The House of Shattered Wings (33 page)

Does it really matter? Your future was always short. You've always known that.

But there was the long, slow slide into an oblivion fueled by drugs—and—this. One of her choosing, the other one emphatically not.

Selene, no doubt, would have lectured her about the need to be strong, to keep her head. Madeleine wasn't Selene, and saw little point in any of this. This was Asmodeus's House; and there wasn't a corner of it he didn't master. He had hundreds of dependents, a hundred rooms like this one; and a vast reservoir of artifacts from his predecessors in addition to his own power.

She lay on the bed, and tried to sleep, to banish the smell of orange blossom and bergamot from her clothes; although she already knew both attempts were doomed to fail.

*   *   *

MAGIC
didn't harm the roots. Fire did, but they immediately grew again, more numerous, as if they'd cut off the hydra's head. Emmanuelle suggested axes infused with angel breath: that worked better than fire, but with the same drawbacks.

And the tree fought back. Roots uncurled, far faster than anything vegetal had a right to—and strangled the unwary, or knocked them against the wall so hard their bones broke.

Selene lost two bodyguards, Solenne and Imadan; and Isabelle, reckless and heedless of the danger she put herself in, almost got herself killed.

In the end, nothing really seemed to make a dent in the inexorable engulfment of the House.

Selene stood in what had once been the entrance to the East Wing: the corridor was now a dense mass of roots and branches—not exactly inaccessible, but certainly not a part of the House anyone would run through.

She kept a wary eye on the labyrinth of roots blocking the corridor; but the tree appeared to be quiescent for once. Emmanuelle had theorized that it was most active at transition times: at twilight, or at dawn, or when the moon moved away from a quadrant of the sky into another. Which, as insights went, wasn't very helpful.

“Please tell me you've found something useful,” she said to Emmanuelle, who only grimaced.

Morningstar hovered by—hesitant, ill at ease—even more useless than Isabelle, who didn't master her powers but didn't hesitate to use them. It broke her heart: he looked like him, and sometimes the odd mannerism would surface, but there was nothing left, not one useful memory, not one bit of deeper comprehension of magic, or of the predicament they found themselves in. “I can't exorcise her,” Emmanuelle said. “I would need access to her grave for that.”

Said grave was either in Hawthorn—where the chances of Asmodeus giving them access were so slim they might as well not exist—or in an unknown place in the city, wherever Hawthorn dumped its bodies—again, Asmodeus might know; and again, he would not tell them a thing.

“Morningstar?” She hoped—she prayed against all evidence—that there would be a miracle, that he would recall something of use. But there was nothing.

“I don't—”

“It's fine,” Selene lied, swallowing the words like so many shards of glass. “We'll find another way.”

“There is another way,” Isabelle said, detaching herself from one of the walls. Disheveled and wild, she looked for a moment like one of the feral women from legend; and the radiance she cast flickered fast and out of control, from soft to almost blinding.

“I'm not sure I see one,” Selene said. Something had changed in Isabelle; something that made her ill at ease, though she couldn't have told what.

Isabelle looked at Morningstar, who gazed steadily back at her. “You don't remember anything.”

“No,” Morningstar said, his voice holding nothing but mild, polite interest.

“I could fix that.”

“You could—that's not possible!” Selene said. Spells that tinkered with the mind weren't
impossible
, per se. They were just very complex, and had a higher chance of frying a brain than actually working.

Isabelle smiled, as slow and as enigmatic as an Asian idol. “Why not?”

“Because—because it won't work,” Selene said. “Because you'll damage his mind—” She stopped, before she could say “even further than it already is,” but the words hung in the air, regardless.

Morningstar was looking curiously at Isabelle. “What makes you believe you can do that?”

Isabelle came closer to him; and bent, briefly, to whisper something in his ear. Morningstar didn't move; his face remained emotionless; but his hands clenched. “I see,” he said.

Selene didn't. And didn't like it much, either. “Do tell.”

Isabelle shrugged. “I learned a few things, that's all.”

From Philippe and his mysterious magic, which made no sense to Emmanuelle? Or from whatever had happened when she and Madeleine left the House, whatever conflagration had left Madeleine on a sickbed, Philippe missing, and Isabelle secretive and withdrawn?

“I don't think you should—” Selene said, but Isabelle had already put both hands on Morningstar's temples. “No!”

Neither her cry nor Emmanuelle's came soon enough. Light blazed, a radiance like the heart of the sun, so strong she had to close her eyes. When she opened them again, Isabelle stood in a circle of charred parquet; and Morningstar was stock-still, his face the color of bleached paper, his blue eyes as vacant as those of a corpse. Selene's arm completed the movement it had started, and pried Isabelle's hands from Morningstar: they were warm, quivering as if with fever. “Morningstar? Morningstar?”

His eyes swung to look at her, but life didn't come back into them. What had Isabelle done? How could she, heedless of everything, go blazing in, eager to number him once more among the dead? “If you have harmed him . . . ,” Selene said to Isabelle, who only shook her head.

At length, Morningstar drew a deep, shuddering breath. Selene could almost hear his chest inflating, could almost trace every ounce of color coming back to his skin, every smidgeon of red flushing his cheeks. “Selene,” he said. His eyes had unclouded; but they were still clear, guileless.

“Do you—” She forced herself to breathe through the obstruction in her throat. “Do you remember anything?”

“Images,” Morningstar said, after a pause. “Memories, things that make no sense.” He closed his eyes, opened them again—there was something in his face that hadn't been there before, a slightly harsher set to the boyish features. “No,” he said. “I don't remember much that would be of use. Sorry.”

Selene shook her head. “Forget it.” She'd hoped, against all hope . . . But no, miracles didn't come to Fallen, not so easily. “We'll need to take another look at our options.” She'd sent messengers to Minimes, one of her traditional allies; though she doubted anyone would come. Draken, Hell's Toll, Aiguillon—when these had fallen during the war, not a single House would have lifted a finger to help them. In the world of Houses, being vulnerable was merely a reason for people to abandon you, like rats fleeing a sinking ship—no, she had to be fair there. Had Minimes fallen so low, she would have looked the other way. Allies didn't mean friends. “And the tree?”

Emmanuelle's voice was grim. “I have no idea about the tree. Selene?”

“Yes?” Selene asked. “You're going to make a suggestion I won't like.”

“You know me too well,” Emmanuelle said.

“Of course.”

Emmanuelle took a deep breath. “You should ask Philippe.”

No. “Philippe is the one who got us here. Did you forget that?”

“No,” Emmanuelle said, but she had forgotten. She'd forgotten those agonizing hours when she lay with labored breathing—when Selene wasn't sure if she'd lose her or the House first, when she'd only had Aragon's reports to track the progress of the infection. She'd forgotten, and forgiven. Emmanuelle had always been too nice.

And Selene wasn't. “He brought the Furies here, Emmanuelle. And he was the one who disturbed the crypt, which got this—this mess started.” She wanted to say something other than “mess,” some stronger word that would encompass the fear that gnawed at her entrails like a carrion eater, that would take her, unaware, in a moment when she'd felt herself safe, when she'd forgotten, for a bare minute, that the House was collapsing around them.

“Be fair. Asmodeus and Claire are equally responsible for this mess. And he was also the one who helped us figure out the identity of Nightingale. He has a connection to her—he could find her grave, if moved to it. Or give us another way to go around her.”

Selene looked at the mass of roots that blocked the corridor—that spread through open doors, tearing holes through furniture, lifting wallpaper like snakes—was something moving, in the darkness? Branches and roots; and something deeper and darker, crouching behind it all like a spider in the center of a web? “We should head back to my office,” she said. “But you know I can't countenance this.”

Morningstar had moved; was leaning against one of the walls—he reached out, absentmindedly, as a root attempted to wrap itself around his wrist—and snapped it cleanly in two. The neighboring roots shuddered as if stung, and fell still; almost as though they'd decided he wasn't worth the trouble.

Something had changed. He was . . . stronger than he had been. But still not strong enough.

“I don't see how the situation can be made worse,” Emmanuelle said.

Selene sighed. “That's because you lack imagination.” They still stood. It was small and insignificant—and likely would become false within a week or so—but she clung to this like a lifeline. As long as they stood, there was hope.

*   *   *

IN
the end, two guards came for her and took her through corridors, down a vast staircase that led back into the hall; and into the gardens.

In an era of charred trees and blackened skies, the gardens at Hawthorn were the pride of the House. The grass was emerald green; the trees in flower, with the sheen of rain-watered plants; and there were even birds gracefully alighting on the lakes and ponds—one could almost forget their torn feathers and dull eyes, and see a fraction of what Paris had been, before the war. Statues of pristine alabaster stood around the corners of impeccably trimmed hedges; and the gravel crunching under Madeleine's feet was the soft color of sand, with not a speck of ash or of magical residue to pollute it.

That hadn't changed, either. If not for the two thugs at her side, she could believe herself back in happier days; could remember Elphon catching water from one of the ponds deeper into the gardens. . . .

No. She would not go there.

At the bottom of a knoll was a circle of gravel, and at the center of the circle, a fountain depicting Poseidon's chariot emerging from the sea: the four horses surrounded by sprays, and the water glistening on the eyes of the statue, an unmistakable statement that the House of Hawthorn could afford to waste such a huge amount of clean drinking water to keep the gardens running.

Asmodeus was sitting on the rim of the basin. He was wearing a modern two-piece suit in the colors of Hawthorn: gray with silver stripes, and the tie a single splash of color at his throat, the vivid red of apples; a city man through and through, looking almost incongruous against the pastoral background of the gardens. Except, of course, that he still exuded the lazy grace of predators in the instant before they sprang.

“Ah, Madeleine.” He gestured to the two guards. “Leave us, will you?”

On the rim of the fountain beside him was a spread-out cloth, a picnic blanket with a selection of things that wouldn't have looked out of place in the cells, knives and hooks and serrated blades, still encrusted with blood, and it didn't take much imagination to know what they would be used for—Madeleine just had to close her eyes. . . .

“Sit down, Madeleine.”

Madeleine's hands were clenched, though she didn't remember how they got there; didn't even remember sitting, yet there she was on cold, harsh stone, her clothes soaked with frigid water like the touch of a drowned man.

“You've been uncharacteristically silent since your return,” Asmodeus said.

Madeleine stared, obstinately, at the grass at her feet; but she could still feel his presence; could still smell the orange blossom and bergamot carried by the wind; could feel magic in the air between them; though he had no need of a spell to hold her, trembling and motionless, on the rim of the fountain.

He was silent, mercifully so—except that she could hear the sound of a blade, negligently scraping on stone—scratch, scratch, scratch, a sound that seemed to grow until it was her entire universe—each movement peeling her as raw as if it had been her skin under the knife, her muscles and veins laid bare to the water's biting kiss.

The last thing she wanted was to speak up, but he wouldn't be satisfied until she did. “What—what do you want?”

“Why, what has always been mine to take. Did you not know that?”

The knife was still moving; the stone still scraped raw. Madeleine tried to calm the trembling of her hands, and failed.

“No,” she said. And, because she had nothing else to lose: “You have Elphon.” She didn't need to look up to imagine his smile, lighting up his face like a boy's.

“You've noticed, haven't you? As loyal to me as if nothing had ever happened.”

“Something happened.” Madeleine laid her hands in her lap, tried not to think of the twinge of pain in her unhealed leg. “You killed him.”

“I prefer to think of it as the result of an unfortunate picking of sides,” Asmodeus said. “One cannot rise to the top of a House without bloodshed.”

“You didn't have to rise to the top of the House!”

Silence; and a cold touch against her hand; and the smell of orange blossom, sickeningly close. Raising her gaze, she found him holding the knife against the back of her hand, driven down until he'd broken the skin. “You forget yourself,” Asmodeus said. His hand, wrapped around the knife's blade, was utterly still; but why would he have trembled? “But never mind. It's not Elphon I am concerned about.”