The House of Shattered Wings (31 page)

The building hadn't changed. It was still where he remembered it: at one of the edges of a triangle-shaped square, its limestone walls overgrown with ivy, its wooden shutters discolored and cracked. The bottom floor had once been a vendor of sewing materials, but had since long fallen into disrepair; the little drawers with cloth samples and ribbons now held pilfered artifacts and containers, anything that could be sold for a price.

It hadn't changed. But then, why had he expected it to?

He waited outside until the usual crowd had all but gone, as the evening deepened around him, and the wind picked up. Then, shrugging his scarf around his neck, he walked into the shop.

And stopped, for it was Ninon behind the counter—who watched him, openmouthed. “Hello,” he said, into the growing silence. “I've come back.”

*   *   *

SELENE
had hoped it would get better, but it didn't. Asmodeus was shut in his rooms, claiming to be grieving and refusing all her polite requests for a meeting. Emmanuelle was back with her, but given to odd bouts of melancholy; back to her old self, before she'd completely given up essence, grieving for something neither she nor Selene could name. Despite their intense searches, Philippe could not be found anywhere, though there had been the occasional glimpse of him on the margins of the House, like a ghost she could not exorcise.

And Selene knew the name of her enemy now, though it did not help her.

Nightingale.

She had been young then, in the days of Nightingale's apprenticeship; young and naive and self-centered, paying little attention to the things that didn't concern her. Nightingale had given way to Oris, and Selene had barely noticed; nor had anyone within the House ever talked about the transition.

Given away, Emmanuelle had said. Betrayed.

How could he—? He was cold, and cruel, and ruthless, but she'd always thought he would do right by his students; that he discarded them for weaknesses, but not that he would turn them out of the House; bargain them away on shadowy things, use them as pawns in his war of influence.

Not her. He never would have. He didn't love her, or even feel more for her than the casual affection of a man for his pet, but he . . . He never would have—

But, if she closed her eyes, she would see, again and again, that amused glint in his gaze, would feel again that terrible sense of oppression; that primal fear that tightened all her leg muscles at the same time, primed for fighting or fleeing—fleeing, for what else could she have done, she who had never even been close to equaling him?

He never would have—

And her mind paused then, hanging over the precipice, because she knew, deep down, that he was perfectly capable of it. That he had always been.

“You can't appease a ghost,”
Emmanuelle had said, with a tired sigh.
“She's dead, Selene, and she's been working on her revenge for decades. The dead don't easily change their minds.”

She knew, but still she had to try.

While Emmanuelle was sleeping, she stole away, wrapped only in a thin cotton shawl, the cold wind on her skin like the beginning of a penance. She had put two guards outside Emmanuelle's room, but though she wouldn't be such a fool as to requisition them, neither would she be fool enough to go off on her own. She dropped by the mess hall, and asked which bodyguards were available. Two of the idle ones—Imadan and Luc—leaped up at the chance to follow her, abandoning a spirited discussion on the proper way to sketch the human body.

The crypt where Morningstar had lain was all but deserted. The stone bed was still empty in its circle of power—
do not think of the bed now, not of the grave or whom it belonged to
—but the place had changed. Along every column holding up the ceiling, something crept downward: great buttresses like snakes, moving so fast she'd have sworn she could see them shifting; encircling the pillars so hard and tight that the stone had cracked. Selene walked closer, touched them. They were as hard as rock, but the material wasn't rock. It was wood.

She thought of the plants in the East Wing; of the leaves she couldn't touch or pull out. Green things. And, like all green things, they had roots; roots which were now choking the foundation of Silverspires. If it couldn't be stopped . . .

Of course it could. It was silly to think that any ghost could affect the oldest and most powerful of Houses . . . But this ghost had summoned the Furies—killed Oris and Samariel and others; used Philippe as a catalyst to enter the House; and perhaps Asmodeus and Claire to wreak its havoc. This ghost had led Morningstar to sacrifice himself in order to exorcise her; in vain, for he had only kept the danger at bay, not eradicated it.

A worthy student, Morningstar would have said; except that, of course, it was his House being torn apart, and he who had been killed.

Selene knelt in the circle, touched her fingertips to it: nothing but cold, inert stone. Dead, all dead, and yet . . .

She brushed her fingers against the stone bed, and, calling to her the magic of the House, pulling in every strand like a weaver at her loom, spoke the slow, measured litany of a spell.

Something stirred, in the dark; large and unfathomable and not feeling human anymore. “I would speak with you,” she said, slowly.

Darkness; and the wind, howling between the pillars with their weight of tree roots. “I know Morningstar harmed you, but he is gone. I—I am mistress of his House, and would offer amends in his name.”

Amends,
the darkness whispered to her, in her own voice. A cold, unpleasant feeling, slithering across her hands.
Amends. There are none.

“Whatever you desire—”

All that you built—destroyed. All that you hold dear vanished. All that you long for—borne away by the storm.

“What storm?”

It is coming. Can you not hear it?

Selene could hear nothing
but
it; the sound of the wind racing between pillars; the distant noise of branches bending against its onslaught; the tightness in the air, a cloth stretched taut, almost to snapping point. “Your storm?”

There was no answer from the darkness. “What do you want, damn it!”

She had already had her answer; had already seen what was happening. Not a House, but something else; the foundations of a new building, a new garden, its roots in the wreckage of Silverspires.

Never.

It wasn't Morningstar's voice in her mind, but it could have been: it was that same cold, dry feeling of steel against the nape of a neck, that same feeling of unbreakable promises. The House was hers, now that Morningstar was dead; wholly hers, with none of the whispers that Asmodeus and Claire had started, none of the doubts about her ability to rule. It was hers; and, because no one else could protect it, that duty fell to her.

“I will crush you,” she said to the darkness, her voice taking on the singsong of chants and litanies, and powerful spells. “Hack off your roots and suck the sap from your leaves, and burn your seeds before they can ever land.” The air was taut again, as if listening to her promise; but what could it know of fear? It wasn't even human, not anymore.

“Selene?” It was Javier, pale and untidy. His creased face had the same expression as when he had waved Asmodeus into her office.

Her heart sank. “What's happened?”

“Asmodeus is leaving,” Javier said. By now, she knew, all too well, his expressions and what they meant; and could read what he didn't say in the tightness of his clenched hands, in the thinness of his stretched lips.

“Asmodeus. That's not what I ought to be worried about, is it?”

Javier winced. “You—you have to come and see. There really is no good way to explain it.”

*   *   *

MADELEINE
wrapped her things carefully; not that there were many of them, of course. Isabelle watched her in silence, leaning against the doorjamb of the laboratory: she'd come in the middle of Madeleine's packing, and had settled in her current position without a word. At last she said, “You don't have to—”

Madeleine winced. She'd scoured her drawers before Isabelle had arrived, and had found only one small locket with a little angel essence; nothing like what she'd have needed to take. A vague edge of hunger seemed to overlay everything she did. It wasn't a craving, not something irresistible that would have left her in tears; merely a faint sense of discomfort that seemed to be slowly increasing. She refused to think about what it would mean for her, out there. “Selene gives me no choice.”

Isabelle's hands clenched. “Selene can't drive everyone away.”

“Philippe, you mean?” Madeleine asked. She'd never liked him, so she couldn't say she was sorry for him. But anything that would rile up Selene had her approval at the moment. How dare she—how–

Her throat was closing up. She took a last look at her laboratory: at the old, battered chair she'd sat in during her wild nightmare nights; the secretary desk, with the first drawer that always jammed—if she closed her eyes, she could still see Oris, sitting at the table with a frown on his face, trying to understand what she wanted from him.

Oh, Oris.

She blinked back tears. She'd never been one for sentimentality: she and Selene had that in common, at least; and she wasn't about to collapse in tears in the middle of her laboratory.

“Madeleine?”

“I'll be fine,” she said. She had her bag. All the containers within belonged to the House, but she didn't think Selene would begrudge her a battered leather bag, so old it could have seen the days of Morningstar. “You should—” She closed her eyes. She couldn't feel the House; couldn't even reassure herself that she would be safe. And she'd had so little time to know Isabelle; but she and Emmanuelle were the one shining spot left in the desolation. “Take care of yourself, will you?”

Isabelle smiled sadly. “That's what Philippe said. Do you all think me such a child?”

“No,” Madeleine said. She laid one of Isabelle's containers on the now-empty table. “But you'll be House alchemist. That's a big responsibility, trust me.” One that she'd never been quite up to, she suspected; but she'd done better than her predecessor, at the least. And she'd trained a successor, in all too short a time. If only she could have stayed longer . . .

“I know.” Isabelle shook her head. “I didn't . . . There was no time, Madeleine.”

“It doesn't matter.” Madeleine sought words; never something she'd been good at. “You'll do fine. Believe me.”

Isabelle laughed bitterly. “Perhaps. You will write, won't you? Send news—”

Madeleine shook her head, unsure of what to say. Tears blinked at the corners of her eyes; she didn't move. No sentimentality. “Of course.” It was a lie; why bother Isabelle with the remnants of a sad, washed-out alchemist, a teacher who couldn't even provide enough knowledge? “Of course I'll write. If it makes you happy.”

Isabelle's smile seemed to illuminate the entire laboratory; no, it wasn't merely an illusion; it was a radiance from her skin, so strong it cast dancing shadows upon the walls. “Not as well as your staying, but I'll take it,” she said.

Madeleine's heart clenched in her chest. She couldn't do anything more for Isabelle; couldn't protect her, or even give her more than a modicum of the knowledge she'd gained. It would have to do; because Selene had left her no choice; but oh, how it hurt, as if she were betraying Oris all over again.

She hadn't had much, and hadn't hoped to bequeath much; save for the hope her apprentices would do better than her.

She left Isabelle in the laboratory, moodily staring at the container, and took the shortest way out, toward the ruined cathedral and its parvis.

There was something—something in the corridors that wasn't quite usual. On her way, she bypassed the school. She could hear Choérine's voice, explaining the finer points of Latin, and the giggles of some of the girls, but the noise was overlaid by something else, some other sound she couldn't quite identify. A breath, a tune she couldn't quite catch; voices whispering words on the cusp of hearing—but, no, it wasn't voices. It was . . . a sound that was the creak of a mast on the sea, a rustle like cloth; a breath like the wind in outstretched sails.

None of her business, not anymore.

People stood on the parvis. At first, Madeleine thought only to push past them on her way to the Petit-Pont; but then she saw the uniforms of silver and gray, and the sickeningly familiar insignia, the crown encircling the hawthorn tree. No. Not them, not now. She would have turned in blind panic, to find her way back into the House; but there was no safety there, not anymore, only the cool welcome they would reserve for strangers.

Breathe. Breathe. Do not think about blood,
or the hollow pain of ill-healed ribs, the old wounds that never stopped twinging. She was going to walk past them, cross the river, get on board the omnibus that stopped before the Saint-Michel Fountain; and at last be rid of Hawthorn's ghosts in her life.

Her breath seemed to come out in short, noisy gasps as she crossed, on the other side of the vast plaza where the market was held, now all but deserted, with only a few House dependents hurrying about their tasks, their gazes studiously avoiding her. Halfway through, she threw a glance at them: so far away, they seemed like dolls, their faces all blurring into one another. They were talking animatedly, paying no attention to their surroundings. A leave-taking, that was what it had to be—she remembered something about the Hawthorn delegation staying on—a funeral, had it been? Or something close to it.

Ahead, the bridge beckoned, and the omnibus was waiting at the stop, its horses pawing at the ground, fresh and nervous, at the beginning of their hour-long run through Paris. She was going to make it—she was—