Shadow Scale: A Companion to Seraphina(87)

The sky, sagging further, touched the back of my neck. It was clammy.

The shrunken denizens of my garden were all within arm’s reach, as were the border fences, the egression gate, and the peeling, full-sized door of Jannoula’s cottage. That hadn’t shrunk; it was the only thing holding up the sky.

I gathered my people like twigs and laid them side by side on the lawn. How had this happened? Had I done this by naming them? I had only intended good, had only meant to … to acknowledge who they really were.

Was I finally seeing my own handiwork clearly? Abdo had called my garden a narrow gatehouse. I had imagined these human forms; maybe naming them had dispelled that illusion. All that was left was the mind-fire I had stolen. If I squinted, the row of doll-like avatars glowed faintly. I could finally see mind-fire; that was no comfort at all.

My formerly wide-open spaces were making me claustrophobic. I beat back the damp sky-fabric and crawled toward the egression gate. “This is my garden, all in ard,” I said, the words catching in my throat. “I tend it faithfully. Let it keep faith with me.”

I opened my eyes to the darkness of Naia’s apartment. I lay still for some moments, breathing hard and listening to echoing footsteps in the street below, to the bump and creak of ships upon the ceaseless sea. My heartbeat slowed, but my racing thoughts did not.





My thnik linked me to Glisselda; another connected her with Kiggs. During that fruitless fortnight, she kept me apprised of when his ship would arrive. I haunted the docks the morning it was due, getting underfoot of fishermen and stevedores. I had just bought myself lunch and was wholly occupied with keeping it away from the bold and saucy seagulls when I heard someone cry, “Garegia!” which is Porphyrian for Goredd.

A sloop had entered the harbor and was drifting slowly west in search of its berth. It flew a purple and green flag, adorned with a prancing rabbit, the emblem of the Royal House of Goredd.

I tossed my eggplant fritters to the gulls and was running toward the western docks in two heartbeats.

I followed the ship, dodging haggling merchants, crab pots, and heaped fishing nets, skirting cargo piles and gaggles of bearded sailors, trying to keep the mast and flag in sight. I reached the right berth, out of breath, just as the mariners lowered the gangway. I scanned the faces on deck and spotted the familiar hawkish nose and jowly chin of Ardmagar Comonot, deposed leader of all dragonkind.

He spotted me from the prow and cried out a greeting. He’d already relaxed into a darker complexion; his hair had been powerfully slicked down but was curling back up at the fringes. Comonot waved vigorously, with no thought for the safety of those around him. “Seraphina!” he called, elbowing seamen aside in his haste to maneuver down the gangway. He wore a long blue robe, pleated and embroidered in the style of a Porphyrian gentleman. As he drew nearer, I saw something new: a pale scar along his jawline.

Comonot kissed me effusively on both cheeks in the Porphyrian style, bizarrely grabbing my ears as he did so. I struggled not to laugh; he tried harder than most dragons, but there was always some nuance of human behavior that eluded him.

He stepped back, looked me over, and said in more typical draconic fashion, “Your nose is burned, but you look like you’ve been eating well.”

I smiled, but I was craning my neck, looking for Kiggs in the crowd. I saw Goreddi sailors and the Ardmagar’s retinue of saar secretaries and human bodyguards. “Where’s Prince Lucian?” I asked, a nervous knot in my stomach.

“I’m sure I don’t know,” said Comonot, tapping a thick finger upon his lips. He turned to a sailor standing patiently behind him. “Did the prince disembark, or did we throw him overboard during that awful storm?”

I looked at the sailor and saw a stranger, his face framed by a thin travel beard, his hair a bit too long, his smile a bit too … No, I knew that smile. My heart knew it, even if my eyes were too stupid to understand what was right in front of them.

“I believe the prince considered throwing himself overboard during the storm,” said Kiggs earnestly, his brown eyes laughing. “In the end, he decided it might be worth the effort to hang on.” All cleverness failed me. “I’m glad to see you, Prince.”

Kiggs stepped up as Comonot had done and kissed my cheeks without the ear pulling. I managed air-kisses at the edge of his silly little beard. He smelled of salt and musty ship innards and himself.

I felt suddenly shy. The months had made strangers of us.

The Ardmagar inserted himself between us and took my arm. “I joked—did you notice? I said I didn’t know, when in fact I did, and then I pretended to wonder—”

“Indeed, Ardmagar. Well done,” I said.

“He’s been testing jokes on me since we left Lavondaville,” said Prince Lucian Kiggs, smiling over Comonot’s head. “It only took me a week to notice they were jokes.”

“Old saar, new tricks,” I said, smiling back.

“Don’t imagine I’m as slow to recognize mockery as I once was, either,” said the Ardmagar, but he didn’t seem angry. He was gazing wide-eyed at the harbor crowds, the ships, the warehouses. Months of close dealings with humans had done nothing to diminish his naked fascination with human variety.

Kiggs excused himself to have words with their retinue, who seemed to be in some confusion over baggage and porters. Comonot, at my shoulder, said quietly, “So. After trying everything else, it’s down to Eskar’s plan after all. Sneaking in the back door while my Loyalists feint south. This is all assuming I can persuade the Porphyrians to let me break a centuries-old treaty and travel up the Omiga Valley.”