The House of Shattered Wings (7 page)

“No.” Emmanuelle laid the book back on the desk. “But they've withdrawn now. According to the books, they haven't been seen in several decades.”

“Mmm,” Selene said. “And you think . . . Philippe is a dragon?”

Emmanuelle laughed. “No, of course not. They can take human form, but they always have scales somewhere—or a pearl below their chin, in some of the more . . . dramatic drawings.”

“I see,” Selene said. She didn't; or, more accurately, she felt she knew more, but not enough to help her. “Was there anything else?”

“There are other spirits,” Emmanuelle said. “Flower fairies”—she raised a hand to forestall Selene's objections—“they're not cute and small, trust me. Also, fox spirits, in Tonkin; and Immortals, though no one has ever seen these. Apparently they all live in something called the Court of the Jade Emperor—who rules over all the other spirits—and they never come down to Earth.”

That didn't sound very promising, either. And she had other preoccupations, too—with the market coming to Silverspires, there were things she needed to go over with Javier and Diane, the head of security for the House. . . .

She was about to dismiss Emmanuelle and go back to her reports, when something else happened. At the back of her mind—where the dependents of the House were all lined up like lit candles—a light flickered, and went out.

“Selene?”

Selene closed her eyes; felt for the shape and heft of the missing dependent. Théodore Ganimard; one of the informants who kept her apprised of what was happening in other Houses, and in the rest of the city. “Someone just died.”

“Oh.” Emmanuelle said. “Is it . . . bad?”

Selene shook her head. Being an informant was a dangerous business; and in a bad year she would lose half a dozen men and women. But still . . . it was odd, that she'd never even felt that Théodore Ganimard was in danger—as if he'd died so quickly and brutally that it had never had time to register with the House's protections. Like many dependents of Silverspires, he had a tracker disk; but all it told her was that he had been out in the south of Paris, near the ruins of Hell's Toll.

The market was arriving the next day, and there were other things requiring her attention; but she wasn't about to let the death of one of her dependents slide past.

“I don't know how bad it is. Can you get me Javier? I'll ask him to look into this.”

*   *   *

A
month after Philippe and Isabelle's arrival, the Great Market came to Silverspires—or rather, just outside the House, in the vast square that had once been the parvis of Notre-Dame. During the Belle Epoque, it had been held in the same place week after week—Les Halles, the belly of the city, the exuberant display of abundance of an empire that had believed itself immortal against all the evidence of history. But the squat, majestic pavilions of glass and iron had been destroyed in the war; and the fragile magical balance that had followed led to an arrangement where the Great Market rotated between the major Houses.

Madeleine took Oris, Philippe and Isabelle with her while she went shopping for magical supplies; keeping a wary eye on Philippe as Selene had instructed. But, other than his being moody and brooding, there seemed to be nothing extraordinary about the young man.

Isabelle, on the other hand, looked at everything and everyone—fascinated by the bright, colored jewelry on a stall; by the vast array of cheeses and hams in the food section, from blue-veined Roquefort to the large, heavy whole rounds of Emmental, their interior peppered with holes like a thousand bubbles; from the glass bottles and mirrors that alchemists used to trap Fallen magic, to trinkets that shone with nothing more than glitter and cheap crystal.

Madeleine watched Isabelle, not sure whether to be amused or affected. She was so young; so careless—like Madeleine in another lifetime, when she'd still been a child in Hawthorn, running wild in the market under the indulgent gaze of her teachers. Back then, she'd never even dreamed of Silverspires or of another House: her duty had been to her family and to Hawthorn, and to nothing or no one else. And now, of course, she was older—she wished she could say wiser, but her wasted lungs and life on the knife's edge of fear told her otherwise. Her parents were a distant memory—she had been barely talking to them before Asmodeus's coup; and, of course, after the coup, even the thought of sending a message back had made her sick—that roiling fear that Asmodeus would intercept it—that he would remember her existence, remember that she was still worth claiming; and come to Silverspires with his mocking smile, to kill her as he had killed Elphon . . .

With an effort, she shook off the past, and focused on the present.

The crowd was colorful and variegated: delegations from other Houses; gang lords in leather, swaggering through the market with their entourages; and a host of grimier, poorer people who congregated in the food sections, haggling for basic necessities. There was not much danger in the crowd, as long as they remained together: the Great Market was a place of truce (which, of course, didn't mean their purses were safe from opportunistic thieves). Children chased one another, laughing, under the wary eyes of their parents or their minders.

As they stood before one of the stalls, waiting for Oris to complete a purchase of a small mother-of-pearl container, Philippe spoke up.

“It was bigger during the war,” he said.

“Wasn't everything?” Madeleine said. She hadn't been born when the city was devastated; those days, you pretty much had to be Fallen to have survived. Sixty years was long in human lifetimes, and most of those who had breathed in the air of Paris in the aftermath had not recovered well. But he wasn't Fallen, and still he remembered. Odd.

“They had entire stalls like these,” Philippe said, fingering a lacquered box with a pattern of flowers. “Exotic woods from the Orient, and incense, and all the rubber you could ever want, for manufacturing car tires for the front.” His voice was lightly ironic.

“We still have those. But they're mostly from our existing stock. More expensive,” Madeleine said, unsure of what to answer. He was a native, of course; he would disapprove of the empire, if there was still such a thing after the war—with communications and travel so difficult, the colonies had all but become independent kingdoms by now, with the French colonists still in charge. She . . . she didn't like the idea of invading countries, but she was no fool: the empire had made them rich and powerful, and even its bare, pathetic remnants after the war brought them riches and standards of living far above those of the street gangs or other Houseless. Sometimes, you did what you had to, in order to survive.

He gave no sign of noticing her hesitation: he nodded, gravely. “It was another age.”

“And yet you're still here,” Madeleine said.

His face closed, as if a cloud had darkened it. “Through no fault of my own,” he said, bitterly, and wouldn't speak up again.

“Madeleine!” A voice made her look up as they approached the eastern area of the parvis.

It was Claire, the head of House Lazarus; surrounded, as usual, by a gaggle of unruly children. Lazarus, among all the Houses, was the only one ruled by a human; Claire had been its head for thirty years, and Madeleine had known her for about half of that. She was small and plump, the image of a gray-haired, kindly grandmother; though of course one did not get to be the head of a House through kindness alone. Claire was ruthless, and many of her tactics would have put a Fallen to shame.

“I see you've grown an entourage of your own,” Claire said, wryly. Her gaze took in Isabelle and Oris, and stopped at Philippe.

“They belong to the House,” Madeleine said, acutely embarrassed.

“You surprise me.” Claire smiled. “I never thought you would get Philippe to join a House of his own free will.”

She knew him? Madeleine waited for him to protest; or to acknowledge the fact that he was bound to the House by far less than his free will, but he merely scowled at Claire. “There is a time to try everything, I guess,” he said, darkly. “How have you been, Lady Claire?”

“Well enough,” Claire said. Without missing a beat, she caught a boy's hand and held it away from the bracelet he was trying to grasp. “No touching, I said.”

Madeleine made a mental note to talk to Claire away from Philippe, or to tell Selene to do so. There was even more to the young man they didn't know, it seemed. “We had Philippe for a while,” Claire said. “A long time ago, though, and we couldn't hold him.”

Philippe wasn't meeting her gaze; though now that Madeleine thought of it, he seldom met anyone's gaze but Isabelle's. “None of your fault,” he said at last, inclining his head in a practiced gesture. “You know that.”

“Of course.” Claire shook her head, as if to clear away a persistent thought; and her gaze focused on Isabelle. “You haven't been here long,” she said.

Isabelle hesitated, clearly reluctant to say much of anything. Madeleine stepped in. “She's too young for the advanced inquisition, Claire. Or for your power plays with Silverspires.”

“Power plays?” Claire smiled again. “I don't play them much, as you well know.”

No,
Madeleine thought.
But when you do play them, you leave us all in the dust.
She did not relish the idea that Silverspires was bound to find itself on the opposite camp of House Lazarus one day. Claire might be human, but that merely meant she was ten times the strategist that most Fallen were; and ten times as ruthless when it came to downing her enemies. “If I were playing such games, though . . .” Claire's face was thoughtful. “If I were playing, I would congratulate you on sheltering so young a Fallen, who will do honor to her House.”

“A weapon, you mean.” Philippe's hiss of anger was all too audible, even in the din of merchants offering their wares.

“I see you haven't changed,” Claire said. “Ideals will betray you in the end. You should know this.”

Philippe said nothing—perhaps he'd finally understood that all Claire did was to goad him, in the hopes of getting information. “You didn't stop me simply to exchange pleasantries,” Madeleine said, going for the blunt approach.

Claire's pale blue eyes focused on her. “Did I?” But in the end, as Madeleine had known all along, she couldn't resist. “If you see Selene, you might want to suggest she show an interest in doings outside the House.”

“What things do you think she would not have seen?” Madeleine said, keeping her voice low and pleasant.

Claire's face darkened, and she hesitated for a while. “As I said, I don't play your little power games. I'm not Harrier or Hawthorn, or Silverspires, indeed. But there is word, in the city, of something abroad.”

“Something?” Madeleine couldn't help the bark of laughter. “There's always something abroad in Paris. It's not like it's a safe place.” She couldn't help remembering the shadow; the touch on her thoughts, the fist tightening in her innards as the wings unfolded, always just out of sight, always just out of reach—until they weren't.

“Something that kills,” Claire said darkly. “Something that leaves multiple bite marks on its victims and takes their blood.”

“Fallen blood is power,” Philippe said. He kept his gaze away from Isabelle, but Madeleine saw the way the young Fallen flinched. “But not much power.”

“Did I say the victims were Fallen?” Claire shook her head.

Oh, of course. Word would have spread much faster, if there had been Fallen dead. “What are you suggesting?” Madeleine asked.

“I don't know. I never said I had the answer. But I would suggest you tread even more carefully than usual at night.” Claire's face was utterly serious; and there was a hint of something in her eyes—fear?

Claire went on, with a tight smile. “The victims are human. Five of them, none who would be missed—low in gang hierarchies, grimy and ill-fed, too insignificant to be worth a House's regard.” There was no mistaking the anger in her voice. Among other things, Lazarus ran charity kitchens, hospitals, and hostels, where, regardless of your allegiance or your past, you would be made welcome for a few nights.

“Which gangs?” Philippe asked sharply.

Claire gave him an appraising look. “None of the Red Mambas, though I would guess your . . . friends will be worried as well.”

“Those deaths don't really concern the House,” Madeleine said, though she didn't know, not really. It was dark out there, in the devastated streets of the city; and if one crazy person had got into his head to play serial killer, she wasn't really sure what Silverspires could have to do with it. “I'll tell Selene, but you know I can't guarantee anything.”

“No, of course not.” Claire inclined her head. “But it'll be something. Good-bye.”

It was only after she and her entourage had gone, when Isabelle looked up and asked, “But surely she could tell Lady Selene herself?” that Madeleine thought back on what Claire had said. “I don't know,” she said. “I don't like it. There's a sting in here somewhere for Silverspires, but I don't know what it is yet.”

“She wanted something out of us,” Philippe said. “And I'm not sure if she didn't get it.”

“How do you know her?” Madeleine asked.

Philippe looked straight at her; and suddenly she understood why he rarely met people's gazes, because there was something disturbingly intense about him, a coiled strength that made her feel as though her ribs were being compressed against her lungs, as though some icy hand were squeezing her heart. “I was in one of her hospitals for a while,” Philippe said at last. “Not for long, and not with an entirely satisfactory resolution, but that's another story.”

And that seemed to be the end of it; his gaze, boring into her, dared her to question him further; she had no desire to do so.