Seraphina

by Rachel Hartman

  “I have a knack for languages,” I said. Orma had told me my scales smelled of saar, though not strongly. He’d said a saarantras would have to put his nose right up to me to smell it. Did the quigutl have more sensitive noses?

  It sidled closer and sniffed the dried bloodstain on my shoulder.

  The quig’s breath was so gut-seizingly foul that I didn’t see how it could smell anything subtler. I’d never been able to smell saar, even on Orma. When the quig backed away, I sniffed at the stain myself. I could feel an odor’s presence in my nostrils—a sensation more tactile than olfactory—but I could discern nothing else about it.

  A sharp pain shot through my head, as if I’d driven spikes up into my sinuses.

  “You have two thaar thmells,” the creature said. “Altho, a thmall purth containing five thilver and eight copper cointh, and a knife—cheap thteel, rather dull.” Even these small dragons were pedantically precise.

  “You can smell how sharp my knife is?” I said, pressing the heels of my hands against my temples, as if I might crush the pain. It didn’t help.

  “I could thmell how many hairs were on your head, if I wished to, which I do not.”

  “Lovely. Well, I can’t just give you coin. I only trade metal for metal,” I said, as I’d heard Orma respond to quigutl panhandling. It was not the usual Goreddi response, and nothing I would have attempted with other people watching, but Orma had acquired several odd trinkets for me this way. I kept the eccentric collection out of sight in the little basket. They weren’t illegal—they were nothing but toys—but such “demonic devices” might scare the maids.

  The quigutl blinked its eyes and licked its lips. The creatures didn’t care about money, as such; they wanted metal to work with, and we were all carrying it in convenient, premeasured quantities.

  Behind the quigutl, half a block up the street, stable doors clattered open. A boy emerged with two lanterns and hung them up on either side in anticipation of riders arriving home. The quig glanced over its shoulder, but the boy was looking the other way.

  The quigutl’s spiky silhouette stood out against the light, its eye cones extending and retracting as it considered what to trade. It reached into its gullet, down into its extendable throat pouch, and withdrew two objects. “I have only thmall thingth with me: a copper and thilver filigree fish”—the fish dangled between the two thumbs of one right hand—“and thith, which ith mothtly tin, a lizard with a human head.”

  I squinted in the feeble light from the stable. The man-faced lizard was rather horrible. Suddenly I wanted the thing, as if it were an abandoned grotesque who needed a place to live.

  “I would trade two thilver,” said the quig, noting where my attention lingered. “That may theem like more than tin ith worth, but it’th mechanically intricate.”

  Behind my reptilian companion came the sound of horses. I glanced up, anxious that we would be seen. Quigs had been beaten in this town for harassing human women; I did not care to speculate about what happened to women who treated quigs kindly. The approaching riders stopped at the stable, however, and did not even glance in our direction. Their spurs jingled as their feet hit the paving stones. Each had a dagger tucked into his belt; the steel flashed in the lamplight.

  I felt some urgency to send the quig along home and get myself to Orma’s. I had assumed the smell of saar blood had caused my sudden headache, but the pain had not yet dissipated. Two headaches on two consecutive days could only be trouble.

  I extracted my purse from my sleeve. “I’ll trade, but you must assure me that ‘mechanically intricate’ doesn’t mean ‘illegal.’ ” Certain quigutl devices—those that could see, hear, or speak across great distances—could only be carried by saarantrai. Certain others, such as door worms or anything explosive, could be carried by no one.

  The creature affected shock. “Nothing illegal! I am a law-abiding—”

  “Except for staying put in Quighole after dark,” I chided, paying the quig its silver. It tossed the coins into its mouth. I put the lizard figurine in my purse and drew the leather strings tight.

  When I looked up again, the quigutl was gone, vanished completely without a sound. The two riders were hurrying toward me, daggers drawn. “St. Daan in a pan!” one cried. “The sticky shite-eater scuttled right up the side of the house!”

  “Are you all right, maidy?” asked the other, the shorter of the two, grabbing my upper arm urgently. His breath was tavernesque.

  “Thank you for chasing it off,” I said, pulling myself out of his grasp. My head pounded. “It was panhandling. You know how tenacious they can be.”

  Shorty noticed my purse in my hand. “Aw, cack, you didn’t give it any money, did you? That only encourages the vermin.”

  “Begging worms!” snarled the tall fellow, still scanning the side of the building, dagger held ready. He looked like Shorty’s brother, with his identical wide nose. I guessed they were merchants; their well-tailored but sturdy woolen clothing spoke of money mixed with practicality.

  Tallfellow spat. “You can’t go five blocks without getting hit up.”

  “You can’t go into your own cellar but there’s one curled up in a crate of onions,” said Shorty, flapping his arms histrionically. “Our sister Louisa once found one stuck to the underside of her dining room table. It breathed its pestilence all over her Speculus feast and gave her baby the falling sickness. But can her husband defend himself against this invader in his own home? Not without landing in prison!”

  I knew of that case. My father had defended the quigutl, but gates went up at the entrances to Quighole, locking its nonhuman denizens in at night—for their own safety, of course. The law-abiding saarantrai scholars at St. Bert’s Collegium had objected; my father had represented them too, to no avail. Quighole became more of a hole.

  I wished I could have told these brothers that the quigutl meant no harm, that the creatures seemed unable to grasp the difference between mine and yours when it came to living space, and that pigs smelled just as bad, but no one suspected pigs of harboring malevolent intentions or spreading disease. I could tell the men would not have thanked me for enlightening them.

  The brothers glowed, a fierce luminescence just under their skin, as if their innards were molten lead, as if they would burst into flame at any moment.

  Oh no. That was the halo, the only warning I got before a vision overtook me. I could do nothing to stop it now. I sat down in the street and curled my head between my knees so that I would not hit it when I fell.

  “Are you unwell?” asked Shorty, his voice reaching me in waves, as if he were talking through water.

  “Don’t let me bite my tongue,” I managed to say before I collapsed and all my consciousness whirled down into the vortex of vision.

  My invisible vision-eye hovered at the ceiling of a room containing three massive beds and a riot of unpacked luggage. Silk scarves in green, gold, and rose were heaped up in a corner, tangled with iridescent beaded necklaces, feathered fans, and strings of tarnished coins. It was clearly an inn; each of the beds could have held six people.

  There was only one person in the room now. I knew him, though he’d grown in the years since my last vision and this time he wasn’t up a tree.

  A Porphyrian woman stuck her head through the doorway; felted locks as thick as fingers, each tipped with a silver bead, framed her face. She spoke Porphyrian to Fruit Bat, who sat on the center bed with his legs folded and his gaze upon the ceiling. He startled as if she’d broken his concentration. Her eyebrows rose apologetically and she mimed eating something. He shook his head, and she closed the door without a sound.

  He stood up, his bare feet sinking into the lumpy straw mattress. He wore Porphyrian trousers and a knee-length tunic, a paedis charm on a cord around his neck, and small gold earrings. He waved his hands slowly through the air as if he were breaking cobwebs overhead. The straw tick didn’t have much spring to it, but he leaped as high as he could and touched the ceiling on the third tr
y.

  No one in my visions had ever been aware of my presence before. How could they be? I wasn’t really there. He could not have touched my face because there was no face for him to touch, but I felt myself trying to recoil from his searching hand.

  He frowned and scratched his head carefully. His hair had been arranged into coiled knots all over his scalp, the part lines between sections forming tidy little hexagons. He sat again and stared hard at the ceiling, his brows drawn. If it had not been impossible, I’d have said he was looking right at me.

  I awoke with a salty leather glove between my teeth. I opened my eyes to see a woman cradling my head and upper body upon her knees. She held prayer beads in one hand, moving them along rapidly with her thumb, and her mouth moved quickly; my ears were slow to focus, but I heard her say, “St. Fustian and St. Branche, pray for her. St. Ninnian and St. Munn, be at her side. St. Abaster and St. Vitt, defend her—”

  I sat bolt upright and yanked the glove out of my mouth, startling the woman. “Excuse me,” I croaked before my stomach let loose across the cobblestones.

  She held my forehead and handed me a pristine white handkerchief to wipe my mouth with afterward. She called, “Brothers! She’s come round!”

  Her brothers, Shorty and Tallfellow, emerged from the stable leading a team and a cart with the words Broadwick Bros. Clothier painted in black upon the side. The three of them together wrapped me in a fine wool blanket and bundled me into the back. The woman, who I concluded was the sister Shorty had mentioned, hefted her matronly person into the back with me and said, “Where are we taking you, little maid?”

  “Castle Orison,” I said. I wasn’t going to make it to Orma’s tonight. Rather belatedly, I remembered to add, “Please?”

  She laughed kindly and directed her brothers, who had surely heard me. The cart jostled and swayed. She took my arm and asked whether I was cold. I was not. She spent the rest of the trip instructing me in ways to get stains out of my gown, which I’d soiled by sitting in the filthy street.

  It took nearly the whole cart ride for my pulse to slow and my teeth to stop chattering. I could scarcely believe my good fortune, collapsing in front of people who would help me. I could have been lying in an alley, robbed and left for dead.

  Louisa was still chattering, but not about stains. “… horrid thing! You poor dear. It must have scared you half to death. Silas and Thomas are trying to devise a way to poison the green devils, something you could bury in garbage so’s they wouldn’t notice. It hasn’t been easy. They can eat most anything, can’t they, Silas?”

  “Milk makes them ill,” said the short brother, who had the reins, “but not enough to kill them. Cheese they tolerate well, so it must be the whey. If we concentrate the whey—”

  “They won’t eat it,” I said, my voice creaky from vomiting. “They have such keen noses, they’d be able to avoid it.”

  “That’s why we hide it in garbage,” he said, as if I were simple.

  I shut my mouth. Anything that could smell how sharp my knife was could smell whey even at the center of a dung heap. But let them try. They would try and fail, and that would be the best possible outcome for everyone.

  We reached the barbican, where the palace guard stopped the cart. Louisa helped me climb down. “What do you do here?” she asked, awed. I wasn’t noble, clearly, but even a lowly lady’s maid carried a certain glamour.

  “I’m the assistant music mistress,” I said, giving small courtesy. I was still unsteady on my feet.

  “Maid Dombegh? You played at the funeral,” cried Silas. “Thomas and I were moved to tears!”

  I inclined my head graciously, but as I did so I felt a snap in my mind, like a loosed bowstring, and the headache started up again behind my eyes. My evening’s excitement was not yet over, apparently. I turned to go inside.

  A powerful hand on my arm stopped me. It was Thomas. Behind him, Silas and Louisa chatted at the guards, asking them to mention the Broadwick brothers, purveyors of sturdy woolens, to the Queen. Thomas drew me a little aside and whispered in my ear: “Silas left me to watch you while he fetched Louisa. I saw the quig idol in your purse.”

  My face burned. I was ashamed against all reason, as if I were the guilty party and not the person who’d been pawing through an unconscious woman’s belongings.

  His fingers dug into my arm. “I’ve met women like you. Worm-riding quig lovers. You don’t know how close you came to hitting your head during your fit.”

  He couldn’t mean what I thought he meant. I met his eye; his gaze was a shock of cold.

  “Women like you disappear in this town,” he snarled. “Tied in sacks, thrown in the river. No one calls for justice because they get what they deserve. But my brother-in-law can’t kill a filthy quig in his own home without—”

  “Thomas! We’re going,” called Louisa behind us.

  “St. Ogdo calls you to repent, Maid Dombegh.” He released me roughly. “Pray for virtue, and pray we don’t meet again.” He stalked off toward his siblings.

  I swayed, barely able to keep my feet.

  I had thought them kind, despite their prejudices, but Thomas had been tempted to dash my head against the cobblestones, just for carrying a quigutl figurine. That specific statuette didn’t carry some deeper meaning, did it? Had I inadvertently chosen the one that indicated I indulged in some particular perversion? Maybe Orma would know.

  I staggered through the gatehouse, making for the palace as best I could with my knees trembling so violently. The guards asked whether I needed help—I must have looked terrible—but I waved them off. I thanked every Saint I could think of and prayed that the glow upon the castle’s turrets came from torchlight and the moon and not from another imminent collapse.

  Sick and exhausted though I was, I could not put off dealing with Fruit Bat. I hauled my bolster onto the floor, threw myself down, and tried to enter the garden. It took several minutes before my teeth unclenched and I relaxed enough to envision the place.

  Fruit Bat was up a tree in his grove. I prowled around the trunk, picking my way over gnarled roots. He appeared to be asleep; he also looked about ten or eleven years old and had his hair in knots, just as he had in the vision. My mind had apparently updated his grotesque to conform to new information.

  I gazed up at his face and felt a pang of sadness. I didn’t want to lock him away, but I saw no alternative. Visions were dangerous; I could hit my head, suffocate, give myself away. I had to defend myself however I could.

  One of his eyes opened, then squeezed quickly shut. He wasn’t sleeping, the rascal; he wanted me to think he was. “Fruit Bat,” I said, trying to sound stern and not afraid. “Come down, please.”

  He climbed down, his eyes averted sheepishly. He stooped, picked up a handful of dates from one of his tidy piles, and offered me the fruit. I accepted his gift this time, taking care not to touch his hand. “I don’t know what you did,” I said slowly. “I’m not sure if it was deliberate, but you … I think you pulled me into a vision.”

  He met my gaze then. The keenness of his black eyes frightened me, but there was no malice there. I gathered my courage and said, “Whatever you did, please stop. When a vision comes upon me against my will, I collapse. It puts me in danger. Please don’t do it again, or I will have to shut you out.”

  His eyes widened and he shook his head vigorously. I hoped he was protesting the possibility of being ejected from the garden and not refusing to comply.

  He climbed back into the fig tree. “Good night,” I said, hoping he knew I wasn’t angry. He wrapped his arms around himself and went straight to sleep.

  I had an entire garden that needed tending. I stared toward the other end, feeling weary in my very soul and reluctant to get started. Surely I could skip the rest this once? Everything else looked peaceful; the deep green foliage was so pretty with colorful snow falling all around it.

  Colorful snow?

  I scrutinized the sky. Clouds clustered thickly above me, and from t
hem fluttered thousands of peculiar flakes, rose, green, yellow, more like confetti than snow. I reached out my hands to touch them; they lit upon me, shimmering and ethereal. I twirled in a slow circle, stirring up eddies at my feet.

  I caught one on my tongue. It crackled in my mouth like a tiny lightning storm, and for a single heartbeat I was screaming through the sky, diving after an aurochs.

  The flake dissolved completely, and I was back to myself in the garden, my heart pounding. In that brief, intense instant I’d been someone else. I had seen the entire world spread below me in unfathomable detail: every blade of grass on the plain and bristle on the aurochs’s snout, the temperature of the ground beneath its hooves, the moving currents of the very air.

  I tasted another flake, and for the span of a wink I lay upon a mountaintop in full sun. My scales shimmered; my mouth tasted of ash. I raised my serpentine neck.

  And then I was back at Fruit Bat’s grove, blinking and stammering and shocked. These were memories from my mother, like the one I’d experienced when I first saw Orma in his natural form. I knew from that memory that my mother had tried to leave me others. She had apparently succeeded.

  Why was this happening now? Had the stresses of the last two days triggered another round of changes? Could Fruit Bat have dislodged them somehow?

  The precipitation slowed. On the ground, individual flakes flowed toward each other and fused together, like scattered droplets of quicksilver. They flattened out into scraps of parchment and blew around.

  I could not have my mother’s memories scattered all over my head: if I had learned anything from experience, it was that my peculiarities tended to spring out at me unannounced. I gathered up the slips of parchment, stamping on them as they skittered past, chasing them through Pandowdy’s swamp and across the Three Dunes.

  I needed something to keep them in; a tin box appeared. I opened it, and the parchments—without any prompting on my part—flew up out of my hand, like a trick shuffle of cards, and filed themselves in the box. The lid clanged shut after them.