Seraphina

by Rachel Hartman

  “Nggblaah!” I said, not my most cogent explanation, but I was unaccustomed to speaking with my face covered in blood.

  She stopped kicking me and closed the door. For a moment I feared that meant she intended something worse, but she wet a cloth at the basin and handed it to me, gesturing at my nose. She seated herself on the spinet bench while I cleaned up; her toadly mouth worked up and down, from disgust to annoyance to amusement and back. She was dressed now, of course, her figure back to its stout dignity.

  How did she contrive to sit on that tail? I dabbed at the blood on my chemise, to keep myself from staring at her.

  “Forgive me, lady,” I said, pressing the reddened cloth to my nose again. “I don’t even know who you are.”

  Her brows shot up in surprise. “Is that so. Well, I know who you are, Maid Dombegh. I’ve met your father. He’s an excellent lawyer, a humane and gentle man.” Her expression grew stern. “I trust you take after him in discretion. Tell no one.”

  “Tell no one what? That you arrived in the middle of the night to beat me up?”

  She ignored that; she was scrutinizing my face. “Maybe you didn’t understand what you saw.”

  “Maybe I saw nothing.”

  “Liar. I followed my stomach here, and my stomach is never wrong.”

  The word liar rankled; I shifted in my seat. “How did you know you were being watched? Could you see me?”

  “No. I felt a presence—eyes upon me? I can’t explain—I’ve never felt such a thing before. Was it sorcery? I don’t believe in that, but then, I imagine there are people who don’t believe in the likes of me, either.” She folded her arms across her artificially portly bosom. “I am out of patience. What did you do, and how did you do it?”

  I worried the bloody cloth between my hands and sniffled dismally; the inside of my nose smelled of iron. I owed her an explanation, maybe even the truth. She was a half-breed like me; she must have felt as utterly alone. I could let her know she wasn’t just by pulling up my sleeve and showing her my scales.

  I had dreamed of this, but now that it came to it my voice didn’t work. The sheer weight of my intention hunkered down on my chest. I could not do it. Something would prevent me. The Heavens would cave in. I would roll up my sleeve and burst into flame. My chemise sleeve was unbound. I raised my hand high and let the loose sleeve fall away from my wrist, exposing my arm up to the elbow.

  Her face fell, and for a breathless moment it felt like time had stopped.

  She stared, bug-eyed, and was silent so long that I began to doubt whether I had really seen what I had seen. Maybe it had been a trick of the light, or I was so desperate for kindred that I had imagined it. I lowered my arm and covered it back up, ashamed.

  “I don’t believe it,” she said at last. “There are no others. This is some sort of trick.”

  “I promise you, it’s not. I am, um, what you are.” She had avoided the word half-dragon; I found myself absurdly embarrassed to say it.

  “You expect me to believe you have a tail?” she said, craning her neck to get a look at my backside.

  “No,” I said, embarrassed by her gaze. “Just scales on my arm and at my waist.”

  Her mouth curled into a sneer. “You feel terribly sorry for yourself, I suppose.”

  My face grew hot. “It may not be as dramatic as a tail, but I—”

  “Yes, yes, poor you. You must have trouble sitting down, and need your clothing especially made so it looks like you have a proper human body under there. You must have lived an impossibly long time thinking you were alone in the world. Oh no, I’m sorry, that’s me.”

  I felt as if she’d slapped me. Whatever I’d expected, it wasn’t hostility.

  She glowered. “None of this explains how you spy on people.”

  “It’s unintentional. I have visions. Typically, no one in my visions is aware of my presence.” I left it at that. She didn’t need to know I could see her at will; let her think she was special, popping into my head unbidden, uniquely able to perceive me.

  I would not deliberately look in on her again. I’d learned my lesson.

  Some of the bitterness in her expression dissipated; apparently my mental quirks were not as irksome as my scales. “I have something similar,” she said. “A very, very short-range predictive skill. It is essentially an uncanny ability to be in the right place at the right time.”

  “That’s what you meant by your stomach?” I hazarded.

  She laid a hand on her padded belly. “It’s not magic; it’s more like indigestion. Typically, its instructions are vague or simple—turn right here, avoid the oysters—but I had quite a keen one that I could find the owner of those invisible eyes.” She leaned in toward me, the lines beside her mouth deepening with her scowl. “Don’t do it again.”

  “You have my word!” I squeaked.

  “I can’t have you stomping about in my head.”

  I thought of Fruit Bat and Jannoula and felt some sympathy. “If it helps, I only see people from above, like a sparrow might. I can’t read thoughts—I’d know your name otherwise.”

  Her expression softened slightly. “Dame Okra Carmine,” she said, inclining her head. “I am the Ninysh ambassador to Goredd.”

  All the ire seemed drained out of her at last. She rose to go but paused with her hand on the door latch. “Forgive me if I was undiplomatic, Maid Dombegh. I react poorly to surprises.”

  Poorly hardly covered it, but I said, “Of course,” and handed back her book, which she’d left on the spinet bench.

  She fingered the leather spine absently, shaking her head. “I must admit, it boggles the mind to learn that your father, whose dearest mistress is the law, should have flouted it so egregiously in carrying on with your mother.”

  “He didn’t know what she was until she died in childbirth.”

  “Ah.” She stared into the middle distance. “Poor fellow.”

  I closed the door behind her and looked at my quigutl timepiece. I could squeeze in a little sleep before morning if I got right to it. I turned restlessly and threw off my blankets for an hour, excited and unable to turn off my thoughts. How could I ever sleep again?

  Fruit Bat, climbing trees in Porphyry, was just like me. My brother Loud Lad piped upon the rooftops of Samsam. Nag and Nagini raced across the sands somewhere; mighty Pandowdy lolled in his swamp. Fierce Miserere fought brigands, malevolent Jannoula plotted, and the rest of the garden denizens walked this world and were mine. Scattered and peculiar—some of us skeptical and bitter—we were a people.

  And I was at the hub of this enormous wheel. I could bring us together. In a way, I already had.

  Of course, I couldn’t run off in search of my people. I had a job. Viridius was demanding late nights and early mornings. I barely had time to tend my garden properly; taking Fruit Bat’s hands and locating him was out of the question. I promised myself I would go looking for him later, once Treaty Eve had come and gone. Fruit Bat kept his part of our agreement and gave me no trouble, although his black eyes scrutinized my face when I visited, and I suspected any rustle in the shrubbery was him, following me around the garden.

  A dearth of sleep and a bruised, puffy nose made for a crabby music mistress, which made the days drag by in turn. My musicians weren’t bothered; they were used to Viridius, whose crankiness knew no limits. The master himself found me amusing. The more I snarled, the jollier he got, until he was almost giggly. However, he did not insist that I attend any more soirees, or try to pin down a time for me to meet Lars, the mechanical megaharmonium genius. He tiptoed around me; I let him.

  I still had to finalize the programs for General Comonot’s welcoming concert and the entertainments for Treaty Eve. Comonot was to arrive five days before the anniversary of his treaty. He wanted to experience a bit of what we Goreddis call Golden Week: the cluster of holy days beginning with Speculus, the longest night of the year. It was the season for reconciliation and reunion; for grand acts of charity and grander feasts; for
circling the Golden House and praying that St. Eustace keep his hands to himself for another year; for watching the Golden Plays and going mumming door to door; for making grandiose promises for the coming year and asking Heaven for favors. It just so happened that Queen Lavonda had made peace with Comonot during Golden Week, so the treaty was commemorated too with Treaty Eve, where we stayed up all night, and Treaty Day, where we all slept it off. That marked the beginning of the new year.

  I had filled half the program with Viridius’s students at his recommendation, sight unseen. His darling Lars got a prime spot, though the old man muttered, “Don’t let me forget to tell him he’s playing!” which was not particularly encouraging. There was a lot of time to fill, especially on Treaty Eve, and I still didn’t have enough auditions lined up. I spent several days reading more petitions from prospective performers and auditioning them. Some were excellent; many were dreadful. It would be tough to fill an entire night unless I repeated some acts. I’d been hoping for more variety than that.

  One petition kept reappearing at the top of the stack: a troupe of pygegyria dancers. It had to be the same troupe I’d turned away at the funeral, unless there was some pygegyria festival in town. I had no intention of auditioning them; there was no point. Princess Dionne and Lady Corongi had a difficult enough time condoning our native Goreddi dances, which permitted young women to have far more fun than was appropriate. (I had this on the authority of Princess Glisselda, who found herself greatly inconvenienced by the bad attitudes of her mother and governess.) I could only imagine what they would make of a foreign dance with a reputation for being risqué.

  I tore up the petition and threw it in the fire. I remembered doing it, quite distinctly, when a pygegyria petition appeared atop the pile again the next day.

  Viridius occasionally let me take days off to keep up my studies with Orma; I decided I’d earned a break three days before Comonot and chaos descended upon us. I dressed warmly, slung my oud across my back, packed my flute in my satchel, and set off for St. Ida’s Conservatory first thing. I all but skipped down the hill, feeling pleasantly unburdened. Winter had not yet found its teeth; the rooftop frost melted with the first kiss of the sun. I bought breakfast along the river quay, fish custard and a glass of tea. I detoured through St. Willibald’s Market, which was covered, crowded, and warm. I let riotous Ninysh ribbons cheer my heart, laughed at the antics of a noodle-stealing dog, and admired enormous salt-crusted hams. It was good to be an anonymous face in the crowd, feasting my eyes upon the glorious mundane.

  Alas, I was not as anonymous as I used to be. An apple seller called out laughingly as I passed: “Play us a tune, sweetheart!” I assumed he’d noticed my oud, which hung in plain sight, but he mimed playing flute. The flute was bundled away where he could not have seen it. He recognized me from the funeral.

  Then the crowd opened in front of me like a curtain, and there was Broadwick Bros. Clothiers, their stall heaped high with folded felts. Thomas Broadwick himself was just tipping his sugarloaf cap to a wide-hipped matron, the proud new owner of several yards of cloth.

  He looked up and our eyes met for a long moment, as if time had stopped.

  It occurred to me to approach him, to march boldly up and tell him I’d seen the light and repented my quig-coddling ways. In the same instant, though, I remembered that the lizard figurine was still in my coin purse; I had never bothered taking it out. That consideration made me hesitate too long.

  His eyes narrowed, as if guilt were written plainly on my face. My window of opportunity for bluffing him had passed.

  I turned and plunged into the densest part of the crowd, pulling my oud in front of me so I could protect it from jostling. The market took up three city blocks, giving me ample scope for vanishing. I ducked around the end of a coppersmith’s stall and peered back between the gleaming kettles.

  He was there, moving slowly and deliberately through the crowd, as if he were wading though deep water. Thank Allsaints he was tall, and the sugarloaf hat gave him an additional three inches of bright green. It would surely be easier for me to see him than for him to see me. I started working my way up the arcade again.

  I zigged and zagged as best I could, but he was always there when I looked back, a little closer each time. He’d catch up before I found the way out, unless I started running, which would have drawn the entire market’s attention. No one but a thief runs in the market.

  I began to sweat. Merchants’ voices echoed in the vaulted ceilings, but there was another sound, something sharper, shrilling underneath the dull murmur.

  It sounded like a good distraction to me.

  I turned a corner and saw two Sons of St. Ogdo standing on the edge of the public fountain. One pontificated and the other stood alongside, looking tough and keeping an eye open for the Guard. I skirted the crowd and ducked behind a great fat cobbler—judging by his leather apron and awls—whence I might spy Thomas without his spotting me. As I’d hoped, Thomas stopped short at the sight of the black-plumed Son prancing passionately on the fountain ledge. He listened, openmouthed, with the rest of the crowd.

  “Brothers and sisters under Heaven!” cried St. Ogdo’s champion, his feather bobbing, fire in his eyes. “Do you imagine that once the chief monster sets foot in Goredd, he intends to leave?”

  “No!” cried scattered voices. “Drive the devils out!”

  The Son raised his knobby hands for silence. “This so-called treaty—this dishrag!—is but a ruse. They lull us to sleep with peace; they trick our Queen into banishing the knights, who were once the pride of all the Southlands; and they wait until we are utterly helpless. Whither the mighty dracomachia, our art of war? There is no dracomachia now. Why should the worms fight us? They’ve already sent a stinking quig vanguard, burrowing into the rotten heart of this city. Now they walk in, forty years on, invited by the Queen herself. Forty years is nothing to such long-lived beasts! These are the selfsame monsters our grandfathers died fighting—and we trust them?”

  A raucous cry went up. Thomas shouted enthusiastically with the rest; I watched him through a forest of fist shaking. This was my chance to slip out. I shouldered my way through the suffocating crowd and burst out of the labyrinthine market into the feeble sunlight.

  The cold air cleared my head but did not slow my racing heart. I had come out only a block from St. Ida’s. I set off quickly, fearing he still followed me.

  I took the steps of St. Ida’s two at a time, reaching the music library within minutes. Orma’s office door spanned a gap between two bookcases; it looked like it had merely been propped there, because it had. At my knock, Orma lifted the entire door to let me enter, then set it back in place.

  His office wasn’t properly a room. It was made of books, or more accurately, the space between books, where three little windows had prevented the placement of bookcases against the wall. I had spent vast tracts of time here, reading, practicing, taking instruction, even sleeping here more than once, when home got too tense.

  Orma moved a pile of books off a stool for me but seated himself directly on another stack. This habit of his never ceased to amuse me. Dragons no longer hoarded gold; Comonot’s reforms had outlawed it. For Orma and his generation, knowledge was treasure. As dragons through the ages had done, he gathered it, and then he sat on it.

  Just being with him in this space made me feel safe again. I unpacked my instruments, my anxiety releasing in the form of chatter: “I was just chased through St. Willibald’s, and you know why? Because I was kind to a quig. I scrupulously hide every legitimate reason for people to hate me, and then it turns out they don’t need legitimate reasons. Heaven has fashioned a knife of irony to stab me with.”

  I didn’t expect Orma to laugh, but he was even more unresponsive than usual. He stared at motes of dust dancing in the sunbeams from his tiny windows. The reflection upon his spectacles made his expression opaque to me.

  “You’re not listening,” I said.

  He did not speak; he rem
oved his glasses and rubbed his eyes with a thumb and forefinger. Was his vision bothering him? He had never gotten used to human eyes, so much weaker than their dragon counterparts. In his natural form he could spy a mouse in a field of wheat. No spectacles, however strong, could possibly bridge that gap.

  I looked at him hard. There were things my eyes—and the human mind behind them—could discern that his never could. He looked dreadful: pale and drawn, with circles under his eyes, and … I barely dared articulate it, even to myself.

  He looked upset. No dragon could have seen that.

  “Are you ill?” I sprang to his side, not quite daring to touch him.

  He grimaced and stretched pensively, coming to some conclusion. He removed his earrings and deposited them in a drawer of his desk; whatever he was going to tell me, he did not want the Board of Censors hearing. From the folds of his doublet, he drew an object and placed it in my hand. It was heavy and cold, and I knew without being told that this was what the beggar had given him after Prince Rufus’s funeral.

  It was a gold coin, utterly antique. I recognized the obverse Queen, or her symbols anyway; Pau-Henoa, the trickster hero, pranced on the reverse. “Does this date from the reign of Belondweg?” I said. She was Goredd’s first queen, nearly a thousand years ago. “Where would one acquire such a thing? And don’t tell me the town beggars were handing them out to everyone, because I didn’t get mine.” I passed it back to him.

  Orma rubbed the coin between his fingers. “The child was a random messenger. Irrelevant. The coin comes from my father.”

  A chill ran up my spine. In repressing every thought of my mother—and I dared not even think of Orma as uncle very often, lest I slip up and call him that—I had made a habit of squelching all thoughts of my extended dragon family. “How do you know?”

  He raised an eyebrow. “I know every coin in my father’s hoard.”