The House of Binding Thorns

by Aliette de Bodard

  “Lord Asmodeus is powerful. He keeps the House safe. That’s all I need to know,” Nadine said.

  Thuan had set aside the cup of verbena, which he didn’t care for unless it came with enough sugar to cover the taste. You’re jealous, he thought. They’re closer; closer than you are to your mother. It wasn’t what Nadine would want to hear. “He’s not a very likable person,” he said. He’d never actually met Asmodeus, only seen him from afar—but the head of House Hawthorn didn’t sound like the kind of person you wanted to take along on a crazy escapade into inns and houses of pleasure.

  Nadine snorted, again. “You don’t say.” And, finally: “Mother wants to impress him. She wants his approval, like a child. Or a puppy. And she doesn’t understand he doesn’t care about her. She’s just one more dependent to him, one more person he owns.”

  “She’ll come round.”

  “When she hasn’t in the thirty years I’ve known her?” Nadine set her cup on the table. “Unlikely.”

  “You’re on edge,” Thuan said. And so, now that he thought about it, were the other nurses. “Why? It’s not the cholera or whatever else they’ve got brewing in the wards.”

  “Well, the cholera would be bad enough,” Nadine said. “Since there’s not much we can do to cure it.” She shook her head. “It’s nothing.”

  It wasn’t. Thuan had to be careful: he was navigating a labyrinth more complicated than addressing the Secret Institute, back in the kingdom. At least in the kingdom he knew what was going on, who followed whom and why. Here . . .

  A fish out of water, he thought, not without irony.

  “You can’t understand,” Nadine said. “You’d have to have grown up here.”

  “Nadine, I’m going to become part of this House in less than a year’s time. I can’t remain ignorant forever.” It was a lie, but there was no way he was going to tell her the truth. Not if he wanted to come out of this alive and whole. “Try me.”

  Nadine sighed. He thought she was going to say something about his being Annamite—his not belonging here, in the ruins of Paris, as if he hadn’t been around for longer than she’d been alive—but instead she went on, staring at the clock. “It’s Madeleine. And Clothilde, possibly.”

  Clothilde was one of the House’s magicians, moving in circles so far above Thuan she might as well have been a star in the heavens. Madeleine he had never heard of until a few minutes ago. “What of them?”

  “He’s taking an interest. I told you, you wouldn’t understand. Lord Asmodeus is the head of the House, but he’s only a member of one court. The Court of House.” The one that dealt with outside business and the relationships with other Houses. “And he’s mostly left everything else alone. Until now. Perhaps because Samariel is dead, and he’s lonely without his lover.” Her voice was skeptical. “But he’s been closeted with Clothilde, and insisting that Madeleine had to clean up her addiction to angel essence to become a full dependent of the House. Something is happening. Something big.”

  Angel essence. And something big. Thuan didn’t like that, not at all. “Surely only for the good of the House.”

  “You don’t understand!” The cups on the table rattled as Nadine pushed herself off. “The last time he took a genuine interest in internal House affairs . . . the gardens were dark with the ashes of funeral pyres, and the Seine ran red with blood.”

  “The Seine has never been red with blood,” Thuan said, gently. The waters ran dark and deep, and blood would dissolve in the mess of spells and magical residue that had corrupted them after the war. Blood was, in truth, the least of the kingdom’s problems.

  “You weren’t born then.” Nadine shook her head.

  He didn’t correct her. “I’ve never seen any angel essence in this House.” He wasn’t about to let an opening go to waste.

  “You’re too young. And it’s nasty stuff; trust me,” Nadine said. “After you’ve seen a few addicts coughing their lungs out, and I mean that literally, you’ll know to avoid it.”

  A memory, abrupt and unforgiving: a darkened room where dragons in human shape lay, writhing and twisting—the acrid smell of Fallen magic, mingled with that of vomit, eyes rolled upward in a face too pale and too skeletal to be healthy, the antlers on either side of the head translucent, veined with purple. He’d reached out, and one of them had snapped in his hands, with a crack like shattered bones, except that no bone should have broken that smoothly, that easily. And it had lain in his hands, still warm to the touch, still obscenely pulsing with life that should, by rights, have left it entirely. . . .

  This, Second Aunt Ngoc Bich had said, is what we have to deal with, nephew. And you will find out where it’s coming from. Who supplies it, and why. And fast.

  The kingdom was under siege: weakened by angel essence, hounded by House Hawthorn’s delegates. It wouldn’t hold out for long, and Thuan was key to finding what was going on. The House of Hawthorn, after all, had the most to gain from a diminished dragon kingdom, and it would make terrible sense if they were the ones trading in essence.

  Except that, so far, he hadn’t made much progress at all. Some spy he made.

  “I know about the effects of essence,” Thuan said, quietly.

  Nadine opened her mouth to speak, and then closed it, her eyes wide with an emotion he couldn’t read. Too late, he realized it was surprise, tinged with the fear of having said too much; and he turned around, to meet the eyes of the man who stood in the doorway.

  Not, not a man; a Fallen.

  Thuan’s body bent into a graceful bow before he’d even realized what he was doing: the full, elegant thing reserved for being in the presence of the emperor or the empress, which his tutors back at court had despaired he would ever master.

  The Fallen raised an eyebrow. “New to the House, I see. I’m the first to appreciate signs of obedience, but there is such a thing as too much.” He wore the colors of Hawthorn: a dark gray swallowtail jacket over matching trousers, and a silver tie at his throat, shining like a star before the fall. His gaze, behind the square horn-rimmed glasses, was impassive; but even though he held himself still, he radiated raw power. It streamed out of him like an exhalation, an electrifying effect that seemed to make everything in the room recede into insignificance. “Hello, Nadine,” he said, as she straightened up from her own bow. “Your mother doesn’t seem to be in her office.”

  Nadine shrugged, feigning indifference. “She’s either in Ward One or in Ward Three. Difficult birth. Or cholera.” How could she stand there and look away from him? How was she not drawn to him like a moth to a flame? Thuan fought his own body to a standstill, ignoring the khi element that swirled within him—water, rising like the beginning of a storm. He didn’t want to get into a fight; couldn’t afford to get into a fight.

  “I know she sent to the Court of Birth for help,” Asmodeus said, with a dark smile. He made a short, stabbing gesture with his hand. “Thank you. I’ll look for her there.”

  When he left, it was as if someone had cut all the strings that kept Thuan upright. His eyes remained glued to the door; his body struggling to stand up again, every muscle threatening to betray him at the same time.

  “Hey,” Nadine said. “Don’t faint on me, please.”

  “How—”

  Nadine shrugged. “You get used to it.” She stared at the bleached walls of the room without really seeing them. “Or pretend you do.”

  Thuan could pretend many things, but not that. He breathed in, slowly, shakily. He didn’t smoke, and he didn’t think they were allowed to smoke in the infirmary in any case, but he was seriously tempted. It was either that or run after Asmodeus, to get just another glimpse of him, just another acknowledgment from those cool gray eyes. . . .

  What in the heavens was he thinking? He certainly couldn’t afford anything like that. Keep his head down, Ngoc Bich had said. Find what the House is up to. Find where the essence c
omes from. That was the brief.

  A brief that he was thoroughly failing.

  “Anyway, you’ve made quite an impression,” Nadine said. “Not bad for you.”

  As if he wanted to be remembered by the Fallen whose House he was busy infiltrating.

  “No, not bad,” Thuan said, still struggling to breathe.

  Not merely bad. Potentially disastrous.

  THREE

  Delegations

  ON the night before they were due to leave for the dragon kingdom, someone knocked at the door of Madeleine’s room. “Come in,” Madeleine said. Not that it made any difference. She couldn’t open the locked door, and presumably whoever was knocking had the key.

  She didn’t think it would be Asmodeus, who wouldn’t bother knocking when he could come straight in, and indeed it was not.

  It was Clothilde, empty-handed and with gray circles under her eyes that made her appear oddly older. She wore a neatly cut swallowtail jacket and trousers like a uniform. The old parquet creaked under her feet as she moved into the room. “I thought we should have a little chat.”

  “Go on,” Madeleine said, wearily. It wasn’t as if she could prevent her, or anyone, from dropping in.

  Clothilde sat, not on the chair, but on the desk, her hands pressing down on the mahogany surface. “He’s told me it’s vital you don’t relapse.”

  No need to ask who “he” was. “Or he’ll kill me, you mean?” Madeleine, never particularly diplomatic, wasn’t in the mood to make an effort.

  Clothilde shrugged. She straightened the sleeves of her dark jacket. “We’re going to have a lot to do in the dragon kingdom. I can’t afford to keep a perpetual watch on you. Even though I will, since I have to.” Her smooth face was expressionless.

  “And you have a miracle solution?” Madeleine felt drained, already, with that familiar emptiness, a hollowness to the world that preceded a flash of craving. “Iaris said—”

  “I know what Iaris said. I also know she wasn’t trying very hard. And, for all her ill will, she’s still a doctor. She has some principles which hamper her.” Clothilde reached inside her jacket, and produced a container, which she flipped open. It was a mirror, its surface as dark and as roiling as a sea during the storm. “Fortunately for you, I don’t.”

  Madeleine’s mouth was dry. “This isn’t—”

  “Angel essence?” Clothilde shook her head. “No. You’re addicted to the high, the rush of power. This is merely angel breath, trapped in a mirror.”

  She was all too familiar with it. As a former alchemist, preparing these had been part of her job: safeguarding Fallen flesh, making sure the magic inherent to all former angels wasn’t wasted; that fingernails and teeth and eyeballs, and sinew and skin and flesh, were salvaged, preserved so that power could be passed on to magicians or other Fallen for their spells.

  “Yes,” Madeleine said. Didn’t Clothilde know she’d already tried? “It’s like warmth compared to a burning flame. Like ashes to a fire. It doesn’t do anything.” Angel essence wasn’t simply preserved Fallen magic. It was refined, distilled from the brittle bones of Fallen until it had the potency of a wildfire.

  Clothilde’s face was unreadable. “Perhaps. If that doesn’t work . . . There’s something, somewhere, that will help you weather the crises. A pleasant smell, or a prayer, or the feel of a knife against your skin.”

  “How would you know?”

  “He was right,” Clothilde said. “You’re such a terrible diplomat. Do me a favor, and shut up while we’re down there? I need your knowledge, not an incident that jeopardizes everything.” She was silent, for a while. “I don’t know about angel essence. I’ve never been addicted to it, and I’m told it’s difficult to do much about that. Iaris doesn’t like you, but she doesn’t lie, either. If she says no one has ever shaken off an addiction . . . She probably doesn’t have much experience, but it’s suggestive.”

  So she was doomed. Not that it came as much of a surprise. She’d have quite happily drugged herself into her grave, except that, because of Asmodeus’s threats, the price for that was now so terribly high. So, so terribly high.

  Her hands felt cold; her stomach empty, in spite of the meal she’d forced herself to eat earlier. “I don’t understand what you’re trying to say.”

  “That’s because you’re not listening.” Clothilde’s voice was only mildly harsh. “As I said, I don’t know about that addiction. But there are other things you need to weather. Other losses that feel as though your world has been torn apart. That nothing and no one will ever protect you from the worst of what the House has to offer. I understand that.”

  Madeleine opened her mouth, and then thought better of that. She didn’t really understand, but it sounded like territory she had no right prying into.

  Clothilde rolled up both sleeves of her jacket. Underneath, her arms were bare—pale, spotted skin that was starting to edge into that of an old woman, and a constellation of whitish scars, crisscrossing one another, as if she had been repeatedly whipped.

  No, not whipped. The world shifted and spun again, reminding her, again and again, that nowhere was safe. That there was no refuge against fear.

  “The feeling of a knife against your skin.” Clothilde’s voice was low, mocking. She rolled down her sleeves again, and stood up. “There has to be something that works, Madeleine. Think on it. I don’t want to be the one who passes your death sentence, but I have a mission. I have a duty to safeguard the House’s future, and if that doesn’t include you . . .” She shrugged. “I won’t weep.”

  And then she was gone, leaving Madeleine alone, struggling to breathe. There has to be something.

  She already knew, in her heart of hearts, that there wasn’t.

  * * *

  THE delegation was larger than Madeleine had expected: in addition to the three of them, there were four bodyguards burdened by heavy luggage. They were gathering at the bottom of the stone steps of Hawthorn’s main building, supervised by a snappish and utterly unamused Clothilde. Elphon wasn’t there: Madeleine had caught a glimpse of him, closeted in last-minute talks with Asmodeus, and gladly turned away from them both.

  Madeleine had expected to argue against the dress they would inevitably provide for her, but the clothes she’d found on rising were simple and functional: a gray shirt, a darker gray jacket, a set of trousers in the same shade, and a set of pins she’d used to tie her dark, graying hair into a makeshift bun. Only the wide shawl seemed out of place. Delicately embroidered with the hawthorn-and-crown arms of the House, it rested uneasily on her shoulders, and kept sliding off every time she shifted position.

  On the other hand, it could be worse. She could have been dressed to match Clothilde: a long, flowing tunic with flowers picked out in golden thread, a matching shawl, and shoes so high-heeled it seemed a miracle she could keep upright instead of stumbling with every step.

  Small mercies.

  Clothilde, in spite of the clothes, moved as though something, or possibly everything, had personally offended her. She didn’t seem to pay attention to Madeleine, but her eyes would, from time to time, effortlessly find her no matter where Madeleine moved. Asmodeus had, no doubt, had a word with her.

  Madeleine felt hollow, empty, already craving the touch of angel essence. But if she took any, then he would find out. He would . . .

  I know about fear. You live and breathe it.

  There has to be something.

  She wasn’t even sure she could stay alive, to the end of this, but the alternative was worse.

  Clothilde nodded at Elphon as he came out, and gestured for everyone to move. There was no farewell, no stirring speeches or anything grandiloquent. Instead, they merely walked through the gardens, to the waiting arms of the Seine.

  The gardens of House Hawthorn were huge: the pride of the House, sprawling and verdant in an age of cracked pavements, b
lackened buildings, and noxious air. Legions of gardeners kept the hedges trimmed, the gravel immaculate; even though the trees were scrawny and wilted easily, and most of them didn’t actually bear flowers or fruit for long; and the gravel crunched underfoot, spotted with debris and fragments of bone. As they got closer to the river, the link to the House in Madeleine’s mind rose, a growing pressure against her thoughts, not an unpleasant feeling, merely something watchful. Another power lay within the river, and it wasn’t one that could be controlled or tamed by Fallen.

  When she looked up, Elphon had joined her. She half expected him to smile, but of course he didn’t. Of course he didn’t remember her, and didn’t care. He was no longer a loyalist, no longer one of Uphir’s old supporters. Whatever Asmodeus had raised from the grave had no memories, and just loyalty to his master.

  “Here,” Elphon said. “He wants you to have this.”

  He held out an engraved wooden disk. Madeleine took it before she could think. It was warm under her touch, and all too familiar. She’d had a similar one, engraved with the arms of House Silverspires—except that, when her fingers touched the silhouette of the hawthorn tree, something seemed to leap from the disk into her hands, run up her arm and straight into her chest like lightning earthing itself into her heart. She shook her arm. It felt as if it had gone numb. “What is it?”

  “Tracker disk,” Elphon said, with a shrug that was heartbreakingly familiar. “So we’ll know where you are.”

  “They—” Madeleine took a deep breath. “They weren’t like that in House Silverspires.”

  “This one is a bit special,” Elphon said. “Lord Asmodeus wanted to make sure he couldn’t lose you, not even in the dragon kingdom.”

  Of course. As if she’d run away from him: if she were Houseless, where would she go? It wasn’t as if the dragons were any more welcoming.