The House of Shattered Wings

by Aliette de Bodard

  Asmodeus? No. No. “You told me he was gone,” Philippe said. “You said—”

  Isabelle started to say something, but Selene cut her off.

  “I don’t know what your game is,” she said. “Right now, I don’t want to know. We’ll talk more after I’m done here.”

  There were too many people, and they could no doubt summon more. Better to obey.

  For now, at any rate.

  * * *

  AFTER they were gone, Selene walked to the center of the room. She stared, for a while, at the stone bed, on which the wind lifted the remnants of dust; at the circle inscribed on the ground, with a handwriting she would have known anywhere, inscribed boldly and without apology. There were cracks all around it—on the outside, as if something had smashed itself, time and time again, trying to get beyond it.

  A grave, Philippe had said.

  And, from Isabelle: Morningstar’s.

  It couldn’t be: Morningstar was as long-lived as the planet that had given him his name; a rock she could cling to even in his absence. He would not die so softly, so easily; would not have been lying under the House for those twenty years, silent and unmourned.

  She picked up the dust in her hand, let it flow between her fingers. It was utterly inert, the ashes of a spent fire: nothing that was or had been magical, though from Philippe’s confused explanations she gathered it had once been the body of a Fallen.

  You can’t be dead, she thought, slowly, fiercely. It was, had been, someone else they’d seen, some other corpse on that stone bed, a sacrifice for the spell inscribed in the circle.

  And yet . . . yet, in twenty years, he had never come back. Had never sent word, or given a sign of life.

  She walked to the edge of the circle and knelt, tracing the letters with her hands. They needed him in Silverspires, so badly it was like a fist clenched around her heart; a hollow in her chest only his presence would fill. She needed him; the force of his presence; his sardonic amusement at her efforts; his grudging praise when she did do something right; his effortless strength, keeping them all safe. But there was nothing; her fingers, brushing against the tip of the stone, felt only the coldness of the carved letters. She traced them, one by one: not the language all Fallen learned to read, but an older, colder alphabet that she had seen so many times in her brief apprenticeship: the language of Morningstar’s desires.

  Through those words I shed aside all desires but one. . . .

  Through those words I send my prayers to the City, for the good of the House and the good name of Silverspires. . . .

  Let me be the one shattered, let me be the one that falls into dust, let me be borne away by the storm. . . .

  Through those words I shed aside all desires but one. . . .

  And on and on, around the entire surface of the circle, an intricate network of sentences crossing one another, words that mingled with one another until the spell became a litany—a secret tracery of patterns that spoke to Selene, reminding her of long afternoons practicing the gestures and words that would unlock the magic within her. “Power,” Morningstar had said, smiling—sitting in the red armchair of the room where he taught, that room now soiled by the memory of what Asmodeus had done in it. “The world shapes itself around power, and this is its language.”

  She remembered kneeling, tracing letters similar to the ones on the ground in her own blood; the air trembling with the force of the power she was calling; a perfect moment when everything seemed to be frozen, waiting for the gust of wind that would sweep everything away. . . .

  Yes, this was Morningstar’s work, no doubt about it. A spell of . . . self-sacrifice—the thought made her sick to her stomach, because it meant that Philippe was right, that Isabelle was right; that he was gone beyond retrieval, beyond the reach of any magic or miracles. Gone. Dead; perhaps back to that City they all dimly remembered, though she found it hard to believe forgiveness would be so easy to earn.

  They needed him so badly, and he wouldn’t be here. Wouldn’t ever be coming back.

  Gone. Dead. Forever.

  Selene knelt in the dust, one hand on the circle Morningstar had so painstakingly traced; and felt the cool, salty taste of the first tears on her cheeks.

  * * *

  WHEN Philippe and Isabelle entered her hospital room, Emmanuelle was waiting for them. She was sitting in a battered old chair, her hand lying on one of the armrests, so that the mark on it was clearly visible. It pulsed in Philippe’s vision; but only mildly, like a dying heartbeat. “It’s almost gone,” he said, before he could stop himself.

  Emmanuelle smiled at him: her face pinched on itself, around the hollows of cheekbones, as if, lifting a shroud, he had seen the face of death staring back at him. “Philippe. I wasn’t expecting—”

  Philippe felt himself grow red. They’d pushed him to see Emmanuelle, as if it would make any kind of difference; as if he could do anything for her. “I’m sorry,” he said. “I shouldn’t have come here.”

  Isabelle was watching the guards lay Madeleine down on another bed; though she would be listening, he was sure.

  “Why?” Emmanuelle asked. She did not move from the chair. He suspected she could not; that it was the only thing keeping her upright at the moment.

  “They told me—” He took a deep, deep breath, cursing Silverspires and its ancient, irrelevant intrigues, struggled for words that should have come easily to him. “They told me you were dying. I—I thought I could help. Seeing that I was the one responsible for it.”

  “But you’re not, are you.” It wasn’t a question; and her gaze had the sharpness of broken glass.

  Not a question he was ready to answer; and he couldn’t quite stop glancing at the door, worried Asmodeus would walk in, with that easy, dangerous smile. . . .

  His hands had tightened into fists again; again he was surprised that they didn’t hurt. “Let me have a look at it,” he said. “And then we can talk. Please?”

  Emmanuelle shrugged. “If you want.”

  He knelt before her, touched her skin. The raised area was surrounded by a circle of dried skin like lizard scales. There was a little magic under his fingers; a little of the same sense of oppressiveness he remembered from the shadows’ presence—it leaped when he touched it, reawakening the same feeling within his chest—for a moment shadows wavered and danced on the edge of his field of vision; for a moment he waited with his heart in his throat, but there was nothing more; it was all fading fast. . . .

  They were gone. The Furies were gone.

  He moved to the secondary rings; they were all but reabsorbed back into the skin. “You’re healing.” He could be done with this; find the source of the darkness and—then what? Face it as he’d faced Morningstar’s bones?

  He had no idea what to do.

  “So Aragon says. I could do with less fatigue,” Emmanuelle said. She smiled, tightly. “Now you should leave the House.”

  “Ha.”

  “Selene has expressed interest in our staying,” Isabelle said, behind him.

  “Madeleine?” Philippe asked.

  “They’ve sent for Aragon, but at this hour he’s not in the House anymore,” Isabelle said. “They’ll see if Gerard or Eric . . .”

  Emmanuelle was not to be deterred from the earlier thread of conversation. “So you’re a ‘guest’ of the House once more.”

  Never. “Not if I can help it,” Philippe said, more sharply than he had intended.

  “You’re not bound.” Emmanuelle shrugged. “I would advise you to slip out the door—I’m sure you can,” she said, to the too-quick denial she must have seen on his face.

  Philippe had not moved; was still kneeling, holding her hand. It would mean leaving with the darkness still inside him; it would mean leaving Isabelle—but he couldn’t hope to remain here, not with Selene aware of his presence. He needed . . . he needed to be fre
e. “At least let me have not come for nothing.”

  She raised an eyebrow. “What—”

  He called fire then, and wood, and gently entwined them on her skin. They were weak and faded, nothing like the khi currents he’d played with in Annam, but still, there was a memory of the strength of the House. Still, it was enough.

  On Emmanuelle’s hand, the rings faded away one by one; last to go was the central one, its blackened outline shifting to dark red, and then to inflamed brown; and then gracefully merging with Emmanuelle’s dark skin.

  She was looking at him, mouth slightly open. “No Fallen magic—”

  No Fallen magic could heal that fast, that easily; or not without costs. But his magic was different—just as Ngoc Bich’s magic was different, and thank Heaven for that, or he’d still have been a broken body in a bed, awaiting the death that would extinguish his pain. “Party tricks,” Philippe said, gently; rising, and releasing her hand to fall, limp, at her side. The color was back in her cheeks; her breath came in fast bursts, as if she were bracing herself for flight; and she could have fled, too; with that infusion of strength she could easily have risen from her chair and walked without shaking.

  But she didn’t. Instead, she watched him, warily. At length, she spoke in the silence of the room. “What threatens the House?” She didn’t ask what he was, or what he could do; merely took it all on faith. He wasn’t quite sure how to feel about that. He was sorry he had wounded her, accidental as it was. She was House, true; but she was graceful about it; generous to a fault, even to those who weren’t dependents.

  See, there were positive sides to a House.

  But of course there were. Of course there would be good people like her, like Laure—within Silverspires, within Hawthorn—even within House Draken, where Theophraste the tailor had been kind, and sorry to see the Annamite troops drafted in the war, and made his best effort to cut them uniforms with flowing patterns like those on Annamite silk, and handed them scraps of cloth they could use as blankets against the killing cold. It hadn’t changed a thing. Such people’s lives were richer, easier because of the House system. And in turn, the House system existed only because such kind, gentle people kept pledging themselves to it and strengthening it from within. They were all complicit, without exception.

  And so was Isabelle.

  “What threatens the House?” Emmanuelle asked again.

  Philippe shrugged. “A ghost,” he said, feeling the memory of darkness within his chest. “Anger. Revenge.”

  Not revenge, Madeleine had said. Justice. But was there such a difference to be found in Paris, anymore? The Houses were their own enclosed systems, making their own laws; and bowing only to he who had the greater power.

  Morningstar was hovering on the edge of his field of vision, smiling that terrible seductive smile, his wings gilded with the last of the dying light. My world, he whispered. From beginning to end. Will you not play by the game’s rules?

  Never.

  Then the game will crush you, and grind your bones into dust.

  But Philippe wasn’t the one whose bones were dust; wasn’t the one whose dreams had come to an end in the crypt beneath the altar. He was alive.

  Emmanuelle was still watching him. “A ghost. One of the dead. Someone we wronged.” She didn’t sound surprised, or shocked. Of course. She was still part of the House. She still knew about what it did, for its supposed own good.

  “One of your precious Morningstar’s students.” He hurled it at her like an insult; weary of it all; of Morningstar and his senseless plots, of Selene and her damnable pride, of Asmodeus and his casual cruelties. “You betrayed them. Sold them like a pound of flesh.”

  To buy peace.

  As if that had ever been a reason for anything.

  Emmanuelle said nothing for a while. Her eyes were closed; her face pale. When she spoke again, her voice was level. “Sold to Hawthorn, wasn’t she? In reparation for two murders that Lord Uphir threatened to turn into a bloodbath.”

  “Who? How did you know this?”

  “I can read.” Emmanuelle’s voice was mild. “And you asked for books when you came into the library, some time ago. History books. I had . . . a refresher course on who might have cause to hate the House.”

  “What was her name?” Philippe asked.

  “Nightingale,” Emmanuelle said. “It was a long time ago, Philippe. Before the war.”

  “And you—” She didn’t seem to see anything wrong with it, with what Morningstar had done.

  Isabelle said, “I remember her. She was quick to smile; quick to anger; like a beloved child.”

  “How—how do you know that?” Emmanuelle asked.

  “I don’t know.” Isabelle looked bewildered for a while. “I had this image—and then nothing else.” An image from Morningstar, Nightingale through his eyes.

  Philippe took a deep, trembling breath; forced himself to think. He couldn’t afford to jump at fancies; because the darkness was with him, and it was real, and deadly.

  “I need to know,” he said, pulling a chair; and felt as though he had set a foot on loose rock; and stood, perilously balanced, in the instant before everything came tumbling down. “Who is Nightingale?”

  “You must understand that I don’t remember her,” Emmanuelle said. “Her name was Hélène, I think, before Morningstar chose her. She was mortal. She studied with him for a couple of years. He’d have grown bored with her, in time; dissatisfied, as with any of his other students. But something happened first.”

  “The betrayal.”

  “There were two murders,” Emmanuelle said. “It was . . . messy, I remember. Two dependents of Hawthorn, in broad daylight, as they came out from Notre-Dame.” She frowned. “Uphir thought it was our fault. That, even if we weren’t behind it, we should have protected them better.”

  “And were you? Behind them?”

  “How should I know?” Emmanuelle said. “Morningstar never admitted to anything. But yes, it might well have been him. Who else would have had the gall to commit murder on the steps of his own House?”

  “Go on,” Philippe said. He felt the darkness, rising within him; the room, growing fainter and fainter; the memory of pain; of anger; of disappointment. He wanted to ask how they could do this; how they could sell their own; but he knew the answer she was going to give him.

  “There’s not much else,” Emmanuelle said. “That I know of. Morningstar went to negotiate with Uphir. He might have accused Nightingale, because she was convenient. Expendable. I assume . . .” She paused; Philippe only saw her through a haze of rage like a living fire. “He must have left tracks. Traces of his own magic that Uphir saw. And he pinned it on Nightingale—”

  “Because she was his student and had learned his magic.” Isabelle’s voice was sharper than usual.

  Memories. Visions. Philippe closed his eyes—the room was receding, and he could feel only Nightingale’s thoughts, drowning his.

  They’d come for her one day in the courtyard; Morningstar smiling like a sated cat; telling her she needed to go to Hawthorn, to sort out something for him; a minor detail in an agreement with Uphir. And she had gone, trusting him; until the gates of Hawthorn closed on her, and she saw Uphir’s cold, angry smile . . .

  “They thought she was responsible for it. In Hawthorn.”

  “Yes,” Emmanuelle said. She exhaled loudly. “I can understand why she’d be angry. But she’s dead, isn’t she?”

  She’d hung in chains for days and days on end, endured pain without surcease—blades that opened her flesh, burns, spells that turned her innards to jelly, all of that to make her admit to something she hadn’t done—and she could scream and accuse her master, but in the end, it hadn’t made any difference, had it? Because Uphir hadn’t cared, so long as the price was met. “She died in Hawthorn.”

  Isabelle said, “The dead don’t wa
lk the earth, Philippe. They don’t leave mirrors with curses, or trace summoning circles on the floor.”

  “They speak to the living, though,” Emmanuelle said, slowly, carefully. “To magicians foolish enough to summon them, if it comes to that. Death is not necessarily an obstacle. There are precedents . . .” Her arms gripped the side of the chair, so strongly her skin went pale.

  “A ghost, then. With human agents.”

  “Yes. Claire. Perhaps Asmodeus. And others, quite probably. You would not lack for people with a grudge against the House,” Emmanuelle said. “But I doubt she has need of them any longer.”

  Claire—his vision of her hands; the mirror—she’d probably left it in the cathedral, years and years ago: it would be just like her, to try to give Silverspires a nudge in the right direction, to patiently wait for the curse to take hold. Asmodeus was . . . more direct. “I don’t make a habit of studying ghosts,” Philippe said, a tad stiffly. Ghosts were bad luck. Their walking the earth was against the natural order of things, and he certainly had no intention of being in the same place as one, if he could avoid it. The ghosts of dragon kings were one thing; those of indentured mortals, House dependents at that, quite another. “I—” He spread his hands, unsure. “I can’t give you much more. Madeleine knew what they were—the figures in the crypt.”

  “Erinyes,” Isabelle said, in the rising silence.

  “Furies?” Emmanuelle looked at her hand; and then at the pile of books on the chair next to her. “Of course. The circle that crushes the original offense. The bites of snakes. But no one has summoned the Furies in—”