“Thank you. Your family?”
Darrias’s face, for a bare moment, was taut with fear.
“I don’t know. Frédérique is smart. She’ll head somewhere safe.” If she’s alive, her body language said.
Emmanuelle said, finally, “I don’t think Guy had them.”
A short, soft exhalation. “No, I don’t think so either. Don’t worry, Emmanuelle. That’s my business. It always has been.”
* * *
Thuan came back to his room exhausted. He’d spent the day fielding questions from Iaris, reassuring his dragon dependents that nothing was wrong—lying and smiling until his face ached and all his thoughts jumbled in his brain, even as he continued to project the illusion of strength—and disguising his worry that Phyranthe would start sending him bits and pieces of Vinh Ly in neatly tied packages.
His room was dark: it was long past the hour at which the servants extinguished the chandeliers. He could have asked for an exception, but it would have been pointless to make someone stay up just for his sake. A lantern and khi fire would do, should he need to read—which he didn’t, not tonight. He pushed the doors open and made a beeline for the bed, unbuttoning his jacket as he walked.
“We need to talk,” a familiar voice said behind him.
A second of fear, followed by irritation.
“Asmodeus.”
Light sprang up in the room: Asmodeus was sitting in one of the armchairs with a lamp by his side, a closed book in his lap.
“Have you been skulking here all evening? There are simpler ways to get hold of me.”
Asmodeus unfolded from the chair. He laid the book and the lamp, carefully, on the table, and came to face Thuan. It was dark, even with the lantern—his perfume of bergamot and citrus wafted to Thuan, trembling on the edge of desire.
He’d slammed the doors, the last time he had been in this bedroom, and Thuan had hardly seen him since. Once, briefly, when he’d got Ai Nhi back, but everything else he’d heard was hearsay: drawn from a steady flow of meetings with the different Courts, telling them the House stood strong, unaffected by House Harrier’s explosion or the void it left in the balance of powers in Paris.
“What do you want?” Thuan said.
He sat down on the bed, one hand fiddling to button his jacket again. A state of undress wasn’t what he needed right now.
“You missed the drama of Darrias’ arrival,” Asmodeus said. Light glinted on the frames of his glasses.
Thuan, startled, looked up. He’d thought this would be about Vinh Ly and Phyranthe.
“I didn’t. There were other fires to put out.”
“Apply your mind to this one for a moment,” Asmodeus said.
Fine, so he wasn’t going to broach Vinh Ly; or how his conversation with Phyranthe had gone, or Iaris’s ongoing campaign to weaken Thuan. Typical Asmodeus: weave his way out of the difficult conversations, with sarcasm or grace or both.
Thuan was too exhausted to bring up the subject himself. He closed his eyes, taking time to collect his thoughts. Quynh had been in charge of this, as his temporary delegate to the Court of House. He’d had her report at lunchtime, an eternity ago.
“I know you went to see Emmanuelle.” Thuan hadn’t sent Quynh, because that wasn’t a job he felt he could safely delegate. “What’s our position with House Silverspires?”
He hadn’t been there for Hawthorn’s epic interference in Silverspires’ affairs, though he’d got the gist through other people, and surmised some of the rest. A push to unseat Lady Selene had led to Notre-Dame being choked by a huge banyan tree, a weakened House near the bottom of the hierarchy of power in Paris, and a general disinterest from Asmodeus now that he had succeeded in toppling them.
“They’re a nuisance at best now,” Asmodeus said. “But that may change.”
In the wake of Harrier’s destruction? That wasn’t justification enough for change. Not unless…
“Do you know what caused the explosion?”
A smile. He knew that one. It meant he’d finally caught up with what Asmodeus had on his mind.
“I got Darrias debriefed, too. House Harrier’s wards have been shattered, and there’s barely any magic or protective spells left in the stones of the streets. I don’t know how other Houses work, magically speaking—”
“Assume on a very similar principle to Hawthorn,” Asmodeus said. “Pre-dragon invasion.”
Thuan opened his mouth to protest at the description of his arrival, and shut it. There were better things to focus on.
“They’re dead,” Thian said. “They just don’t know it yet. And it’s only a matter of time before the other Houses realize it, too. Which means someone blew apart a House,” he said, slowly. “I know we’ve been trying to figure out how to deal with the fallout, but nothing in the war was this bad.”
House Hell’s Toll’s armory had exploded, but even that hadn’t ended the House. It had taken armed soldiers, and an agonizing set of ranged battles through the House, until its head had died and the magic had been scattered and pillaged. This wasn’t the same. Nothing had invaded the House, and Guy was still alive.
“Someone has found a way to kill a House.”
“It might just target a weakness specific to Harrier,” Asmodeus said. “But yes.”
“And you’ve been keeping this quiet because…?”
Because obviously, who wanted to cause more panic? It was one thing to know another House was dead; but the idea that they, too, could be attacked…
A creak as Asmodeus sat down on the bed. He leaned against Thuan’s shoulder, the warmth of his body flooding Thuan.
“Someone can kill Houses,” Thuan said, desperately trying to focus. “And they didn’t do it to Harrier previously because…” He paused, then. “Because there was no reason to, or because they only recently got the means.” Another pause. “I have to ask. How much do we know about Emmanuelle?”
A laugh. “Emmanuelle? You think she’s responsible for this?”
Thuan didn’t find it funny at all. “She goes to Harrier as an envoy and it explodes. Now she’s here, in our House. Behind our wards.”
A silence. Asmodeus shifted against Thuan’s shoulder, and said, “Emmanuelle is a bleeding heart. Always trying to make the world a better place.”
“That doesn’t seem so bad,” Thuan said, though he knew Asmodeus would consider it a weakness. Thuan’s own ambitions were much more restrained: he wanted to make the House a better place to live in. “Not very compatible with setting fire to things, I’ll grant you.”
A gently amused snort. “She probably didn’t appreciate what Harrier was doing with its dependents, but she wouldn’t have got involved. That’s the main reason Selene sends her to these things—she’ll watch and report. She’s loyal and dependable, and it’s extremely difficult to make her lose her temper.”
“You like her,” Thuan said, surprised.
“Hardly.”
Entirely too quick to be true. He thought her weak, but he liked her. Interesting. Thuan filed it away with all the other things he didn’t quite know what to make of. He stared, for a while, at the carpet—a red and blue Persian floral pattern with barely a trace of patching. Khi currents of water swirled on the floor, drawn to his presence—all the other currents were there, but weaker. He reached out, watched one of them climb up to the bed and curl around his arm like a snake—lighting up as blue flame as it did.
“I thought I’d already provided you with a lantern.” Asmodeus’s voice was sarcastic, but it was mild. “And that your night vision was anyway excellent, as you amply demonstrated while undoing buttons in the dark.”
Thuan said, refusing to rise to the jibe, “Fine. So it’s not Emmanuelle. So what can we do with this information?” Not much they could do, was there? The thought of the House dying—of the home he’d made for himself, the constant touch at the back of his mind, being torn apart and silent forever—was too much to bear. “Other than panic.”
Asmodeus’s f
ace was grave, but Thuan could see the fear in him, too.
“Panic is useless. We need to work out who’s doing it, and stop them.”
“Easier to say than do.”
They didn’t know anything about the identity or motivation of the person or people behind the destruction of Harrier… People with grudges against Houses were seldom lacking. It was those powerful enough to do something about it they needed to worry about, and that was as blatant a display of power as they came. Even the familiar cold touch of khi water, raising welts of dragon scales everywhere it touched his skin, wasn’t enough to reassure him.
Be careful, Thuan. We are weak, the children whispered in his mind.
People had gotten used to thinking Houses were immortal and unkillable, but that wasn’t true. Ice had almost killed the House, a few months before; and of course other, weaker Houses had died during the Great Houses War. But even during the dragon ice episode, the children had not warned Asmodeus about their own weakness.
And if that wasn’t scarier than anything that had happened before…
“Darrias gave me a few names in Harrier,” Asmodeus said. He sounded… annoyed. Frustrated. “I can think of no one with motive. Or power. I’ve reached out to my contacts in other Houses, to see if anyone remembers anything useful. It hasn’t proved fruitful so far.”
A silence. Thuan broke it. “Tell me about Ai Nhi.”
A raised eyebrow.
“You said you’d discipline her. What did you do?”
Asmodeus cocked his head towards him. “Accusing me?”
Thuan clamped down on angry words. “No. She won’t say what happened, and I can’t tell if Phyranthe…”
He stopped then, because he didn’t want to make his suspicions real by voicing them.
A silence.
Asmodeus said, “Phyranthe didn’t do anything, beyond giving Ai Nhi a rather sharp dressing-down about being careful with her stronger abilities. The same thing I would have done. I didn’t add anything to Phyranthe’s words because it seemed superfluous, quite frankly.”
Thuan opened his mouth, closed it. He thought back to Phyranthe in the hospital ward, and the anger in her face.
“I thought—”
“She does have principles, you know. She used to be my student, of sorts, in the Court of Persuasion.” Asmodeus sounded amused and weary at the same time. “Taking pleasure in what she does doesn’t mean being indiscriminate about it.”
“Vinh Ly…”
Thuan paused, because something had moved in the room. A shadow, shifting? Probably a flicker of his tired brain.
“You should ask Vinh Ly, when you next get a chance, about how bad things have been between her and Phyranthe, even prior to your little argument with Iaris. As I said—it takes two to make a fight. Vinh Ly has never made a secret of her contempt for Phyranthe and her ‘youth’.”
Thuan fought down a wave of anger. “You mean whatever Phyranthe is going to do to Vinh Ly, she’ll have deserved it.”
“Oh, do be fair. Your dragon chose to make herself vulnerable.”
“I’m trying to be fair,” Thuan said, with increasing annoyance. How could Asmodeus be so… glib and detached about it? How could he not care? “I don’t see how giving leave to Phyranthe to torture Vinh Ly just short of death for disrespect is in any way fair or just. I thought you wanted the House to be different from that. That we weren’t going to build any more on fear and excessive retribution, because it was completely unsustainable.”
Asmodeus opened his mouth—to say something sarcastic that would snap Thuan’s patience, no doubt—but just as he did so, Thuan’s brain caught up with his eyes. It wasn’t the shadows which had moved, but the khi currents. They were all but gone on the floor—every single one of them moving towards the door in a frenzied tangle. The snake of water still curled around his arm was flailing, cut off from the fleeing khi currents of water. And only a single element remained: khi fire, getting stronger and stronger.
“Asmodeus.”
The sharpness in his voice turned Asmodeus’s face jewel-hard.
“What?”
“There’s nothing left in this room but fire.”
The khi fire flowed towards them, circling the bed in slow, lazy circles. Thuan felt the air tighten, as in that instant before the monsoon clouds burst.
He’d felt this once before, but it had been weaker and more unfocused—because he hadn’t been at its epicenter, because it had been someone else’s problem.
This particular problem was definitely their own.
“Asmodeus!”
A rising, buzzing sound shook the floor under them, a split second before Thuan’s link to the House lit up like a bonfire, screaming deadly danger for all the dependents in the House at the same time. But Thuan was already throwing himself across the bed, bearing Asmodeus down amidst the pillows and the embroidered blankets, and raising shaking, inexpert wards—seconds before the explosion hit, and the entire room became a jumble of broken glass and shards of wood.
THIRTEEN
Everything Afire
Philippe went around the boundaries of the community with Isabelle and Hoa Phong, drawing fragmentary wards in the khi elements. Weaves of protection against burning in khi water; to live to a long age in khi wood; for faithfulness and loyalty in khi earth—the element that centered all the others, the center of the universe around which everything revolved.
Buildings, in many ways, were simpler. They would burn easier with fire, but khi fire wasn’t physical fire: it followed the fracture lines of the universe, the easy, downhill path. That meant streets. That meant the breath of hundreds of people drawing grooves in the fabric of the world. Buildings—concentrated, unmoving blocks where mortals stayed put, where they made their homes—were masses of khi earth already. For these, he drew a weave on the doors, and watched the khi currents slowly and steadily realign around them. He’d offered to do it for Grandmother Olympe and the aunts’ flat. The look he’d had would have blistered stone.
“You don’t have time. Don’t waste it on us, child.”
He knew enough not to argue with her dismissive choice of pronoun: he’d retreated, and sworn never to mention it again.
Halfway through his circuit of the community, he saw the first anomalies.
They were tentative threads of khi fire, running under the cobblestones, barely visible in the dim light. He knelt, frowning.
Hoa Phong crouched by his side, thoughtfully staring at the stones.
“That’s interesting,” she said. “I wonder…”
But Isabelle had already touched one of the threads.
“No!” Philippe said, and braced himself for her to fall; but instead everything lit up like a Christmas garland.
It was a network like fungus, or the roots of some patient tree: the entire street was covered in it, as was every other street as far as he could see. The threads ran back towards a single source; he could guess where.
“Harrier,” he said. “This goes back all the way to where Dân Chay was imprisoned.”
Hoa Phong’s face was hard. “Fire.”
Once, man tricked the tiger into waiting, and burned him with fire.
Dân Chay wielded khi fire, against which the Houses had no protection: no wonder Harrier had burned like dry kindling. And no wonder they had been Dân Chay’s first target, the first people he’d want revenge on for holding and torturing him. But he had finished with that House, and now he was reaching out across Paris.
How dare he? Philippe only kept his hands from clenching with difficulty. How dare he take things meant to protect and heal, and turn them to destruction?
“Not here,” he snapped. “Not so easily.”
He wove threads of khi water like blades, laying them across the street—and watched with some satisfaction as the fire, bumping into them, shriveled and died.
“That won’t hold him,” Isabelle said slowly. “Will it?”
Not for long, no.
�
�Let’s fight the easy battles first,” Philippe said. There would be more streets, more threads to ward against. “Can you help?” he asked Hoa Phong.
She shrugged. “If you don’t mind khi wood.”
Of course. Wind and the first flowers—what else would have been her khi element of predilection?
“Good enough. Let’s cut him off at the knees, while we still can.”
Hoa Phong was walking ahead. Isabelle said, stiffly, “I’m sorry for what I said, earlier.”
In all the rush of Dân Chay’s arrival, he’d almost forgotten her wounding words: when she’d accused him of forgetting his past.
“It’s all right,” he said, though it wasn’t.
Her gaze was distant. “I shouldn’t have said it.”
He hesitated. “I’m trying to protect you,” he said finally.
And one day soon, he would no longer be able to. It scared him: like dancing at the edge of the chasm. He would lose her again, and nothing he did would prevent it from happening.
“Against a House?”
Against whatever the world offered; against her being used or dying, or both. Was this what it felt like to have children? His had been so long ago he’d forgotten. No wonder parents were afraid all the time.
“I have to try.”
Her face was heartbreakingly hard. “Don’t,” she said.
And she walked ahead, barely looking back.
* * *
In Philippe’s flat, Aunt Ha turned and tossed on the beaten-down mattress: he’d redrawn the protective net of khi elements around her body, but it was being burned up again by Dân Chay’s fire, and the faint outline of stripes was already visible on her skin. He’d timed it: three hours each time, a little more, a little less depending on what he poured into her. It wasn’t much, but it was enough that they each had some breathing room, with both Isabelle and Hoa Phong taking turns.
Grandmother Olympe had taken her daughter Colette in; though he’d enjoyed the brief satisfaction of watching Hoa Phong’s face when he’d suggested they could care for a child. Isabelle was away, visiting one of the aunts and helping them cook for the refugees. She was late, but that wasn’t surprising: the aunts had little notion of time when it came to services rendered. It was just him and Hoa Phong, an awkward situation if there was one. He’d cooked some buns, with Hoa Phong clearing away plates almost faster than he could roll the dough.
The House of Sundering Flames Page 23