpectedly, looked forward to seeing Ingar again.

The doddering doorman of House Perdixis let me in; I was expected, it seemed, so the note must have been written with Camba’s knowledge. I waited in her dim, faded atrium, where a cracked fountain trickled. An allegorical statue of Commerce gazed sternly into the pool; she was green in all her nooks and crannies. Camba, long-necked and stately, came out to meet me, kissed me solemnly upon both cheeks, and made me remove my shoes. Behind her, a petite white-haired woman, elegantly dressed, lingered in the doorway, watching me with crow-like eyes.

“My mother, Amalia Perdixis Lita,” said Camba, gesturing graciously.

I was rifling through my memory, trying to recollect the proper way a foreigner should greet a woman who outranks her in age, class, and sheer Porphyrian-ness, when Camba’s mother did the surprising. She approached and kissed my cheeks, then grabbed my head and planted a larger kiss on my brow. I’m sure I looked flabbergasted; her face crinkled into a smile.

“Camba tells me you’re the one who spoke to her on the mountainside that terrible day,” said the old woman in Porphyrian. “She thought she’d ruined the reputation of House Perdixis with that poisonous glassware, but you persuaded her to come back and face her brothers. As her mother, I must thank you for that.”

I blinked, thinking my Porphyrian had failed me.

Camba took my arm and led me away, saying, “We’ll be in the garden, Mother.”

She took me up a dim corridor. “Poisonous glassware?” I asked in Goreddi.

Camba averted her eyes. “I imported it from Ziziba, my first solo business deal. It came extremely cheap; I never questioned why. We later learned it was coated with an iridescent glaze, pretty to look at but easily dissolved by liquids. A baby died.”

That was why she’d wanted to kill herself. I’d assumed it was shame at being half dragon. I’d revised my guess after learning she’d misgendered herself, but that had also been wrong.

A single action could derive from many motivations. I should never assume.

We passed through a book-lined study, where two boys about Abdo’s age worked complicated geometry problems. “Mestor, Paulos,” said Camba, pausing to glance at their work. “Finish Eudema’s theorem, and then you’re dismissed.”

“Yes, Aunt Camba,” they droned.

“I leave the import business to my elder brothers these days,” said Camba as we quit the room. She smiled shyly. “Now I tutor my nephews in mathematics and study with Paulos Pende.”


We emerged into a manicured garden, a tidy square of lawn bordered by dark cedars and flanked by two long rectangular pools. A linen sunshade billowed gently in the breeze, and underneath it half a dozen people sat in wrought-iron chairs. It took a moment for my eyes to readjust to the sunlight and recognize Ingar, Phloxia the lawyer, winged Miserere, harbor-singing Newt, and the smiling twins.

“Phloxia found a loophole,” said Camba beside me, her voice quiet and low, “and we can’t be charged with impiety if we didn’t know you were coming.”

“You invited me!” I cried, astonished.

Her eyes twinkled deviously. “Indeed, I did not. My nephews took dictation to practice their Goreddi. It was never meant to be sent. Clearly, Chakhon’s chancy hand was in it, to a degree even Pende couldn’t dispute. By merciful Necessity, goddess of guests, we welcome you.”