A Fallen was waiting for her, sitting in a gilded chair with blue upholstery. By his side, on the low table, was a tray with a cup of coffee in cracked porcelain. He raised his eyes, but didn’t otherwise move when she entered. A familiar face: slick brown hair, reddened cheeks, deep-set hazel eyes suffused with easy, insufferable arrogance. Behind him were four young people standing at attention, with the cloaks of magicians over their shoulders.
Guy. The beleaguered head of House Harrier. He wouldn’t have looked beleaguered at all, sitting in the untainted heart of his power, except that his magicians were far too young, barely out of childhood: their confidence was hollow swagger and ignorance. Also, his wife Andrea was nowhere to be seen, which was… not a sign of weakness so much as odd, because Emmanuelle had always seen the two of them together.
“Hello, Emmanuelle,” Guy said.
On the sofa behind him, between the magicians, was a prone body. No, not a body, a corpse: an older boy with ginger hair with a bleeding mess where his chest should have been. The magician’s cloak he’d been wearing should have covered it, but it had slipped away and no one had bothered to set it right. He didn’t wear a ribbon at his collar: not merely a magician then, but a warded one, the most powerful and reclusive of Harrier’s magic-users.
He was a child. Twelve or thirteen, at most? This… this was what the House did to its own children.
“Benedict,” Emmanuelle said, aloud.
Guy’s last and most powerful son—the one who’d died and set off the succession crisis. She felt, once again, that nebulous fear—a feeling of her head being too large for her, a fleeting memory that should have made sense.
“As you well know.” Guy didn’t move from his chair. “I’m surprised you’re still here.”
Emmanuelle didn’t move. She forced herself to remain casual—her tone light, banter filled.
“It’s a little hard to get out of your House at the moment. As you well know.”
A tense, taut silence. She threw a glance around the room. Something else wasn’t quite right, but she couldn’t put her finger on what.
Guy said, mildly, “I would suggest you learn respect. Silverspires is no longer your shield.”
“It’s not my House that’s burning.”
Emmanuelle couldn’t help herself. Silverspires was so weak it barely counted as a House anymore, and it afforded her no protection. But it had been a long, exhausting day, and the little sleep she’d managed in the cells hadn’t really improved her mood.
One of the guards forced her down, twisting her arm upwards as they did, and standing with a foot on her wrist to keep her in that position, flat on the carpet. Pain shot up her arm. She bit her lip until she tasted blood, because she wanted so badly to cry out, and she wasn’t going to give him that satisfaction.
“As I said,” Guy said, rising and coming to stand over her, “I suggest you learn respect.”
The pressure on her back eased and she managed to pull herself up. She knelt, slowly, carefully, praying that there would be no unwelcome spasm to bring her down. Guy was watching her—still trying to make sense of her? But no, he was barely disguising cold fury.
She kept her voice icy and calm.
“Do you really think you can afford a war with Silverspires?”
Guy stopped in front of her. All she could see were the tailored trousers, with the blue-and-black tracery of hawks on the cloth.
“You’re the one who started it, Emmanuelle.”
“I did not.”
Guy went on as if she hadn’t spoken. “I warned you to stay out of this. Quite explicitly.”
She couldn’t admit to missing memories. It would be the height of recklessness—she might as well roll over and show him her throat to be torn out. So she said nothing. He was angry—losing his hold over the House he’d ruled, shut in a room with the corpse of his child. He would never remain silent if he could gloat.
“I warned you, and yet you keep associating with Darrias,” Guy said.
“I haven’t—” she started.
“Don’t lie,” he hissed. “I saw you together in the streets.”
That startled her. How? The windows of this room opened on an interior courtyard with cobblestones. But of course he’d have left the room…
“I have eyes,” Guy said, softly, and that was when she saw them.
They’d been there, unmoving, sitting on the ornate furniture, on the busts, on the low tables, half across the surfaces of tarnished mirrors—everywhere. The translucent images of birds of prey: hawks at rest, with folded wings and cocked heads, turned towards Guy. It was like a trick of the light: blink, and they became visible, outlines waiting to detach themselves from the furniture and make for their prey.
The girl-magician, standing very still as the bird went through her—the sound of her collapse, a wet, gurgling thing with no bones or blood anymore, fused flesh and muscles turned to mush. The cloak, fluttering in the breeze, falling over what was left of her. The sound of beating wings, rising and rising until they filled her entire universe.
She couldn’t stop the shiver that ran through her; or the spasm of her left leg that followed it.
“I’m going to make an example of Darrias, when I catch her. Thinking she can walk in here and steal people from me. I don’t need more chaos in this House, Emmanuelle.”
All she could see was the parquet floor, and the points of his shoes. And, as he spoke, a rising, raucous whisper—a flutter of beating wings, the twisted, empty places in her memory.
“As I told you—I know exactly what Darrias’s game is. I’ve always known, even when she pretended to walk back into Harrier as an envoy from her new House. She’s always believed she could have what was mine.” Laughter that had absolutely no mirth; only dark delight at others’ suffering. “I was going to take her apart at the dinner after the Great Presentation, and the most beautiful thing is that Hawthorn couldn’t have interfered—she was the one who’d have started it, poking her nose into the affairs of another House. Asmodeus would have her broken, bloodied corpse back, and not even been able to ask for reparations. That would have taught him.” He knelt, peering at her. In his eyes danced the flames of someone who had long, long since lost touch with reason or balance. “It would have been such grand entertainment, wouldn’t it? All those exquisite courses served against a background of her screams. And even Niraphanes couldn’t have protected her—”
“But you don’t have her.”
Emmanuelle said the only thing that came to mind. He’d told her about Darrias’s plans. He’d warned her to stay out of it. He must have gloated about it back then, as he was now. How much else did she not remember from that night?
“I have you.” He was breathing into her face now, and his eyes were the round, unblinking ones of his hawks—his face illuminated by the smoke and fire of his House. “Perhaps you’d serve as well.”
He’d take her apart in a heartbeat. He had nothing left to lose. She could talk about Selene’s ire all she wanted, but it wouldn’t mean anything to him—he was losing his grip on everything he’d taken for granted. She forced herself to remain calm.
“You no longer have an audience, I fear.”
He smiled. It was slow and lazy and utterly bone-chilling.
“At the moment, no. But I’m sure I’ll think of something.”
He snapped his fingers—the guards dragged her up. Around the room, the birds had spread their wings and were looking straight at her.
“Get her back to the cells.”
EIGHT
Things are Changing
“Here you go,” Iaris said, in a firm voice that barely allowed keeping the door open for Thuan. She thrust a dejected and trembling Ai Nhi into Thuan’s arms. “Your child.”
Thuan wanted to protest Ai Nhi wasn’t his, but with Vinh Ly under guard, he guessed that it was as accurate as it’d ever be.
“Unka Thuan.” Ai Nhi was shaking. She didn’t appear harmed. But her wounds would have c
losed much faster than a mortal’s. “I’m sorry I didn’t mean to I won’t do it again.” It came in a breathless, scared jumble of words. “I swear.”
“Sshh, child,” Thuan said. “It’s all right. You’re safe now.” He’d ask later the question he dreaded, about what had happened to her. He said, to Iaris, “I need to see him.”
Iaris’s face was a sliver of pale skin through the door she was barely bothering to keep open.
“He won’t be disturbed,” she said.
Behind her, Thuan could just see Asmodeus—he had his back to Thuan, and was pouring Phyranthe a whiskey from a decanter in the cupboard, a prelude to a talk Thuan couldn’t even guess at. Was it going to be a dressing-down? It was looking more like two old soldiers sharing a drink and comparing experiences, the kind of rapport he and Phyranthe would never have. Easier to quietly say to Phyranthe she’d gone too far, and not to have her bristle because she thought he presumed.
“The child,” Thuan said.
“You have her.”
“The other one. The…” He swallowed. “The one Ai Nhi harmed. How is she doing?”
A raised eyebrow. “Oh, so you are taking responsibility for your dragons? Mélanie has been burned extensively. We’re doing all we can to make her comfortable.”
Which didn’t sound comforting at all. Mélanie. A name Thuan could feel now, in his mind, with the other dependents of the House—young and scared and struggling against wounds that would, at best, leave her crippled.
“Let me heal her,” Thuan said. “Or, if not I, another member of my court.”
That was the wrong word to use. He saw her stiffen.
“You have no court.”
“So you’d rather let Mélanie die to sate your pride. I shouldn’t be surprised, I guess, after what you did to your daughter.”
Iaris’s daughter Nadine had been exiled from the House after intriguing against Asmodeus; and Iaris had never attempted to intervene on her behalf.
Her smile became a rictus. “You won’t speak of Nadine here.”
Thuan kept his face expressionless. He didn’t much like to speak of Nadine either. It brought back unpleasant memories—she’d been his teacher inside the House, and he’d believed her his friend.
“I will say what I want. And it’s only the truth, isn’t it?”
Iaris’s face didn’t change. At last she said, “She was a traitor,” but her voice was a fraction less assured.
“I’m sure you’d have said that to her face, and found only happiness when Asmodeus punished her.” Thuan kept his voice emotionless. “Applauding every cut and every broken limb.”
In truth, Asmodeus probably wouldn’t have done it. Not for Nadine’s sake—but because Iaris had been with him long enough that he was unwilling to reward her loyalty by killing her only child.
A silence. Iaris’s gaze on him was burning. She wouldn’t have borne it, and they both knew it.
“We all have our weaknesses,” Thuan said.
Iaris said nothing. At last, “You may see to Mélanie’s wounds.” She raised a hand to stop Thuan from speaking up. “You personally, and no one else. And Ai Nhi will watch you do it.”
Thuan nodded. It was only fair.
Iaris went on, as if she hadn’t seen him nod, “Under supervision.”
“Wait,” Thuan said.
Iaris gestured, and Mia, the Fallen Thuan had already met, came to stand by her side. She’d dropped the kittens and was now doing her best to look ferocious. That she managed it in a vivid red dress laden with sparkles and sequins was impressive.
Thuan stared at her. “I have plenty of dragons. I don’t need a bodyguard.”
Or a busybody. It was going to be hard enough to do a healing—he was more a scholar of magic rather than a magician per se—without adding an omnipresent agent of Iaris scrutinizing him for any weakness they might later use against him.
Iaris’s face was all fake concern. “I have every confidence you can take care of your own. This is about how it’ll look to the dependents of the House.”
Only because she was making the most of it already, spreading and fanning rumours about dragons’ betrayal. But he couldn’t say that out loud.
“I’m sure they’re intelligent enough to separate truth from malicious rumours.”
He kept his voice light, as sweet and as cutting as hers. She wasn’t the only one used to court intrigues.
“Not everyone is as well-informed as you’d like to be.” Iaris laid a hand on Mia’s shoulder. “This is for your own good, and the good of the House. For the sake of fairness.”
Fairness. The word tasted like ashes in Thuan’s mouth.
“All right, I’ll take Mia with me. About Vinh Ly…”
Iaris shrugged. “I can’t help you with Vinh Ly. Her offense was against Phyranthe.”
“And we don’t run a personal tally of grudges, do we?” Thuan asked softly. “Is this really the way you want the House run?”
It was, by all accounts, the way it had been run under Uphir, Asmodeus’s predecessor. Asmodeus ruling the House on his own had been bad enough, but at least he’d protected his dependents, even risking his life for them. Uphir had just used and discarded them for his own pleasure.
“No, not the way I want it run,” Iaris said. He’d annoyed her again. Too much, perhaps. A fine line to walk between standing his ground and angering her. She made, again, that sigh of fake concern. “But Phyranthe is like Lord Asmodeus. Slow to forget grudges. I’d advise you to take it up directly with her.”
And wasn’t that going to be a pleasure. He was angry at Vinh Ly—because she should have gone to see him, because she was at least partly responsible for Ai Nhi’s stay in the cells—but that was no reason to leave her in Phyranthe’s hands. This time, she had an offense against her, rather than mere sloppiness in the course of work. This time… he didn’t know what Phyranthe would come up with, to crush Vinh Ly utterly.
“Of course,” he said, knowing he’d lost.
* * *
Ai Nhi, when Thuan spoke to her, clammed up. She wouldn’t say anything about her time in the cells, or whether Phyranthe or anyone in the Court of Persuasion had harmed her.
“Asmodeus,” he said, and got only a scared-looking five-year-old parroting that she hadn’t meant to, and wouldn’t do it again.
Discipline her, Asmodeus had said. What had Phyranthe done? What had Asmodeus done? What were they doing now?
Thuan had fought the urge to ask Ai Nhi to undress so he could check her body—it would not have been right, and only upset her further. At length, exhausted and imagining the worst, he gave up.
“Come on, child. Let’s go heal your friend,” he said.
It was the midday break, and the corridors were quieter than usual, though people stopped and stared at him. Word had gotten around: he wasn’t sure what kind. Sang and the others would not be without friends, but Iaris and her ilk had more hold on the House. He’d gotten Ai Nhi a ham and bread sandwich from the kitchens, which she half-heartedly nibbled. Mia had used the opportunity to grab a glass of sparkling wine and an apple, which she consumed with absolutely no hint that anything was wrong. It would have been impressive in other circumstances.
The ward reserved for the Court of Birth was almost separate from the rest of the hospital. To get to it, Thuan had to take winding corridors with faded, rotted wainscoting and sad-looking orange trees that bore only wizened fruit. The door was wood, with round ivory handles and a frieze of painted thorns running around the panels. He scowled at it. He hated casting spells, and this one was neither going to be easy nor short.
Something brushed across the nape of his neck, below his topknot. A touch of wind, except that it felt like the fingers of a thin and wasted hand. He turned. Nothing. Just a faint creak of parquet floor. He was imagining things, but it felt as though the House was watching him as he laid his hands on the door handle.
“Let’s do this,” he said.
The ward was almost deser
ted as well. He supposed he should be thankful for that. It was a large bedroom with faded wallpaper and a cracked tile floor inlaid with gold. The chairs were mismatched and made with chipped wood, put together inexpertly by someone with too much glue and not enough time, and the beds were simple metal frames painted the silver and gray of the House, with the crest of Hawthorn on the curtains.
Mélanie was at the back of the ward, so small against the bed that it felt it had entirely swallowed her. Her arms and neck were covered in bandages, beneath which protruded ice crystals and the pearly shape of blisters, a constellation of them on every part of her skin he could see. Her face was pale, almost obscenely so in comparison to the redness of her burned skin. The sharp smell of khi ice hung in the room, and didn’t quite disguise the animal one of waste.
Ai Nhi inhaled sharply. Thuan started to say she didn’t need to be there, and then saw Mia watching them, leaning against the wall. Behind her were two nurses, watching him intently. Under supervision. He felt like a performing animal at the circus.
“It’ll be all right,” he said.
He felt useless, and inadequate, because everything was so far from all right.
He knelt, to look at Mélanie. They’d done their best to remove the khi ice with Fallen magic, but more as a side effect of trying to soothe down the burns, rather than as a systematic effort. So far, only dragons—and possibly Berith, Asmodeus’s Fall-sister—could see the khi elements. He didn’t think Iaris had called on Berith.
He exhaled. Long, thin chains of khi ice clung to Mélanie’s hands and arms, digging into her skin and constricting her blood vessels. He could see the fine lattice of ice crystals that kept building under her skin, kept trying to propagate itself.
Ai Nhi said, in a small voice, “We wanted to build an ice castle.”
Thuan nodded. “All right.”
Normally, khi earth was the element that counteracted water; but if he wove only khi earth, he was going to kill Mélanie. The ice would be destroyed, for sure; but her body couldn’t take the shock.
The House of Sundering Flames Page 15