The House of Shattered Wings

TWENTY-FOUR. HEAD OF THE HOUSE

THE huge explosion had deafened Madeleine, but it had turned out to be nothing more than the doors blasting open. Dust had risen thick around her, a cloud that racked her lungs. Now it was subsiding, leaving her barely enough light to guess at the shape of Isabelle’s corpse.

Isabelle.

She had gotten Madeleine out of Hawthorn; even if it was only for a moment, even if it was only a loan. She had known about the angel essence; about the addiction; and had still come back. Had still believed in Madeleine’s skills as an alchemist; in her as a teacher and as a mentor, and as a friend.

And in return, what had Madeleine done for her?

Nothing.

If only she’d had more time…

But it was a lie. One made do with the time one had; and this — from the beginnings in Hôtel-Dieu to this unbearably warm jungle — was all they had been given.

She had failed Oris. She had failed Isabelle. And — she had failed Silverspires, too, in the end; had given the House nothing but her slow dying.

Morningstar might not have saved her, but Silverspires had been her refuge and her sickbed for all of twenty years.

Light streamed from the hole Nightingale had opened in the tree’s roots, too bright for her to guess at more than silhouettes. Light, like the bright and terrible and unforgiving light from the City — she knew what it was now, what Fallen carried in their hearts, the unbearable knowledge that there was no absolution that would wash away the taint of what they had done; nothing that would reopen the pathways to Heaven and let them immerse themselves in the glory of God.

She closed Isabelle’s eyes, mouthing a prayer that the Fallen would find her way home, and rose. Her eyes were dry; her lungs and whole being wrung out, as if she had run for an entire night. She might as well return to Hawthorn: there was nothing left for her here, nothing in the whole world that held meaning for her.

No. That wasn’t quite true.

She reached out, and found, by touch more than by eye, the mirror that Emmanuelle had handed to Isabelle. It burned her hand as she touched it, the trapped malice within it almost palpable. If that was only a fraction of what Philippe had unleashed…

“Destroy it,” Emmanuelle had said, “in the hollow of the tree.”

She didn’t know if it would make a difference, but she had to try.

* * *

ON the steps of the cathedral, Selene faced Nightingale. “It’s been a long time,” Nightingale said, with a wide, insincere smile.

“Indeed.” Selene kept her voice low. “And what will you do now, Nightingale?”

“Do?” Nightingale raised an eyebrow. “I have nothing left to do, have I? I’ve won. Your House lies in tatters.”

“No, not quite,” Selene said.

Nightingale’s gaze raked the market square; the mass of people that looked like a refugee camp. “You’re right,” she said. “But it won’t matter, will it? You’ll be easy pickings, Selene. I could destroy you all; but it will be more satisfying to see others do it for me. Then everything Morningstar fought for will be gone.”

“Did you hate him so much?” Selene asked; and Nightingale’s face darkened.

“You’re not the one he betrayed,” she said.

“I know.” Selene thought of Morningstar; now lying dead and cold somewhere in the bowels of Silverspires. “But he did it for the good of the House.”

“And that excuses anything?” Nightingale turned. Light streamed out of her, making her a living beacon against the churning of the darkened skies. “Shall I tell you what they did to me in Hawthorn, Selene? Every cut of the knife, every broken bone, every wound that wouldn’t close…”

“No more than what Morningstar did,” Selene said. The cells had gone dusty in her time; because she wasn’t Morningstar. Because she wasn’t hard enough, and look where it had got them. “I grieve for what happened to you, Nightingale, but it doesn’t give you the right to destroy us.”

“Of course it does. The House is based on lies, Selene, on selling its own dependents to further its own interests. Do you truly believe you deserve to survive?”

Justice. Blood. Revenge. Had she been so naive, once? “All the Houses are the same.”

“Then perhaps no House deserves to survive.” It was Philippe’s argument; and Philippe’s face, closed and arrogant; and the same desire she’d felt then, to smash his high-mindedness into wounding shards.

“And that would be your mission?”

Nightingale’s face was serene. “Who knows? I don’t owe you anything, Selene. Least of all accounts.”

“No,” Selene said. “But I owe you something, Nightingale. Excuses.”

“You made them. I have accepted them, but they change nothing. You’re not Morningstar; of course you’re not. No one can be, Selene. No one can loom as large as he did; no one can hold an entire room to attention by merely stepping into it.” Her face was soft then; some of the intensity smoothed away, as if she recalled happier times — as if they had ever existed. Morningstar hadn’t been a kind master. “And you certainly couldn’t hold the House he built together.”

Selene bristled. “I am head of the House.” Within her, almost nothing; the magic sunken down into cold ashes, the protections almost stripped away. The House was dead, or dying; and she had presided over its demise; had failed to see the danger until it was too late.

“Oh, don’t blame yourself.” Nightingale shrugged. “He took us all, didn’t he? Saw something in us and tried to remake us into more than we were. Some of us broke; and all of us failed. All disappointments.”

She was his heir. The head of the House. But of course she had always known that it was solely because there was no one else; because he was gone and she was the latest apprentice. There had been no designation, no transfer of power; merely everyone looking to her as the nearest thing they still had to a leader.

And what a leader she’d been: truly unworthy of anything he had left her, a child playing with adult tools and burning herself.

“Of course it wasn’t you. It was him and his standards no one could live up to. He was firstborn, Selene; the oldest among you, the first Fallen. What made you think you were worthy to even follow in his footsteps? I forged my own path; so should you.”

“A path of revenge and madness,” Selene said. “Look where it got you.”

“Indeed. Look where it got me.” Nightingale turned, slowly, taking in the ruined cathedral drowned in a mass of tangled roots and branches; scattering leaves from her white shift over the cracked stone of the parvis; ending her rotation so that she was once more facing the scattered remnants of the House in the square. Selene could see figures moving, picking themselves up from the devastation: Emmanuelle helping a limping Philippe, Javier rallying the guards — but they would be too late. It was here; it was now; just her and Nightingale, the last two surviving students of Morningstar facing each other.

And of course Nightingale was right. Of course she was a failure; of course her fears had always been right. She was a small candle to Morningstar’s bright star; a drop of water to the churning ocean; a fallen leaf to an oak tree — a pale reflection of the Fallen who had taught her, unable to even hold the House safe; to hold it together against all dangers; and, when the time came, finding her own ruthlessness too late, much too late.

Of course.

* * *

WITHIN the hollow of the tree, everything lay in shadow — none of the radiant light from outside, simply a strong smell of churned earth; and a heaviness in the air, as if before a storm. If Madeleine raised her eyes, she could see the stars through the top of the column: the trunk itself was merged roots with a thin coating of thinner bark between them, a wall peppered with holes where the bark hadn’t quite closed.

Just enough light to go by.

Madeleine headed to the ruined throne, circling the gaping hole of the entrance to the crypt. Then she sat by the side of the throne, thoughtfully staring at the mirror.

Emmanuelle hadn’t been very precise in her instructions, because she hadn’t known how — because she’d guessed some things about the spell, but not enough to understand its true workings. But Madeleine remembered something else — the dance of Ngoc Bich’s fingers on the rim, back in the dragon kingdom, a pattern that held the key to opening this.

A sealed artifact, Ngoc Bich had said. Madeleine ran her hands over the surface of the mirror. There was that familiar spike of malice, but also something else: a rising warmth, a feeling she knew all too well. The imprint of trapped Fallen breath. Whoever had helped Nightingale lay this in the cathedral had contributed to the spell that had cursed the House.

A sealed mirror — an artifact infused with Fallen breath and Fallen magic, the same as the ones Madeleine had handled for decades.

She didn’t need to destroy it: merely to open it, and empty it of all its magic until it was once more inert and harmless, the curse defanged and spent into nothingness.

It was sealed, of course — Nightingale would not have made this so easy. Sealed and locked, and Madeleine hadn’t been able to open it, back when Isabelle had handed it to her. Ngoc Bich had said they shouldn’t try; that it would avail them nothing. But Madeleine was there, in the birthplace of the curse, in its only point of weakness. This might, of course, not work at all; but what choice did she have?

Madeleine’s fingers moved on the rim in slow, half-remembered gestures — as Ngoc Bich’s fingers had once done, the first steps in unlocking it — seeking the place that kept it all together.

* * *

“GIVE it up, Selene. No one will ever be Morningstar. You know it.”

Yes, she did know it. No one would build the House from nothing; or the city, if legend had it right; no one would ever loom as large as he had done, before he died.

From where she was, Selene could see Emmanuelle, could guess at what she was thinking. You’re not giving up now, are you?

Nightingale smiled. “See, Selene? I will leave you to your ruins. Unless you want to fight? Your dependent did, and it brought her nothing.” She turned away, and started going down the stairs; planning, no doubt, to leave the island and strand them all in the middle of nowhere.

Isabelle. She knew more than Isabelle; but in the end, it would probably avail her nothing. Nightingale had the power of the entire House behind her now; the magic that had enabled her to defeat Isabelle and Morningstar. Because she had asked them to go; because she had known, all along, that this was where it ended.

She ought to have grieved; but there was no space in her heart anymore — nothing but a growing, roiling anger. The storm is coming, the Furies had whispered in the crypt.

Yes, it was.

A tree of rebirth, Philippe had said: gathering the magic of the House to allow Nightingale to walk once more upon the earth, the House’s destruction the price of her resurrection. Selene could not hope to stand against such magic — except for one small thing.

No one could be Morningstar.

But she was head of Silverspires, and it mattered. Here, now, she was all they had; and that was all the worth she needed. She was their head because there was no one else, and that wasn’t a badge of dishonor.

She did what she had to. Always.

And she knew exactly what needed to be done.

“Wait.”

Nightingale turned, a half-mocking smile on her face; saw Selene standing, surrounded by magic. “Yes? You will fight? I expected better of you.”

“No, not fight,” Selene said. “You forget. I am head of House Silverspires.”

* * *

THERE.

Madeleine’s hands, twisting and turning, found a slight yield; pressed it.

The breath trapped in the mirror flowed straight into her — an unstoppable river — so much hatred and rage and malice and suffering—no, no, no—a raging whirlwind that invaded her mind and carried her along into deeper darkness, where it snuffed itself out — taking her mind with it.

* * *

NIGHTINGALE paused; raised her head toward the cathedral. “What is going—”

In that moment, Selene struck.

At Nightingale, but not where she expected it: not any spell, not anything that could have been dodged or parried, but a primal strike, one that stripped from her the link to the House, as Selene had once removed it from Madeleine. She was surprised at how easy it was: there was no resistance, because Nightingale had never thought that this could be done; that the magic she had stolen would be taken away from her.

“You—” Nightingale stood, watching her. The light was fleeing her, like clouds borne away by the wind, rushing across the surface of the sky.

“I am head of the House,” Selene said, softly, almost gently. “This is my prerogative.”

“I see.” Nightingale raised a trembling hand as one wound, then another, appeared on her: great open gashes that bled only a fraction of what they should have; fingers crooked out of shape, broken ribs poking through her shift.

Shall I tell you what they did to me in Hawthorn, Selene? Every cut of the knife, every broken bone, every wound that wouldn’t close…

Everything that had killed her, in the end. Selene watched, unmoving, as the wounds appeared one by one upon a body that had no right to exist. Nightingale didn’t appear to feel them; or perhaps she had transcended them. Her eyes — her large, piercing eyes — rested on Selene all the while, bright and feverish and mocking.

You would style yourself Morningstar’s heir, wouldn’t you? Say that you defend everything that he stood for? In the end, I still win, Selene. In the end, your House still teeters on the brink of extinction….

Even when she sank to her knees — even when she bowed her head — even after she had turned to dust, borne away by the wind — her eyes still remained in Selene’s memory; and her challenge, too; a reminder that she was and had always been right.

* * *

PHILIPPE took the steps of the cathedral two by two; running through the ruined benches, the fluted tree trunks that were slowly losing their radiance, toward the altar and the throne. He almost stumbled on another body in his eagerness; stopped, then, staring at it.

There was no mistaking it, even lying in the debris with his eyes closed, and none of the towering presence that he remembered.

Morningstar. But Morningstar was dead. He had seen the corpse….

Almost in spite of himself, his hands lifted Morningstar’s limp arms, bared the black shirt to uncover the skin; and he laid a finger in the hollow of the wrist bone.

A slow and steady heartbeat like a secret music; and, when he bent over the Fallen, there was a slight intake of breath, and the ghost of an exhalation on his face. Alive, then, if barely so.

Unfair. The dead would not remain dead, and yet Isabelle was gone: her presence an emptiness in his mind like an open grave.

Unfair.

He left Morningstar without a backward glance, and went on, to find Isabelle.

Her eyes were closed; she lay on her side, with the bulky wings on her back resting on the ground, looking so much like an angel that he could have wept. He found, by touch, her left hand; and rested his fingers in the hollow where two of hers were missing.

Where to start — what to say? “I’m sorry” didn’t cover anything; didn’t even begin to hint at what they’d had and how it had ended. He still wasn’t entirely sure what had drawn him back to the House, a mixture of self-pride and pigheadedness; and the desire to prove that he wasn’t ruled by the curse that still lay within him; and a will, in the end, to help her. To turn back time, and not be the one who had failed her, time and time again, until she turned into the symbol of all that he despised.

“I wasn’t fair to you,” he said, at last, holding her hand tight in his; his eyes dry and fixed on her still, vacant features. “I should have—”

But he had come too late; and there was nothing he could have done. “I wasn’t fair to you,” he said, again. Wedging his hands under her, he rose, taking her full weight in his arms; and walked through toward the side door he remembered from his night of endless, bloodied crawling.

He didn’t know where he was going; only that he couldn’t leave her in the House, where she would be dissected for her magic, everything collected by the alchemist who would come after her: skin reduced to powder, hair cut and saved in jewelry cases, all inner organs weighed and cataloged, every scrap of magic put into service again.

She had done her duty to the House, to its bitter end; and he would give her the rest she deserved.

* * *

WITH Nightingale dead, the roots stopped growing and regrowing; and they at last managed to cut away some of them. The hollow trunk of the banyan, though, remained, completely wrapped around Notre-Dame, a grim reminder of what they had survived. Aragon returned, grumbling, as though nothing had ever happened; and took Madeleine and Morningstar, neither of whom had woken up, to the hospital wing.

They didn’t find Isabelle’s body, or Philippe. Selene gave some thought as to whether they should search further; but Isabelle had died for the House, and Selene didn’t feel callous enough to hound her after death. Morningstar’s wings were a loss, but one she could deal with.

Ironic, given that she had been callous enough to watch Nightingale die — and sent Morningstar to die — the fact that he had survived it didn’t change anything.

Selene walked back into her office, which was a little worse for wear, with cracked walls and unusable furniture, though Javier found her a chair from the less damaged part of the House. She sat down before her broken desk, and stared at the wall for a moment.

Morningstar’s heir. Heir to a rotten throne, a rotted House, while all around them vultures circled, eager for their pound of flesh.

Speaking of vultures…

A knock at the door heralded the coming of Emmanuelle; and behind her, Asmodeus.

He had dressed soberly for once, with a white shirt and minimal amounts of ruffle; and pressed, impeccable trousers that conveyed quite effectively the fact that Hawthorn had suffered no damage whatsoever in the affair. “Selene. What a pleasure.”

“I’m sure,” Selene said, sourly. “Do make yourself at ease. I’d offer you a chair, but I’m afraid we’re a little short.”

“On many things, I should think.” Asmodeus smiled. “I won’t bother you for long. I’m here to collect my dependent.”

“Your dependent? Oh. Madeleine. Emmanuelle told me something of this.” She wasn’t clear on the sequence that had brought Madeleine back, or what she had been doing in the cathedral — probably running after Isabelle again — whatever her other faults, one had to grant her loyalty to her apprentices. “That’s fine by me.” Not that she was in a position to raise any objections. But still… “Asmodeus?”

“Yes?” he said, halfway to the door.

“I need to know where you stand.”

“Why, where I have always stood.”

“You know what I mean.”

He turned then, his eyes unreadable behind his horn-rimmed glasses. “What do you want, Selene?”

“You know what I want. Space and time to rebuild, without having all the Houses at my throat.”

Asmodeus smiled. “You lost a game, Selene, not the war. The days of destroying Houses are over. What would I gain by gutting Silverspires?”

“You seemed quite happy to help,” Emmanuelle said, quite pointedly.

“To help you fall? Of course,” Asmodeus said. He put on his white gloves again, taking an exaggeratedly long time; finger by finger, with the elegance of a pianist stretching before a concert. “As I said, my position hasn’t changed.”

“I’m sorry,” Selene said, finally. “About Samariel.”

His face didn’t move. “We declared the matter closed, I should think. But thank you.” He turned again toward the door. “I won’t interfere, if that’s what you’re worried about.”

“I see,” Selene said. She didn’t. She didn’t understand him at all; never had.

Emmanuelle, as usual, was blunter. “Why?”

“Consider it… a whim,” he said. “But should you rise too high, Selene, it will be my pleasure to help you fall again. Farewell, until next time.” And he left, sidestepping roots as if they were mere inconveniences.

“Do you think we can trust him?” Emmanuelle asked.

Selene took her lover’s hand, and squeezed it. “Probably not,” she said. The future stretched out in front of her: sorting and clearing the rooms of the House, and rebuilding from scratch what needed to be rebuilt, with the presence of Morningstar always in the background, a mute reminder of what she had done, as head of the House; no better or no worse than what he had done. Perhaps Philippe was right, and perhaps all Houses were equally bad — perhaps they did, indeed, deserve to be wiped from the surface of the Earth.

But this was her House, her dominion, and she would fight tooth and claw for it until her dying day.

* * *

MADELEINE’S dreams were dark, and tormented — images flashed by, memories of lying in the darkness emptying herself of all blood; of Elphon’s death; of Isabelle, stumbling backward with her eyes staring at nothing — falling, again and again, into the maw of darkness, and never managing to wake up.

There were footsteps in the distance; a warmth that enfolded her like a fire in winter; someone lifting her, the steady rhythm of their walking as they carried her.

“Where—” she whispered.

“Shh,” Asmodeus’s voice said. “We’re going home, Madeleine.”

And she ought to have been scared or angry or grieving — but all she felt, sinking back into darkness, was relief that she was no longer alone.

* * *

PHILIPPE buried Isabelle near the Grands Magasins. He waited until night had come, so that no one would see him. Then he moved khi currents of earth to create a makeshift grave beneath the cobblestones — into which he lowered her body, and the wings she had borne.

He closed the grave, and stood for a while, staring at the undisturbed earth that was her final resting place.

The curse was still within him; the pull of the darkness that had once doomed him. He had been a fool to think that he would ever be free of it: it was his burden to bear, just as her silence in his mind was his, forever and ever, through the ages of the world; a reminder of the task he had set for himself, walking away from the ruins of Silverspires.

He had seen Morningstar; not the phantom of his nightmares, not through Nightingale’s bitter memories; but as a living, breathing soul.

Somewhere in this city — somewhere in this teeming mass of Houses and gangs and other factions — was a way to resurrect the dead. And he could wait until Quan Am finally saw fit to grant Her mercy to a Fallen and give Isabelle the blessing of reincarnation — knowing that she wouldn’t reincarnate here, or now, or any place that they would have in common — or he could go out and look for that way; and return to Isabelle what had been stolen from her.

“Fare you well, Isabelle. Wherever you are. I hope we meet again.”

He knew they would.