The House of Shattered Wings

HE sat on a bed in Selene’s room—Javier had spluttered and hemmed on the way, saying something about privacy and the need to keep this a secret, but Selene had been barely listening.

Javier closed the door behind her as she entered, leaving them in relative privacy. Emmanuelle was there, too, her eyes two pools of bottomless dark in the oval of her face. “He was wandering the corridors,” she said, slowly, softly; as though everything might break, if she spoke too loud. “Stark naked.” There was not an ounce of humor in the way she spoke: in spite of the incongruity, the hour was not one for laughter or light-spirited comments.

For a good, long while, Selene did nothing but stare.

He had the radiance of newborn Fallen: a light so strong it was almost blinding, so oppressive she fought a desire to sink to her knees; and the eyes he trained on her were guileless, holding nothing but the blue of clear skies. “Selene?” he asked, quietly. “I was told you were Head of the House now.”

Selene swallowed, trying to dispel the knot in her throat—she wasn’t sure if it was relief, or anger, or grief, or a bittersweet mixture of all three. “Glad to see you, Morningstar.”





TWENTY


LIKE SEEDS, SCATTERED BY THE WINDS

EMMANUELLE came in with Javier: the priest looked much older, much more brittle than Selene remembered. “We found the place,” Emmanuelle said. She looked grim; her sleeves slashed in multiple places. “A cellar with a circle—like the one under the cathedral.”

A circle of power, like the one he had originally traced. Had he always intended to come back, then? Had he . . . engineered his own death and resurrection? “I see,” Selene said. She didn’t look at the curtain that separated her living quarters from her office; afraid that she’d see Morningstar in repose once more, with that serene, otherworldly expression: innocence personified, jarring from someone who had never been innocent, or even young.

“No, you don’t.” Emmanuelle’s face was hard. “It was full of roots, Selene. I think . . . I think the circle was a crack between life and death; and a crack in the wards, too—an opening big enough for the curse to exploit. The roots must have descended from the first floor and gone into the foundations through the circle.”

“Morningstar would never do that,” Selene said, startled.

“No,” Emmanuelle said. “If I understand correctly, he was dead at that point.” She bit her lip. “He had a plan, I’m sure, Selene. I just don’t think it played out as he wished it.”

No; or he would be back as he had been. But the dead didn’t trace circles, or cast spells. Someone else had done this for him.

Asmodeus. Her hands clenched, in spite of herself. “Has Hawthorn left?”

“They’re gone,” Javier said. “With apologies for taking their leave so . . . abruptly.”

And no wonder, if what she suspected was true. Except, of course, that she had no way to prove it—and what would she do, even if it were proved? Accuse Asmodeus—who would no doubt laugh at her, and tell her that spells of resurrection were a fantasy? In any case—she had bigger problems on her hands.

“Did you—” Choérine swallowed. “Did you learn any more?”

Selene shook her head. “He says he doesn’t remember anything. As if he were a newborn Fallen.” And she was inclined to believe him. If it was an act, some game put on for their benefit, it was an impossibly good one.

Choérine shook her head, once, twice; her dark eyes burning against the porcelain-white tones of her skin. “What’s going to happen, Selene?”

I don’t know, she wanted to say; she wanted to surrender to the pressure, to bow down and admit that she wasn’t worthy of this mantle, that she never had been. But she stopped herself, with an effort of will. Ignorance or indecisiveness was not what Choérine needed to hear. “We will talk,” she said. “See where the future of the House lies. It’s a good thing he’s back; we could badly use his insights.”

“Yes, of course.” Choérine smiled, some of the fatigue lifting from her eyes. “I’ll go see to the children.”

After she was gone, Emmanuelle pulled away from the wall she’d been leaning on, and came to rest her head against Selene’s shoulder. “A good lie,” she said.

Selene breathed in Emmanuelle’s perfume: musk and amber, heady and strong, a reminder of more careless days. If she closed her eyes, could she believe they would go to bed now; would kiss and make love with the fury and passion of the desperate?

But, of course, there had never been any careless days. There was war, and internecine fights; Emmanuelle’s addiction, and Selene’s hours of crippling self-doubt. “What else could I have told her?” Selene asked.

Emmanuelle didn’t move. “It wasn’t a reproach. But if you think you can fool me . . .”