The House of Shattered Wings (11 page)

“I've not met a Leander,” Philippe said.

“You wouldn't,” Emmanuelle said. “He's been dead for decades.”

“An accident?”

“Old age,” Emmanuelle said.

A mortal, then. An odd choice for Morningstar, but then again, who was he to judge? What had the Fallen looked for, in his students—and what had he found? What had made someone burn with that twisted, dark anger he'd felt, when touching the mirror?

Leander was dead, which ruled him out. And, of course, Selene was out, because she'd been in the vision.

“You're sure there were no other students of his who survived the war?” Taking students like commodities; bewitching them and sending them to slaughter: it was powerful and plausible motivation for someone to
hate
Morningstar, perhaps enough to doom his entire House in the process. But if everyone was dead or ruled out, then it left only Oris.

Who was also dead.

A terribly convenient coincidence, if it was a coincidence at all.

“That's an awful lot of questions,” Emmanuelle said. Her eyes narrowed. “Why the curiosity?”

Demons take him; he'd pushed her too far. He couldn't let her press further; she was perceptive enough to realize that he was hardly asking about Morningstar for the good of the House. “I guess I'm trying to understand Selene,” he said, falling back on the first excuse that came to mind.

Emmanuelle stared at him for a while, but he'd had lots of practice staring Ninon and Baptiste down. “I see,” she said. “Don't get any ideas, Philippe. I'm not the pathway into her mind.”

“No,” he said, glibly, and left her staring at her book—going back to his biography of Morningstar.

*   *   *

ISABELLE
found him, hours later, halfway through the book and not much more advanced. The names of Morningstar's students were in there, all blurring together like glass on a windowpane: Hyacinth, Seraphina, Nightingale, Leander, Oris . . .

Hyacinth had been a minor mortal of the House, a laundry servant vaguely dissatisfied with his life but not overly power-hungry: after Morningstar was done with him, he'd risen to be the personal valet of a high-rank Fallen, and, insofar as Philippe could see, had remained in that position all his life. Seraphina had been found by Morningstar himself, on a night when he was prowling the city—lying weak and helpless in the wreck of the Arc de Triomphe, and taken in tow like a child until he had grown bored with her. Nightingale had been mortal: one of the House's minor witches, noted for her wild theories about spells and her unorthodox way of doing magic—probably what had drawn Morningstar's eye in the first place. Leander was mortal, too, and ambitious—unlike Nightingale, he had been steadily rising through the ranks, becoming one of the House's foremost magicians, powerful enough to rival Fallen. And Oris . . . Oris had already been an alchemist's assistant, and after Morningstar gave up on him, he'd simply gone back to his beloved artifacts and charged mirrors.

Without preamble, Isabelle pulled a wooden chair toward her, and sat facing him across the low table. “You owe me a few explanations.”

“I'm listening,” he said.

Isabelle shook her head. She wore pale clothes, which only emphasized the cast of her olive skin, and the mortar-and-pestle insignia of alchemists sat uneasily on her breast—skewed, showing large swaths of the adhesive patch that was meant to keep it in place. “
I
came here to listen,” she said. “Like what you were doing with House Hawthorn.”

Philippe set the book aside, and looked up. They were alone in this section of the library—where the bookshelves were half-empty; the books torn and stained, not painstakingly put back together by Emmanuelle's hands; and the smell of rotten, wet things rather than comforting mustiness.

“That's my own business,” he said at last.

Isabelle smiled, but the expression didn't reach her eyes. “I thought I could trust you.”

He hadn't seen her since the market—he'd have said she was avoiding him, but he was, too—not sure of what he could tell her.

“You've changed,” he said, slowly. “What has Madeleine done to you?”

She sat straight-backed—her skin a pale golden rather than the shade he was used to, but her bearing regal. “Madeleine? Nothing.”

“Oris—”

Her gaze remained steady. “I had to take Oris apart. Madeleine was trying not to cry the entire time. It wasn't so bad for me—I didn't really know him, after all.” She worried at the hole on her left hand; the two missing fingers—how did you scrape flesh and muscle from bone, with half a hand? Badly, he guessed.

“But it wasn't easy. I'm sorry.” It was rote, and thoughtless, and it was the absolute wrong thing he could have said.

“You're not. And don't change the subject, please.”

What could he tell her? He ought to lie; ought to make life easier for himself; but staring into those wide, shining eyes that still reflected the light of the City, Philippe found himself unable to twist the truth. “I'm not House, Isabelle. I'm only here under duress. You know that.”

“So you want to escape.” There was no condemnation on her face; only an odd kind of thoughtfulness, as if she'd found a behavior she couldn't quite explain. In a way, that was worse. “Into another House.”

“No,” Philippe said. Anywhere but Houses. Back on the streets, or into Annam—waiting, as she herself had said, for a boat, for regular traffic to resume, or security on maritime commerce to grow slack. “But I can't stay here, not on Selene's terms. You have to see that.”

“I do.” Isabelle's voice was still thoughtful. “I do understand. But this can't be the right way to go about it.”

“Then give me another one.”

Isabelle flinched; but did not draw back, or apologize, as she might have done once. She
had
changed; carbon pressed together until it became the first inklings of a diamond.

“I can't—I don't know enough, Philippe.”

“I know,” he said, wearily. “But I need a way forward, Isabelle.” He needed—freedom? The same sense of weightlessness he'd once enjoyed in Annam, in the court of the Jade Emperor; when he moved among bejeweled ladies and haughty lords, drinking pale tea in celadon cups as fragile as eggshells—a feeling that was now lost forever. In that desperate longing he wasn't so different from Fallen, after all: a frightening thought.

She sat still for a while, staring at him; biting her lip, young and bewildered and lost. “I—I know. But you're playing with fire, and I can't. I need the House, Philippe, or I won't survive. I can't allow you to damage it, even if I understand why you're doing it. I have to tell Selene.”

“No. Please.”

He
was
hurting the House, or planning to—it wasn't a bad place to be, insofar as Houses went, and the people—Laure, Emmanuelle, the kitchen staff—had been kind to him. But it was a House—built on arrogance and blood and the hoarding of magic—and its master held the keys to his chains. He had . . . He had to be free.

“I won't tell her it's you,” Isabelle said. “But she needs to know what Hawthorn is doing.”

As if Selene wouldn't guess which of her new arrivals was being unfaithful. “She'll flay me,” Philippe said, reflexively; but something within him, something older and prouder, whispered,
Let her try
—and the voice was Morningstar's.

What? No. That wasn't—that wasn't possible.

Isabelle shook her head. “She's not like that. You don't know her—”

Of course he knew her. She'd do anything to preserve her chosen Fallen and mortals, and let everyone else rot—and he couldn't tell, anymore, if the thoughts were his or Morningstar's. He teetered on the edge of the abyss where he would lose himself in a way utterly alien to him, subsumed in the unpalatable memories of a Fallen. . . .

“Give me time,” he said through clenched lips. “Please, Isabelle. You know—”

“That you don't mean harm?” She was silent for a while.

“That's not what I mean. I don't wish the House harm.” And it was a lie, and they both knew it. “But you have to see I'm a prisoner here.” As she was not. She was Fallen, with all the privileges this afforded her; and Silverspires was her home. It could never be his, even if it had been as welcoming as his own mother's hearth. He was . . . Annamite. Other. “Please.”

Her eyes shone in the paleness of her face. “I can guess what you feel. I can—” She took in a deep, shaking breath. “I feel some of it.”

Philippe looked away, trying to avoid her gaze, or her three-fingered hand. What was it for her, the same as for him: an odd twisting in his belly; a nagging sense of always knowing where she was, a faint echo of what she felt? Affection, embarrassment? It was too weak an emotion, whatever was in her mind; and he wouldn't understand her so easily. They moved in wholly different worlds.

“Then—” He hardly dared to breathe.

She didn't move for a while. “Three days. That's all I can give you, Philippe.”

After she'd left, he sat in his chair, staring at the book in front of him—the past that should have had no bearing on him—breathing hard.

Three days. He had three days before Selene was informed of what he was up to, and his life got a lot more difficult, and possibly a lot shorter. Three days to find something; that was if the memories didn't kill him first.

He had to find out what was going on in the House, and not entirely so he could get rid of his chains.

No, he had to know, because it looked as though the curse wasn't going to be content with the occasional vision from the past. If he didn't understand it, he was going to find himself swept along in whatever twisted revenge the unknown Fallen had dreamed of, and utterly lose himself in the process.

A DARKNESS WITHIN THE HOUSE

HOUSE
Lazarus stood a few hundred meters west of the Grands Magasins, though the contrast could not have been greater. The House had cleared its own surroundings. The streets were grime-splattered, the buildings stained with the black of magical residue, but everything was clear of debris: the railings freshly painted a shade of dark green, the clock on the frontispiece on time and chiming the quarter hours, and every window of the building decorated with elegant baize curtains. There were even a few cars parked in the large plaza in front of the House—though, judging by their worn-out appearance, they were more likely to belong to minor Houses or wealthy independents. Then again, Madeleine wasn't sure how she'd have reacted, if she'd seen one of House Hawthorn's big limousines parked in front of the House.

She'd taken one of the city's large omnibuses; clutching the bag with the tools of her trade against her, enduring the suspicious gazes of her neighbors as they wondered why a House-bound would bother to take a horse-drawn, communal vehicle.

There were no guards at the main entrance; or, to be more accurate, no one who challenged her as she made her way under the wide arches of the House's central building. House Lazarus prided itself on welcoming anyone in need, though that didn't mean anyone could go wherever they wanted within the House. The relaxed attitude hid powerful defenses. Every House was a fortress guarded by spells and men. They had to be; otherwise they wouldn't last long in the city.

The lower floor of House Lazarus was a wide, airy hall. The founder, Eugénie, had wished for it to be a place of sharing where the entire House could congregate, Fallen and mortals alike. In design it somewhat resembled the nearby Saint-Lazare station: a series of metal arches supporting a low roof, and long trestle tables where the rails would have been—each table divided in several segments where people dispensed anything from food to medical help. It was the heart of House Lazarus's network of safe houses, the place everyone received their supplies or their attribution of beds or rooms, according to their needs. Philippe, apparently, had gone through there, too, which was unexpected; and even more unexpected was that he knew Claire. What was their relationship, exactly?

The queues were as busy as ever—watched over by what seemed like an army of guards. As Madeleine made her way to the right—where stairs led to the more private part of the building—there was a commotion—a scuffle, a burst of magic, and a brief scream, soon cut off. Someone had tried to cut ahead, or to steal something; and now lay dead on the floor. Claire ran a tight House, where there was no place for disorder.

Madeleine approached the guards leaning casually against the metal pillars—they tensed, slightly, when they saw her. “I'm from House Silverspires, and I need to see Lady Claire,” Madeleine said, without preamble. Diplomacy had never been her forte, and she wasn't about to try it now.

The left-hand guard looked her up and down. He had opened his mouth for a dismissal, when his neighbor nudged him. “She's their alchemist, Eric. Don't you think—”

Eric bit back an obvious swearword, and gestured her toward the foot of the staircase. “Wait here,” he said. “I'll send someone for Lady Claire. But she's busy, mind you—and I'm sure she has no time for the likes of you, alchemist or no alchemist.”

Madeleine sat down on the first step, clutching her bag. It was silly, but the weight of familiar tools reassured her. Going to another House was very much entering enemy territory, even if House Lazarus was friendly by House standards.

She tried not to think of Oris—of his face, shrunken and distorted in death; of her hands, saving flesh and nails and blood; parting skin to reveal red, glistening muscles underneath, peeling back everything that had made him—and nowhere could she see his smile, or his infuriating habit of hovering nearby, or the way he'd had of taking tea in the laboratory, drinking the dust-covered liquid as if nothing were amiss. . . .

She would not cry. She had spent all her tears on Elphon, a long time ago; had crawled away from Hawthorn, her wounds weeping blood. All her grieving was done, a thing of the past—or should have been of the past.

Oh, Oris . . .

Now, when Madeleine looked up in her laboratory, she saw Isabelle; reaching for a bowl or a mirror with a frown on her face; carrying a precariously balanced pile of books from one end of the room to the other—trying to put order in Madeleine's things, she'd said with a smile.

She meant well, and yet Madeleine wanted to scream at her; to shake her until she understood whose place she was taking, whose memories she was driving out. It was unfair and unkind, but she couldn't help it.

The walls of the staircase had been painted with a long frieze, which seemed to depict the history of the House from its founding. It was a short history, as Lazarus was barely older than the Great War, and a painful one—Eugénie had died in one of the first skirmishes, almost causing the House to vanish before it could even find its place in the hierarchy of the city. But Claire and her predecessor had worked miracles.

“Miss d'Aubin?”

Madeleine got up, staring at a young girl dressed in the brown and green of the House. “Lady Claire will see you now.”

She'd expected Claire to receive her in her salon; in rooms that would show her exquisite taste, making it clear that she might be younger than Fallen, but that she still knew exactly how to impress her visitors.

But instead, her guide took her downward, into the bowels of the House, into a maze of unadorned, identical concrete corridors, their walls shining with moisture; the weight of the entire House seemed to be pressing down on her. Damn it, she hated enclosed spaces, and modern enclosed spaces even more.

The corridors narrowed; the doors became thicker and thicker—and the noises that filtered from within became moans and cries and screams—petering out into utter silence. The cells, where those who had displeased Claire awaited her pleasure—and she doubted Claire was ever pleased. It was easy, in the light of day, to forget that Claire was ruthless; that it took ten, fifteen times the cruelty of a Fallen to run one of the greatest Houses in Paris when one was mortal.

Madeleine kept her bag against her, trying not to show the emotions on her face—by her side, the young girl did her the courtesy of not saying anything; though she had little doubt everything would be reported to Claire, eventually.

The silence grew and grew—and there was a faint smell of blood, like a charnel house, filtering through the doors—and then nothing, which was scarier than anything she'd seen or heard before. Finally they reached a door of rusted metal, and her guide gestured for her to enter. “Are you sure?” Madeleine asked, and the girl nodded.

Inside, it was dark; the only illumination coming from an exposed bulb in the center of the room, which cast wavering shadows on the walls. The back wall was occupied by a series of square drawers; and, suddenly, Madeleine knew exactly what she was staring at. “The morgue?” she asked, aloud.

“Good.” Claire's voice came from behind her—she hadn't expected that, and almost jumped out of her skin when the other woman spoke up. “You're fast on the uptake. But then, you always were.”

“What the blazes was that for?” Madeleine asked. “Love of drama?”

“Partly.” Claire came into view. She wore a grubby lab overall, over a knitted woolen jacket. Behind her was a Fallen in the same kind of overall, carrying a clipboard. “I wasn't expecting you here, Madeleine.”

Madeleine shivered. She shouldn't even be there; Selene's warning was all too present in her mind. “When we last met, you dropped some cryptic warnings.”

Claire smiled, though the look didn't reach her eyes. “Cryptic? I thought I was being very clear.”

“You wanted us to tell Selene about your murders,” Madeleine said, remembering what Philippe had said. “Why?”

“Why? Why are you here, Madeleine?”

“Because I need to know more about your corpses.”

“Someone died at Silverspires,” Claire said. She put both hands on the wooden table in the center of the room, leaning on it as if she could drive it into the floor. “A Fallen, by all accounts.” Her face darkened, slightly. “I'm sorry for your loss. I genuinely am. But I hoped someone would follow through on my warnings. I didn't think it was going to take a death before that happened.”

“Oris died a handful of minutes after you gave your warning,” Madeleine said. “Even if we'd heeded your warning, there was no time.”

Claire's face darkened; she looked genuinely angry. “I am not responsible for his death. I couldn't possibly have known when it would occur, or even that it was going to occur at all. Can you believe me?”

She wasn't sorry. Madeleine didn't think Claire would grieve for anything or anyone that didn't concern her. But her anger seemed genuine.

“You know something,” Madeleine said.

“No more than what I pick up.” Claire smiled. “But sometimes, it's enough. Come here, Madeleine. Let me show you what we gather on the streets.”

The box at the end of the morgue opened up with barely a noise, sliding on oiled rails; showing the face of the corpse inside, his eyes staring listlessly at the ceiling. For some incongruous reason, Madeleine found herself thinking of dead fish at the market: he had been kept on ice, but for so long that decay had settled in, bloating the shapes before her until he hardly seemed human anymore. Not that it would have mattered: she was used to corpses, so much that they were now like old friends, and she flirted close enough to death that it held no fear anymore—save that of the Resurrection, when she would have to face God and number her many sins. Pride. Despair. The vanity of second-guessing God's plans for the Fallen, raging at their unfair abandonment.

The face . . . The face, bloated and decayed almost past recognition.

She knew that face. She'd seen that man—she foundered, for a moment, struggling to recall his name. Théodore. Théodore Ganimard. She'd seen him in passing, going in and out of Selene's office at odd hours—part of the network of spies and informants that kept Selene apprised of what was going on in the city: Madeleine knew most of them—a side effect of being up at odd hours herself.

Claire laid something by the body's side, negligently. “He had this on him.”

It was a heavy, polished disk of wood: a minor artifact, used for tracking down whoever bore it; except that on the wood's surface were engraved the arms of Silverspires: the sword of Morningstar against the silhouetted spires of Notre-Dame. Madeleine had one exactly like it in her trouser pocket. “A tracker disk,” she said numbly. Once, it would have pulsed to the rhythm of magic, but the wood was blackened and charred; and the magic quite gone from it.

“They are given to dependents of Silverspires.” Claire's face hadn't moved.

“He . . .” He was dead with the disk on him, and it didn't matter anymore whether Claire knew. “He was one of our informants.”

Claire nodded. “I thought so.” Behind her, the assistant made a note on the clipboard—his broad face creased in thought.

On the marbled skin of the corpse were the same marks she'd seen on Oris's forearms: the perfect circle with a sharper wound in the center. They'd have been smudged with blood once, but now that everything had been cleaned, nothing was left but the imprint of the wound. Fangs, Aragon had said. Snakebites. But no snake had just one fang—and why strike someone repeatedly?

She foraged in her bag by touch; found a sealed mirror, and undid the clasp while keeping her eyes on the corpse's face. The angel breath was like fire in her nostrils; descending into her wasted lungs and wringing them from the inside out—she was bent over, gagging and coughing with the strength of it, already longing for something else the mirror couldn't provide, for the sheer potency of angel essence. . . .

She looked up through eyes streaming with tears. The corpse in front of her was shining. There was no other word. Every wound was outlined in a thin, scattered radiance: not the furious blaze of infant Fallen, or even the stately glow of mature ones like Selene and Emmanuelle, but faint and faded like glow worms. “Magic?” she asked. “This was done by a spell?”

Claire, who had been watching her in silence, shook her head. In Madeleine's new sight, she shone, or rather, the space between her breasts did. An artifact within a locket, hidden under her clothes; not a surprise, for the mortal head of a House.

Madeleine whispered the words of a spell, willing the magic to show her how they had died. Nothing happened. For a moment she feared she'd cast the wrong thing; and then the corpse lit up like a bonfire, washing the entire room in radiance. Claire cried out, and then there was darkness again, shot through with painful afterimages.

“Magic killed him,” she said, slowly, hoarsely, forcing the words through what felt like a mouthful of burning sand. “Like being burned. A blast of Fallen power so strong it stripped him bare.” And blasted the tracker disk, too, rendering it unusable. The human body wasn't meant to hold Fallen magic; in the long run, people who absorbed too much angel—or too much angel essence, or both—died.

Claire said nothing.

“The Fallen who died in Silverspires—” Madeleine said, the words torn out of her mouth before she could think them through. “—he died when his magic was taken away from him.”

Claire nodded. She didn't seem surprised. She reached out, and gently folded the sheet back over the corpse. “You'll want to see the others, too,” she said.

She opened another drawer: a woman, with the same dead eyes staring upward at Madeleine, filmed over by the haze of death; the same mysterious circle wounds.

Madeleine knew her, too. Hortense Archignat, another of Selene's informants.