Shadow Scale: A Companion to Seraphina(85)

Seeing them all like this, gathered together in a garden, I felt a little overcome. This was what I had longed for, so exactly, down to the cool grass and tidily shaped shrubberies. I caught Ingar’s eye across the yard; he smiled and nodded, but held back while the others lined up and kissed my cheeks in turn.

“Mina,” said Miserere, introducing herself.

“So pleased,” I croaked, clasping one of her clawed hands in mine.

Mina helped Newt forward, for he was nearly blind. “I’m called Brasidas,” he said in Porphyrian, extending his short arm. I took his twisted hand and kissed his freckled cheeks; he beamed and added, “Did you bring your flute?”

“She couldn’t know we would be here,” snapped Phloxia in Goreddi.

“But now that I am here, is it legal for you to stay?” I asked, teasing Phloxia while she administered air-kisses near my ears.

“Oh, I’m here on an errand,” said Phloxia, a devilish look in her eyes. She held up a gold filigree brooch. “I’m returning this to Camba. I can’t trust the servants with it, and I certainly can’t be expected to leave until she takes it from me.”

“Maybe Seraphina sings,” said Brasidas hopefully in Porphyrian.

“Shove over and let the twins have their turn,” said the shark-toothed lawyer, pulling Brasidas aside.

The tall, graceful youngsters kissed both my cheeks at once. “Gaios, Gelina,” they said, their voices nearly identical. Our dragon heritage had left so many ityasaari deformed, but these two had been born absurdly beautiful. Even their silver scales had the decency to manifest in tidy patches behind their ears. They dressed in simple tunics without ornament or ostentation, according to the dictates of Necessity, but that only seemed to underscore how naturally radiant they were.

Servants had set up a table to one side and laid it with figs, olives, and honeyed millet cakes. Camba poured from a sweating silver ewer a cold, thick concoction of lemon, honey, and snow. It froze my teeth.

We talked together in a mix of Goreddi and Porphyrian, Ingar or Phloxia translating when I needed it. I asked them for their stories; they told me how Pende had taken them under his wing as youngsters and they had served the temple of Chakhon for a time. Mina still acted as a guardian of sorts, and Brasidas sang there on holy days.

“Pende is our spiritual father,” said Phloxia, smiling ruefully, “and each of us his disappointing child.”

“He’s happy with Camba,” offered Brasidas, talking around a mouthful of figs.

“Yes, well, Camba came back to him, and Pende trained her to see the soul-light,” said Phloxia. She leaned over her plate of millet cakes and whispered exaggeratedly, “The rest of us were failures. We saw no light. I’m not sure we all can.”

“I can see Gelina’s,” said Gaios, his eyes wide and earnest.

“And I yours, brother,” said Gelina, resting her shapely head on his shoulder.

“The twins are a walking solipsism: self-referential,” said Phloxia, gazing at them fondly. She was like a sweeter Dame Okra. “Anyway, they broke the old man’s heart in turn by leaving Chakhon for Lakhis.”

“It was necessary,” said Gelina, her brows buckling anxiously. Gaios nodded.

Winged Mina stuffed olives into her mouth at an alarming rate, never spitting out any pits. When she spoke, her voice was raspy and raw: “The god doesn’t call us all. Pende understands why we leave.”

“I told Pende I had to leave, by Chakhon’s own logic,” said Phloxia. “If I’m to serve the god of chance, my presence in the temple should also be a matter of chance.”

Ingar chuckled at this, shaking his bald head; he seemed at home here. “Phloxia,” said Camba, who was sitting beside him, “you twist logic to your own purposes.”

“It’s a lawyer’s duty,” sniffed Phloxia, bunching her wobbly mouth into a pout.

Camba’s eyes twinkled fondly. “Didn’t I hear you had a brooch for me?”

“That’s hearsay!” cried Phloxia. “I can neither confirm nor deny …”

I rose and drifted over to the food table before the servants carried the last of the millet cakes away. Behind me the others laughed. They had so much history together and knew each other so well. I felt a bit overcome. This was what I had wanted to create in Goredd. Exactly this.

These ityasaari might be willing to bend Pende’s rules enough to meet me here, but I doubted they would go so far as to travel to Goredd against his wishes—and why should they? To defend someone else’s country? To re-create what they already had here?

I couldn’t ask them to come to Goredd, not with Jannoula waiting to pounce on them as soon as they ventured south, not when the one who could free them of her was certain to stay behind.

“You look melancholy,” said Ingar at my elbow, startling me. “I suspect I know why. I dreamed of this garden, too. So did Jannoula, but it can be accomplished without her.”

This was a new Ingar. The intensity and focus of his gaze astonished me.

“You look well,” I said.

He nodded gravely and pushed up his square spectacles. “Thank Camba. She believed in me when there wasn’t much me to be found.” Ingar’s thick lips twitched; he took a deep breath. “But you know what else has helped? I’ll show you.”