Nausea rose, sharp, biting; he kept walking, staring straight ahead—just as she stared straight ahead, not looking at him.
* * *
IN the flat, Berith was sitting in her usual armchair, reading a book with a frown, a dictionary wedged open on her knees. The dying woman in the bed looked to be in the same position Philippe had left her in, her unmoving face staring at the ceiling with the vacant expression of the unconscious.
Berith rose when Françoise came in, hands outstretched, heedless of the books clattering to the floor. “I’m sorry,” she said, and wrapped her in an embrace of swirling cloth and myrrh. Fallen magic rose in the room, a warm monsoon wind. “It went badly.”
Françoise’s eyes looked bruised, her face pale, slowly taking on color and translucency as she absorbed Berith’s magic. “I was telling him nothing he didn’t know,” she said, finally. “He said you could come to Hawthorn, but he wouldn’t come to you. And Philippe—”
Philippe cut her off before she could give Berith anything to hold on to. “Don’t worry. It’s my own business with House Hawthorn.” He coughed ostensibly. “I should leave, anyway. I can come back later.”
Berith shook her head. “I pay my debts.” She looked at Françoise, who shrugged and moved away from her, leaning on the small, rickety table with the remnants of the buns. “Do you want my blessing, Philippe?”
He thought of the ghost of Isabelle, standing in that empty room in Hawthorn; of Asmodeus, smiling and saying they would meet again soon. Ask her what happened to the others.
You’re not the master of me.
There’d be a price to pay. Of course, there was always a price to pay. But to get Isabelle back—her quick, easy smile; her awkward attempts to fold dough into bread that never quite seemed to rise in the oven; the tin of biscuits she’d kept in her room, for their evenings together . . . What did it matter?
He’d failed her so many times already. He wasn’t going to fail her again.
“Show me,” he said.
Berith sat in the armchair again, and watched him for a while. Then she gestured, and the scene shifted: the shadows of bookshelves, the throne on a dais, the ermine cloak the color of the sky. “Come,” she said.
There were three steps, leading up to the throne. He took them, to stand before her. Demons take him before he’d kneel to a Fallen, even if it would get what he wanted from her.
Berith’s eyes were now luminous: the fragments of silver in the irises shining like molten metal. Her face—it was not a blur of light, but every gaunt, hollow feature was now unbearably sharp, the kind of beauty that killed one to behold. The air was filled with the musty smell of paper, and something else, a faint residue of ash like the memory of a fire. “You ask for your heart’s desire,” she whispered, and every word seemed to grab Philippe’s heart and squeeze it into bloody shards.
She raised a hand, which was dripping with blood. He hadn’t seen her cut herself, but then he saw that every line of her palm was an open wound.
“Your desire shakes the foundations of the earth,” Berith said. “It leaves bloody footprints upon buried bones, and cracks open the wall between life and death.” She laid her hand on Philippe’s forehead. He almost pulled away, almost did the sensible thing and ran from the flat, but it was too late. Her touch was warm, cloying, smelling of charnel houses, like much, much more blood than the wounds on her hand.
Everything blurred, like a landscape under a red rain. The bookshelves receded into meaninglessness, and a freezing wind rose, bringing stinging rain into the room. For a while there was nothing around them but the soft patter of water on parquet; and nothing he could see, either, beyond a cold, silvery curtain. Then the noise of rain became something else, every drip, drip lengthening until it became words, spoken in a hundred voices that never seemed to stop or care for one another—fragments of French and Viet and Chinese and other languages he didn’t speak, harsh and sibilant.
Heaven or Hell . . . Fallen . . . where . . . call back . . . bond . . .
Only the reaper . . . a harvest of rib cages . . . hearts and minds . . .
And one voice—which he would have known above all else—speaking over every other one: Berith’s voice, ringing like a bell call to enlightenment.
The wall of death is thick and strong, and corpses are its foundations. . . .
The flecks of silver in her eyes peeled away one by one, a cloud of fireflies—and, stretching, expanding, became the eyes of ghosts.
He couldn’t recognize them all—no, not any of them, just white, elongated faces with sharp teeth and gazes that scooped all the warmth from his body, hanging in the air just a stone’s throw from him, a veil of featureless, hungry masks all watching him.
Philippe . . . Philippe . . .
“You have my blessing,” Berith said, and the rain faded, and the throne, and the dais; but the ghosts remained, their gazes transfixing him like spears, driven, again and again, into his flesh.
TWELVE
Thresholds
FRANÇOISE was at Olympe’s, helping with the children.
There was always a gaggle of children in Olympe’s cramped flat—mothers dropping by with nursing babies, boys and girls jostling one another, fighting to be the first to help with the rice pancakes and the fried rolls. And, with the biting cold outside, perhaps it was no bad thing: it kept them all warm in spite of the poor insulation.
Currently, Françoise and a little boy named Nicolas were attempting to seal some rolls. Not that difficult a task, with the small amount of filling available, and even that had been bulked up with potatoes and fat.
“See, Auntie?” Nicolas said, holding up the last one he’d made. “It’s all rolled up tight!”
Françoise smiled, then hid a wince of pain as the baby shifted within her. “It looks very nice. Can you make more like this one?”
Nicolas took a dubious look at the bowl of filling. “I’ll ask Auntie Ha for more meat!” he said, and ran off toward the kitchen space.
Françoise finished her own roll before it went too soft to be of use, and stared at the windowpane. It had been broken twice, and patched up with glue and pieces of other windows of slightly different colors, giving it a faint resemblance to a stained-glass church window.
Not, of course, that she ever went to church. To the pagoda, maybe, once in a while; but the serenity of the Buddha’s teachings seemed at odds with her own life, and reminded her of her parents, and the spoken and unspoken reproaches.
“Up, up up!” A chubby-cheeked baby was crawling under her feet, holding both arms imperiously. Françoise stifled a laugh, and bent down. The baby smelled of soap, though her hair was already stained with flecks of meat and potato.
“Child?” It was Aunt Ha, holding Nicolas’s hand. Françoise liked her. She didn’t seem to mind Berith—she dropped by several times a week for a game of chess, and the two of them would sit for hours, arguing over moves and half-filled cups of tea.
“Yes?”
“Grandmother Olympe asks if you can come down to the courtyard?”
Françoise divested herself of the baby, kissing her on the crown of her dark head and ignoring her disappointed crying. Then she picked up her pullover and coat from a chair, and her scarf from the floor—a slow, laborious process involving far too much bending down and kneeling, not to mention the uphill climb of straightening up. She was sure she’d put it on the chair, but one of the children had probably disturbed it. Ah well. She’d better get used to screaming children.
Olympe’s flat was in the same kind of building as hers: everything crunched up around a small courtyard that was barely large enough for four or five people to stand together, littered with soot and debris, and the torn ends of clothes and tablecloths.
Olympe was in the courtyard, as regal as ever, in the rough silk shirt and slim black trousers she always wore, even when outside.
She’d laid her canvas bag on the ground, and she wasn’t alone. The courtyard was full.
And not just of any people: sleek, well-fed, pale-faced, they could only be House-bound. They wore red and gold, unfamiliar House colors, and a small insignia on their chests, at the level of the heart: a circle with seven points that formed the broad shape of a star from which grew a golden rose.
“We’re looking for Le Thi Anh Tuyet,” the leader said. She was Fallen: small, comfortably plump, and she looked as though she’d punch a hole through the walls of the courtyard if something didn’t go her way.
Why would they—how would they even know she existed?
Berith.
“That’s me,” Françoise said, slowly, carefully. “You can call me Françoise, though.” It’d save them butchering her name again.
“My name is Nemnestra,” the Fallen said. “We’re from House Astragale.”
Beside Françoise, Olympe sucked in a sharp breath. A warning to tread carefully, as though Françoise needed that. If they didn’t get what they wanted, they could, like any House, level the building and the people inside with scarcely a second thought. “I’m not familiar with it.”
“It’s in Saint-Ouen,” someone else said: a tall, gaunt human with curved fingers.
“Célestin,” Nemnestra said, shushing him.
Saint-Ouen. Not that far, as the crow flew. Or impossibly far, if you were Houseless in la Goutte d’Or: another universe that scarcely ever touched you.
For some reason, she thought of Asmodeus again, leaning back against the rich leather of his armchair; and felt the same stark, naked anger she’d felt then, at the unfairness of it all. “I’m not too sure what you want with me.”
“Olympe mentioned you were . . . out of touch with the community,” Nemnestra said. She had pale, fair hair, and hands caked with a whitish substance—essence, or merely dust? “Astragale was founded in the days before the war, by day laborers attached to major Houses in Paris. We felt that workers should have someone to speak up for them.”
They didn’t look much like blue-collar workers, or day laborers, anymore. Françoise kept her face smooth, emotionless. “That’s all very laudable, but I still don’t see what it has to do with me.”
“We have to find someone in la Goutte d’Or,” Nemnestra said. “A woman who stole something very important from Astragale.” She extended a hand, and drew in the air as though on a canvas. Françoise wasn’t surprised to see a fuller, healthier version of the woman dying in their flat.
She’d had years to hone her skills at lying, keeping the magic she got from Berith bottled up within her, not making herself an easy, tempting target for thieves. She kept her face utterly expressionless, as if the woman were a stranger to her. “You’ve talked with other people.”
“Of course,” Nemnestra said. “But I was given to understand you could offer us . . . substantial help.”
Did they know about the woman? How could they? They had just come into la Goutte d’Or, and they would have needed to find the right people to know this. “What kind of help?” Françoise asked.
“Your partner’s magic,” Nemnestra said, with a cold smile.
Berith. So they were well-informed, and knowledgeable enough about Berith’s powers not to lightly threaten her. The last people who’d made a kidnapping attempt on her had been struck with burns, as if from acid splashes, and not all of them had survived. “And you’ll offer a substantial reward in exchange?” she said, slowly.
“For anything that allows us to locate her,” Nemnestra said, with a cold, unamused smile. She didn’t like Françoise: that much was obvious. But she was smart enough not to let that get in the way of her job. “Our favor—our protection—will be valuable to you soon.”
As much value to her as Hawthorn’s promises, though it was tempting, to imagine herself away from the cold, from the perpetual hunger that stretched her too thinly, in a place of safety where no one would question her and Berith . . . “I see,” Françoise said again. “I’ll think on it.”
“Don’t think too long.” Nemnestra’s expression was unfriendly. “You’ve been surviving on your partner’s magic, and on Hawthorn’s goodwill. Neither of those will last long.”
Hawthorn? “Hawthorn never gave us anything,” Françoise said. She felt cold, as if winter had reached within her and twisted out her guts.
“We’re not idiots. Everyone knows what would happen if Asmodeus’s Fall-sister were to die. They might be estranged, but he would declare war on any fools who harmed her.”
It was . . . not surprising, she supposed. But the threat was so bold, assertive.
“I’ll think on it,” she said, stubbornly. And held Nemnestra’s gaze, unwavering, thinking of warm drawing rooms, and the smell of sandalwood, and unaffordable luxuries. For all their talk about saving workers, they were no better than the Houses they professed to be so different from.
It was the Fallen who looked away, but casually, as if Françoise were a stubborn child. “As you wish. You have been warned.”
Françoise waited until they left, and were well out of earshot, before turning to Olympe. “How much do they know?”
Olympe sucked in a deep breath. “Nothing, I think,” she said. “Not yet.”
Of course. If they had known, they wouldn’t have had this roundabout conversation with Françoise.
“Would—” Françoise hated herself for asking the question, but she had to know. “Would they keep their promises?” She didn’t ask about their threats.
Again, that sharp, noisy breath. “They’re a House. They might have been workers, once, but you know how it goes. Power is power. Those who hold it seldom remember where they came from.” She frowned. “Perhaps they did mean well. Or still do. But to play the games of Houses and remain alive . . . you need to be ruthless, and certainly not indulge the Houseless.” Her voice was deeply ironic. “It doesn’t much matter.”
It should. But Olympe was right: founding another House just meant playing the same games as the others, by the same rules. “So you’re saying I shouldn’t believe them.”
Olympe shook her head. “All Houses take the Houseless. If they see value in them.”
And in Berith? Françoise shivered. She didn’t want to be drawn into that—moth to a flame. Nothing good could ever come of being noticed by Houses. Only blood and guts and flayed skin.
“They don’t make promises lightly. Not House Astragale.”
“How would you know?”
“They’re around,” Olympe said. “On the docks, most days, to trade the wealth that comes to them on the river. It’s all before the locks, before the Seine.”
Before the Seine, the river that was wild, and dark, and unpredictable. Before the waters that killed. Philippe’s words came back to her. Rong. Dragon kingdom. Myths. Legends. Tales to make life bearable for children. “So people see them. And hope.” She wasn’t sure how she felt about that.
“They’re friends with workers. They pay them with drinks and food, and they get gossip from them. Sometimes take some of them as day laborers. As I said, they’re a House.” Olympe sounded frustrated. “What matters is that, yes, I think they would keep their promises, and yes, the offer they’re making is uncommon. And valuable.”
Françoise said nothing, for a while, digesting this. Not making promises lightly. Therefore, not making threats lightly, either. “You said ‘not yet.’”
Olympe didn’t even attempt to argue with her. She must have been extremely worried. “They’ll ask around. For that kind of price, other people in the community might well talk. And it’s common enough knowledge. We weren’t trying to be discreet.”
So they’d be back. They . . .
You’ve been surviving on your partner’s magic, and on Hawthorn’s goodwill.
No House had ever tried to take Berith head-on. And it was all because o
f Hawthorn? Because of the delicate network of threats and counterbalances that she’d never felt a part of, yet it had always protected them?
She needed to think. She needed to talk to Berith.
“Let them ask around, then. We’ll be waiting,” she said, with a lightness she didn’t feel.
Olympe said nothing.
“You disapprove?” Françoise asked.
“Not of that,” Olympe said. “But I’ll spare you the lecture, this time. I didn’t give you that woman so you could give her up at the lightest threat. I’ll have a word with people.”
Which probably meant glowering at them and using the weight of her age and authority to convince them. “You shouldn’t set yourself against Astragale,” Françoise said, slowly. “If they find out—”
“They won’t,” Olympe said. Her voice was freezing. “The affairs of Houses shouldn’t be our own.”
“Thank you,” Françoise said. “Do you still . . .” She hesitated, because she was involved in too many things as it was. “Do you still have dockworkers disappearing?”
“Yes,” Olympe said. “You’ve at least heeded my warnings and stayed away from the docks.”
Mostly from lack of time, because she’d been busy worrying about Hawthorn and Asmodeus; and in the end, all for nothing. “I guess,” Françoise said. “Do you know what’s happening?”
“No. They just vanish. In a dark circle of cobblestones. Almost a dozen in the last three weeks.” She sighed. “No one is going to care, here.”
“You do,” Françoise pointed out. Nemnestra was right: she held herself apart from the community, because it didn’t approve of her relationship with Berith, because it thought that Fallen and mortals weren’t meant to mingle and that she was breaking some unspoken taboo of nature, sleeping with a being old enough to be her ancestor.
The House of Binding Thorns Page 16