The House of Shattered Wings

by Aliette de Bodard

  She withdrew and focused her essence-fueled magic on the paper, willing it to show what it had shown Oris—what had fed the fear she could feel traces of in the room. Nothing changed, or moved.

  “I don’t think—” she said; and then the surface of the paper went dark—as if something huge and black had passed in front of it, spreading its wings as it moved—a moment only, and then it was gone, but she could imagine what it would have been like, to be staring at printed paper only to see that show up.

  “That was it,” Oris said. “But it was everywhere. Every time I turned my head, it was a shadow in the corridors; every time I looked at something, it would seem to lie across it. I’ve never seen anything like it.”

  Madeleine sent a small, fading burst of magic into the paper; watched the darkness cross its surface, once again. Definitely something large, and she wasn’t quite sure where the suggestion of wings came from, but it was . . . unpleasant. Stomach-clenchingly frightening—a hint that it would spread, and forever engulf her, take her apart until not a trace of her was left, nothing but her screams . . .

  The last of the essence vanished from her system, leaving her drained, her lungs reddened and hoarse—while she was on it, it was so easy to forget what the drug was doing to her, but she wasn’t fool enough to lie to herself. She was dying; but she’d been dying for twenty years, ever since Hawthorn ceased to be a haven—ever since Elphon died. “I’ve never seen anything like this, either,” she said. Her voice rasped against her throat; she brought it under control with an effort. “But it’s gone now, right?”

  Oris nodded. “It could come back.”

  “Mmm,” Madeleine said. She considered her options. He seemed worried, but not as bone-deep frightened as she’d been—was what she’d seen a hallucination induced by angel essence?

  On the one hand, she emphatically didn’t want to be there when it came back; but on the other . . . with it gone, she couldn’t investigate further. She could take it up with Selene, but then there was a risk—a not insignificant one—that Selene would see she was on essence. “It won’t come back.”

  Oris grimaced. “I don’t want it coming back, Madeleine. You saw it.”

  “I did,” Madeleine said, doing her best to keep her voice level. “I’m sure it’s nothing.”

  “Nothing? Are you . . .” Oris hesitated. “Are you sure?”

  Madeleine said, with a glibness she didn’t feel, “It’s an old House. Not everything in it is entirely savory. You should know.” God knew Morningstar had had his share of darkness.

  “I . . .” Oris frowned. “I guess I do?”

  “You’ll be fine,” Madeleine said. “It’s gone. And if it does come back, you can call me. Anytime. I’ll come. Promise.”

  She could feel Oris wavering—he trusted her and her opinions, and she seemed confident enough to sway him. She wished she felt as confident as she appeared to him.

  “Look. Why don’t I stay here awhile tonight, and we’ll see what happens?”

  It was a mark of how desperate Oris was that he readily acquiesced to this, without even a show of protesting.

  But at the end of the night, there was no trace of whatever had frightened him out of his wits, nor could any of Madeleine’s spells detect any trace of an intruder. “Let me know if it comes back,” she said, as she left the room and went back to her own quarters for some much-needed rest.

  Oris didn’t see anything the next day, or the next night, or for the next week. By then, Madeleine had lulled herself into thinking they’d just had a hallucination; or seen the last of a stray spell from the war, which had finally spent itself in manifesting to Oris. She went through the routine of her days at Silverspires: collecting breath and nail clippings from Fallen and making artifacts out of them; teaching the children in the House’s school the bases of alchemy—and through the routines of her nights, too, inhaling angel essence and glorying in its futile rush of power.

  FOUR

  MARKET OF BETRAYALS

  PHILIPPE found Aragon in his office, reading a file yellowed by age. How old was Aragon, really? All he had told Philippe was that he owed Morningstar a debt, and this was the reason why he gave part of his time to Silverspires, taking away from his valuable practice—it had no small value, to be an independent doctor in a polarized city.

  Aragon’s office was a small room that looked like a cross between church stalls and hospital: the lower half of the walls was covered with wooden panels, while the upper half bore a thick layer of white paint, over which Aragon had aligned pictures and paintings. The room had a faint, unpleasant smell—a remnant of bleach or some other chemical, mingling with the heady one of wood varnish.

  Beside Aragon was Emmanuelle, who gave him an embarrassed smile. “Selene told me to report on the exam.” She, too, had a file in her hands. She didn’t sound altogether happy, or approving.

  Aragon nodded, curtly, at Philippe. They’d been observing each other warily in the weeks that had preceded, and had had a few desultory exchanges, nothing particularly deep or meaningful.

  “Sit here,” Aragon said, pointing to an examination table covered with a white sheet. “I will come in a moment.”

  Emmanuelle pulled her chair away into the farthest corner, staring at the images of human bodies on the wall—there was a cross section of lungs, accompanied by information on magical rot and on the nonexistent ways to prevent it; a detailed anatomy of a Fallen, compared point by point to a human, with peculiar emphasis on the muscles of the back—paying particular attention to the muscle pairs that had been used for lifting and pulling down wings; and a detailed map of Paris, charting the points of greatest magical pollution.

  After a while, Aragon closed the file. “So,” he said. “A complete exam. Selene seems to think I have time to waste.”

  “You certainly took your time humoring her,” Emmanuelle said, with a tight smile. “It’s been weeks.”

  “I had other things to do,” Aragon said, stiffly.

  Emmanuelle shrugged. “I’d be careful, if I were you.”

  Aragon didn’t deign to answer.

  “She doesn’t like insolence. Or mysteries.”

  That last was clearly directed at Philippe. Mysteries. As if he were a thing, to be prodded and analyzed; and then he realized that, to Selene, he might well be.

  The arrogance of her . . .

  No. No anger. He couldn’t afford that. Not here, not now. He had been in a House army once; had kept his face a blank through the orders that sent him into the fray to buy a plot of land with blood and death. He could do it again here; it wasn’t so hard.

  The Jade Emperor had said it was vital to maintain dignity in all things; what advice would he have had, if he’d seen Philippe in Silverspires, imprisoned by Fallen magic? Perhaps he would have been glad; after all, he was ruler of Heaven; he had exiled Philippe from the company of Immortals—so he could learn humility and decorum. He’d probably never dreamed that foreigners would sweep in with Fallen magic, seizing Philippe when he was still weakened from his exile; sending him to a land where his status meant almost nothing. Perhaps he’d have viewed it as a fitting punishment.

  Humility and decorum. What a joke.

  Aragon unhooked his stethoscope from the wall, and came closer to Philippe. “Open your mouth, please.”

  After a while, Philippe found it easier to tune out and let his body take over the simple exercises—Heaven knew what Aragon had been asked, or how he’d chosen to interpret it, but he was performing a simple medical exam.

  The khi currents in the room—as elsewhere in the House—were slow and lazy, as if everything had been severely depleted. Water was the strongest one, because of the proximity of the Seine and the general stagnation of the place; wood was the weakest one, because nothing had grown fast and vigorous in the House for years now. They swirled around Aragon’s feet—metal, for harvest
, for collecting—around Emmanuelle’s still face—water, for stillness, for withdrawal into one’s self—but of course all of it had deeper meanings, insights he couldn’t read or draw on anymore.

  And there was darkness, too; but there always was—ever since he had touched the mirror. It lay like a shadow across everything he looked at; and sometimes in his dreams he would meet Morningstar’s pale gaze, and stand transfixed, like a deer before a hound or a hunter—and he’d wake up drenched in sweat, both terribly afraid and terribly awed. There was . . . something infinitely seductive about Morningstar, the promise that he’d be welcomed as a Fallen, reshaped until he was part of Silverspires—tied to the House in ten thousand ways, each stronger and more durable than the ties of families—until he finally became worthy of Morningstar’s regard . . .

  But Morningstar was dead; or gone; or beyond communication. Surely that was just an illusion; a side effect of whatever curse had been laid on the House—of the summoning that he’d felt when touching the mirror, but could no longer trace?

  All you hold dear will be shattered; all that you built will fall into dust; all that you gathered will be borne away by the storm . . .

  “Does the House have enemies?” he asked; and was startled to see Emmanuelle’s pleasant expression darken.

  “Anything powerful and old always has enemies,” Emmanuelle said—her eyes on the posters on the walls. “And Silverspires is oldest of the Houses. Much diminished, to be sure; but that is when the wolves and carrion birds see their opportunity.”

  “I see,” Philippe said.

  “You’ll want to know what you’ve gotten into,” Emmanuelle said, not unkindly. “The other Houses are our enemies, mostly. The gang lords are numerous and weak; and the Houses make sure they stay that way.”

  “I know,” Philippe said, curtly, as Aragon fussed around him with a stethoscope. “I was a gang member.” He was surprised how easily the past tense came to him; but truly there had been no future for him with the Red Mambas. “What about the Houses?”

  Emmanuelle shrugged. “Lazarus is our ally for the time being. Harrier is . . . neutral.” She rattled off, effortlessly, a dozen other names that meant less to Philippe; presumably on the other end of the city, where he’d never set foot. “And, of course, there’s Hawthorn.”

  “Hawthorn?” The word meant nothing to him, but the way Emmanuelle said it . . .

  “In the southwest,” Emmanuelle said, pursing her lips. “Surely you’ve heard of them? If Silverspires is on the wane, they’re on the rise.” There was almost . . . venom in her voice, which, coming from the quiet and good-natured archivist, was as disturbing as being savaged by a fawn. “They protect their own, and have no scruples beyond that—they grow rich on selling angel essence, and angel breath, and God knows what else they can get their hands on.”

  And Silverspires was no doubt a model of morality—he held on to the thought, did not voice it, because he knew that it would not please his captors—because Emmanuelle was on Selene’s side, in the end, and it would do him good not to forget.

  “I see,” he said. But none of those enemies, surely, could have reached that deep inside the cathedral and planted the curse? “And the House is . . . united?” he asked.

  Emmanuelle’s face closed. “Of course it is. We’re not Hawthorn, as I said. Selene rules as Morningstar’s heir, and there is neither question of her legitimacy, nor attempts to unseat her.”

  He felt more than saw Aragon wince in the middle of prodding at his shoulder blades. There was more to it than that; but the time to ask was not now.

  “And now,” Aragon said, “let us see some magic.”

  “No,” Philippe said, recoiling instinctively from the suggestion. Magic was not cheap, to be thrown around like fireworks; or wasted on pointless demonstrations of might; or, worse, shown to Selene, whose sentence of death was only held in abeyance until she understood everything that made and moved him.

  “You will find,” Aragon said, with a tight smile, “that you have no choice in the matter.” His face was as severe as ever, but he raised his gaze; and Philippe saw the hint of a smile in the dark eyes. Aragon was right: he might breathe fire, summon dragons from the depths of the Seine, transport himself to the other end of Paris—and still, neither Emmanuelle nor Selene would even begin to understand what he was and what he drew on—because his magic was as alien to them as his customs; because he was far from home, an exile in the midst of this broken, decadent city; a foreigner even among his own people, trapped in the ruins of a wrecked city.

  No anger. No sorrow. He couldn’t afford them.

  He’d already observed where the khi currents in the room were; it was but a simple matter to call up fire, even as diminished and as weak as it was, here in Silverspires; to cradle the living flame in the palm of his hand, feeling the warmth of it travel through his veins—through his shoulder and straight into his heart.

  Through the light of the flame, he saw Emmanuelle’s shocked face—the dilated pupils, the dark features frozen in shock, the gaze trained on him, frantically trying to see a trace of magic and finding none.

  Good. Not everything in the world was subject to the Fallen.

  Gently, slowly, he closed his hand around the flame; let the magic dissolve in the midst of the khi currents and of his body until no trace of it was left. As he did so, for a bare moment, something else connected to the khi currents: water, but not the stale water within the House—something bubbling and simmering, almost youthful in its enthusiasm. Something he’d felt once before in Annam; but no, this was impossible. There were no dragon kingdoms here—no spirits of the rain and rivers, not under the polluted clouds that rained acid; not in the blackened waters of the Seine; not in the wells that had long since run dry.

  But he’d felt this, once before—in the ruined cathedral—much fainter, almost spent, but still . . .

  Impossible. Nostalgia and the fancies of a prisoner, that was all it was.

  “Satisfied?” he asked, shaking his head to dismiss the odd feeling.

  Emmanuelle grimaced, but she nodded. “As much as one can be, I guess.”

  Aragon returned to his desk, put down his stethoscope with an audible thump. “I trust that is the end of the examination.” His face was severe; his opinion of the entire affair all too clear—a waste of time.

  Philippe said nothing. At length, Emmanuelle got up, closing the file she held in her hands. “I will report this to Selene,” she said; and left the room.

  Aragon waited until her footsteps vanished from hearing; and they were well and truly alone. “You surprise me.”

  Philippe raised an eyebrow. “Why?”

  Aragon’s smile was terrible to behold. “You are still here.”

  “Not by choice,” Philippe said, stiffly. He tried, every night, to untangle Selene’s spell on him; stood on the border of the House, feeling the resistance in the air and wondering if he dared test himself against it. But that spell was a vast maw; something larger than anything he had seen. “Believe me, if I could undo Selene’s spell—”

  “Yes? Do tell me.” Aragon put down the paper he was holding. “What would you do? Go back to your games with the gangs and the misery of the streets?”

  “Careful, old man,” Philippe said.

  But Aragon went on, relentless. “Or will you go home instead? Surely you have to realize it’s a dream you can’t go back to?”

  The rest of Europe was ashes as well: the Great War had spilled outward from Paris, engulfing every region and every department—and reaching across borders through the alliances struck between Houses, a network of mutual support that had turned into tinder for a continent-wide conflagration—English Houses against French Houses; and then, as governments collapsed and the circle of conflicts tightened, each House for itself. Outside Paris, ruins dotted the landscape—the minor, provincial Houses in other cities sha
ttered, their Fallen and human dependents dead in their hundreds, and the manors of the countryside fastnesses in the midst of wastelands. The travelers from Madrid or London arrived with delegations as large and as armed as a battalion, after a grueling journey that had taken them months to complete. And the boats for Annam and the colonies were few, the exclusive province of the favored of Houses: an impossibility for such as him. He’d tried, numerous times, to sneak into convoys bound for Marseilles and Saigon; but the security was too tight, the spells too powerful. He’d have to be a dependent to get on board; and he wasn’t ever going to sell himself into servitude to a House—his return wasn’t worth the degradation.

  Aragon was right: he would never see Annam again—he would never smell the green papayas, freshly cut open; or the garlic and the fish sauce; never climb into the mountains of the west and see them shrouded in bluish clouds; never hear the chants of worshippers at the ancestral altars . . . “I know,” Philippe said, in a whisper.

  Aragon’s gaze was piercing. “If you’ll forgive me for meddling where I shouldn’t—it’s long past the time where you should make a life for yourself here.”

  “As a pampered captive on reprieve from a death sentence? No.” Philippe clenched his fists. “And you are meddling, aren’t you?”

  Aragon smiled; this time more gently. “Because I believe in helping my own kin. All Fallen, not just those of the House you belong to.”

  “I’m not Fallen,” Philippe pointed out—he wasn’t sure he’d ever understand Aragon. Bodhisattva ethics, perhaps; saving everyone whether they’d asked for it or not; sacrificing himself and his good reputation by helping wounded and sick Fallen, whatever their House. Or his Hippocratic oath, perhaps, though Philippe laid no claim to understanding that peculiarity.

  “You’re not Fallen,” Aragon said, at last. “But you still should be free to choose. It’s not right, what Selene did to you. I already asked her, but she won’t lift the spell; and she holds it together with the entire strength of the House. It’s not right.”