More birds: a slow, languorous flock like an arrow, descending towards the ground. They pooled like shadows—and behind them was the large-shouldered shape of a Fallen.
“Well, well, what an unexpected surprise. I should have known you wouldn’t be far from your family.”
No. Not him. Please, God, no.
The birds parted, replaced by people in the colors of Harrier—marching Emmanuelle and Darrias along to face Guy. There were far fewer of them than there had been on the bridge, and they were haggard and covered in blood. They must have fought their way across the Annamite barricades to get there, and it had cost them dearly.
She couldn’t see Victor or the others anymore. Craning her neck, she saw slumped bodies on the ground, and birds tearing at them, lifting gobfuls of flesh like carrion-eaters. She hadn’t even heard them die; but they had to be dead, because they weren’t moving or screaming, and no one could have borne being torn apart in this stoical way.
Dead.
No no no. But it was too late, and she could change nothing.
Guy had changed. When she’d last seen him, it was only the House that had been beleaguered. Now his face was a faint gray, with marks on his cheeks like bruises, and gray circles under his eyes. He’d been portly before, and still was, but something in the way he moved wasn’t smooth or arrogant anymore.
He’ll realize he’s standing in a field of ruins with nothing worth crowing about.
But it went deeper, didn’t it?
“Where is Andrea?” Emmanuelle said, before she could think.
The woman holding her twisted her arm, forcing her to bend. Guy made a gesture, and the pain abated.
“Andrea is… indisposed. As you well know.”
Dead, Emmanuelle thought, with the clarity of her own impending death.
At her side, Darrias said, “You’ll pay for this.”
“Will I?” Guy shook his head. “Your master is busy, Darrias. And, in this new order, who will claim or enforce reparations?”
One of the hawks landed on Darrias’s shoulder. Its talons sank into her skin—not because they were sharp, but because they went through her skin as if there was nothing there. Darrias’s face twisted in pain. The bird continued to dance on her—every time its talons went down, Darrias shuddered, closing her mouth on a scream. A second bird joined it, on the other shoulder.
“Stop,” Emmanuelle said.
A third bird joined the others, and this time Darrias’s voice came out in ragged, drawn-out whimpers—not even screams, as if she didn’t even have those left in her anymore. Her hands opened and closed—and something dripped from her skin, not blood or sweat but something faintly luminous, caged light become liquid drops.
Guy smiled. “I warned you before. You’ll watch, Emmanuelle. And there’s nothing you can do.”
Someone on either side of her, forcing her down; magic like chains, binding her to the cobblestones. She tried to look away but the magic held her; held her eyes open. More birds, flocking to Darrias, and Darrias was sinking to her own knees, legs limp, the radiance of Fallen magic flowing from her with every passing moment. Her breath came fast and ragged, and every sound she made tore at Emmanuelle’s gut. Guy stood in front of her; and for a moment Emmanuelle saw, when he moved, that his clothes were feathers, and a bird flowing out of them to join the flock around Darrias, its feathers the pale marbled tone of skin and fat. The marks on his face—they weren’t bruises. They were the ghostly imprint of feathers. Of birds, held within his skin.
It wasn’t possible.
“Guy,” she whispered.
The magic holding her felt like tar on her tongue, but it didn’t prevent her from speaking.
He turned, briefly, to her. Wings beat under the flesh of his arms, and in his eyes a distant flock veered and turned, growing larger and larger, briefly darkening the whites of his eyes to the russet color of plumage. He didn’t control the birds anymore. They were in him. Had subsumed him. The House made manifest.
“Watch.”
He turned away again, as Darrias continued to whimper and wither away. One hand hung completely limp and boneless—as if everything had been sucked away or broken.
No time left. And, when Darrias’s agony finally ended, hers would start, because she had no doubt that Guy would get as much pleasure from her pain as from her powerlessness. Emmanuelle struggled to free herself from the bindings, but they held firm.
There was a hawk on Darrias’s face now, tearing at her eyes. What came out wasn’t flesh but that same liquid light. Its beak stabbed, again and again, and her eyes darkened, torn fragment by torn fragment.
Emmanuelle gathered the magic within her, and started pushing at her bonds. No yield. Except… Guy was watching Darrias die, entranced. When she collapsed to the ground, the magic that held Emmanuelle flickered. Emmanuelle pushed, hard—and felt something shatter, even as Darrias curled into a ball, her body covered with hawks pecking at her flesh.
She rose, shaking—took one, two tottering steps, trying to. She didn’t know what she was going to try, other than to reach into the morass of birds and pull out Darrias, one way or another. She was going to die anyway, so what did it matter if it happened faster?
Guy turned, eyes shining yellow. His hands shook. All that came from his mouth was a harsh shriek, jumbling any words into meaninglessness.
Two birds flowed from his outstretched fingers, making straight for Emmanuelle. She tried to move, but she was too slow, and the birds grabbed her shoulders. Pain flared, unbearable, except that when she tried to scream she found that beating wings were in her chest, choking her lungs.
Time slowed down, froze into treacle. As she sank to her knees, struggling—with none of Darrias’s endurance of pain—the link to the distant, beleaguered House of Silverspires blazed. Selene’s presence came into her mind, acrid and sharp, a jolt that sent Emmanuelle’s legs sprawling, desperately struggling to pull her body up.
Run, Emmanuelle.
Run.
But it was too late.
* * *
Aurore walked home with Cassiopée and Marianne. In their small, cramped flat, Cassiopée brewed some fresh tea, while Marianne clung to Aurore for dear life, whispering “Mummy mummy mummy you came back”, over and over again.
The child of thorns moved like smoke through the room, its fingers resting, lightly, on the table, between two broken bowls. Its face was an inscrutable, perpetually amused smile—an inhuman, alien version of Asmodeus’s own amusement at the pain of others. It was invisible to Marianne and Cassiopée, who simply swerved to avoid it without noticing they’d altered their path. Aurore could see nothing but it. It shone, in the gloom of that unbearably dingy flat: a rippling light that threw into sharp relief every crack in the parquet, every sewn patch on the chair.
Marianne wouldn’t leave Aurore’s lap during the meal. It was past her bedtime, but neither of them had the heart to tell her to leave.
“Where were you?” Marianne asked.
Aurore took a deep, shaking breath. Something sharp and stinging moved within her chest, like branches and sharp twigs.
“I was in a bad place,” she said. “But I’m fine now.”
Marianne slid down from her lap, stared at her quizzically.
“You look better,” she pronounced, with the unfazed assurance of a three-year-old. “Did you hit the bad guys?”
Aurore thought of Morningstar and Dân Chay—of Harrier and Guy, alone in a House under siege.
“No,” she said.
She wanted to say she’d made sure they wouldn’t hurt them anymore, but they were under siege in a ruined city.
For a time, the child said. But you’ll make sure that siege is broken.
Grandmother Olympe had been adamant she didn’t have the power. Philippe, she could have dismissed. Grandmother Olympe was harder to ignore. In four years, she’d spoken little, and when she did it was either true or about to become so.
“I’ll make it better,” she
said finally, and Marianne made a face, because she didn’t know what Aurore was talking about. “Come on. I’ll tell you the story of the rice ball.”
A story of how the very first rice came to houses in balls that found their own way into jars, and how a disrespectful, lazy woman failed to sweep the floor properly—and the rice ball burst into ten thousand fragments, setting humanity up to forever pick rice from the paddies. Marianne always laughed when the rice ball burst, and Aurore made all the proper faces of people’s shock. But this time, when she laughed, it felt like a knife slowly twisting in her gut—like a reminder of how fragile, how utterly defenseless they all were in the face of what the world threw at them.
That’s what you do for them, the child whispered. Defend those who cannot defend themselves. Fight to the death for them. As Hawthorn does.
She didn’t want to be reminded of Hawthorn. She wasn’t Asmodeus, or soft-spoken, ruthless Thuan—who was slow and dependable and stabbed people when the House required it. She’d never be like them.
As you wish.
The child settled on the windowsill, framed against the hole in the oiled paper. At least she could fix that. Aurore got up, gently disengaging a sleeping Marianne from her lap, and laid her hands on the window frame. Power surged, electric, exhilarating. The paper started to warm, and then melted, flowing, slowly and carefully, like panes of water.
When she withdrew her hands, the window was a translucent, shimmering surface—not dancing in the wind anymore, but thick and firmly anchored in place. She breathed out, slowly, evenly. She kept expecting something to hurt or burn or some other side effect, but nothing happened. She didn’t even feel exhausted.
Of course not. This is yours, now and forever. Part of you.
Everything she’d ever wanted. She looked at Marianne again, gently bending to kiss her.
“Goodnight, little fish.”
In the other room, Cassiopée was sitting in a chair with a book in her lap, precariously balancing a notebook and battered fountain pen in the other.
“I don’t even know how you manage to take notes,” Aurore said.
“Practice.” Cassiopée laughed. She stopped writing, stared at Aurore. “Tell me.”
The child was leaning against the table again, watching her.
Aurore said, “It’s not an artifact. It’s…”
A deep, shaking breath. Nothing hurt when she spoke, or chose not to. It was… like stepping into a thicket of thorns and seeing them part underfoot.
We told you. This is freely given. What you do with the knowledge is your own.
“It’s the House,” she said. “It’s the power of the House.”
“You’re a dependent now?”
Cassiopée rose, putting down the notebooks and grabbing her cane. Her gaze was sharp as she moved closer to Aurore.
“No,” Aurore said. “The House lends me its magic.” She wanted to talk about the gardens, about the grave, about being under the earth and feeling thorns burrow into her mouth and eyes, but just the thought of that made her sick. “I… It wasn’t simple.”
“I can guess.” Cassiopée’s voice was soft. “Prices to pay. But this is yours? The magic?”
“Yes.”
Because it was not only a thing that belonged to her, but what sustained her. What she was.
Cassiopée’s eyes were wide, almost tearful. “I can’t believe it was real. That it worked. Old books and old texts aren’t supposed to…”
Aurore stifled a bitter laugh, thinking of Dân Chay; of the tiger and of fire.
“Of course it worked.” She squeezed Cassiopée’s hand. “And it’s all thanks to you.”
“Both of us,” Cassiopée said, still sounding star-struck. “It’s real. And you can defend us now.”
We could leave. The thought came, unbidden, to Aurore’s mind. They could run…
As they’d run from Harrier? Her stomach clenched—wobbling legs, the baby moving within her, the weight of Cassiopée on her arms, digging into her skin. The pain everywhere—the one thought running through her as she stumbled onwards—please be alive, please be well, please please.
Never again. Enough pleading. Enough running away.
“How long since he came here?” she asked.
“Not long. A day and a half,” Cassiopée said. “Sébastien died. And Nene. And Frankie.”
And so many others she’d known, in a litany of losses. It had happened often enough—to lose people to the predation of Houses—but not on such a scale. Not with such suddenness. She fought her anger.
“I didn’t know.” It felt like yesterday since Sébastien had helped her upstairs. “I’m sorry.”
“We’re lucky. Most of us couldn’t afford glass, so when the shock wave hit the windows just burst open instead of sending lethal shards everywhere.” Cassiopée’s laugh was bitter.
“It’s all right.” Aurore held Cassiopée’s hand, squeezed. “Go to bed. Tomorrow I’ll see how I can help.”
“Until Father Javier comes back?”
“He won’t come back. Houses never do.”
A sharp, amused smile from the child. She wasn’t sure what it meant.
Cassiopée said, “Philippe—”
“Philippe doesn’t know everything.” Aurore forced herself to smile. It hurt. “Sorry. I’m tired.”
“You’re the one who should go to bed,” Cassiopée said, laughing.
But she was still the first one to retire, slowly making her way to the bed where she lay down and fell asleep in moments.
Aurore remained alone with the child. Fortunately, it didn’t attempt small talk, because she didn’t have any. She sipped her tea—the familiar, acrid taste in her mouth, a luxury that hadn’t been allowed to servants in the House. She was back. She had everything she wanted. The only thing on her mind ought to have been Dân Chay, and how she was going to face him—but instead she found herself unable to focus. She felt… stretched. Hollow.
You’re unused to power, the child whispered. It will pass.
It didn’t, and tea didn’t make it better. She rose, and left the flat, walking towards the edges of the community.
There were people in the streets, the way there always were in late summer: playing encirclement chess on battered tables, selling food, talking over a meal. The atmosphere was more nervous than usual, though: conversations muted, and those snatches she caught usually about the tiger, and the fire—and what it meant for them.
This was her home—the only one she’d known for three years—the one that had healed her, asked no questions, and welcomed her as if she’d been born in it. And yet, seen with the child in tow, it seemed wrong. Not grimier than she remembered, but simply not what she’d expected—buildings slightly smaller than she remembered, the cobblestones under her feet sharper, the angles at which the streets met unfamiliar and out of kilter—as if her memories said one thing, and her eyes and body another. As if…
As if she was an adult, coming back into the rooms she’d left as a child, and finding everything diminished and packed closer together than it should be. Except that all which had changed was her. The child, grown up. The adult, breathing in magic, and becoming… different. Larger.
It will pass, the child said.
Would it? Did she want it to?
She reached, at last, the border. Philippe’s walls, and the ever-patient threads of fire, gnawing at them. Some of Philippe’s threads were now all but chewed through. In the distance, a flare of light, as Isabelle and Hoa Phong renewed their spells of protection.
She could do the same. The knowledge to draw her own wards was within her, suddenly as familiar as stretching an arm or a leg. Or she could reach for Dân Chay’s threads and burn them at the root, squeeze them out as she’d squeezed them out of Aunt Ha’s body.
A flash of memory: Aunt Ha, hanging limp and unresponsive, with fire flowing out of her, and Aurore tightening her grip, pressing down with magic as if with unfamiliar muscles until Aunt Ha’s face stre
tched into a scream that never reached her mouth.
Aurore closed her eyes. Something was twisting in her gut, awkward and painful and unbearable.
She knelt, and slowly, stubbornly, started to draw wards behind Philippe’s: a complex pattern that seemed etched in her mind, her hands leaving traceries of light like unfamiliar letters on the cobblestones. By her side, the child was kneeling. As she finished each pattern, it would touch it, lightly, with one long, sharp finger, until the light turned a murky green, and the ground tightened under her.
She didn’t know how long she’d been working when a noise tore her concentration to shreds. She looked up—and realized she was shaking with fatigue. The wards she’d traced stretched along an entire length of street: a good ten meters of intricate, shimmering light.
The sound came again. A harsh, raucous cry, like a challenge, coming from above her. A familiar cry.
A hawk.
It was impossible.
The House was at the other end of Paris, and it was dead.
She looked up, and it was there, shimmering with magic: a bird with spread wings, riding an invisible thermal. Looking at her, as the birds in Harrier looked at their victims, moments before they dived and bodies crumpled like wet, wrung-out clothes.
Her muscles clenched, then, to flee. Back to the flat—grab Cassiopée and Marianne and go, flee to a place where it couldn’t touch her or hers.
Beside her, the child rose, slowly and deliberately, staring at the sky with head cocked—as if considering the value or the threat of the hawk.
It screamed again. Aurore’s heart beat, madly, against the confines of her chest. How could the child remain so calm? How…?
Because it had power.
Because it wasn’t defenseless. Because she wasn’t, either—not anymore.
Magic swirled within her, pure and unadulterated, a warmth that spread to her entire being, taking all her fear and quenching it like a spent flame. She forced her heart to slow down, and looked at the hawk. It folded its wings, and dived, screaming.
Not her. It had never been looking at her, but at something else.
The House of Sundering Flames Page 36