The House of Shattered Wings

Morningstar. Lucifer. The Light Bringer, the Shining One, the First Fallen.

By his side were other Fallen, other humans. He caught a glimpse of Lady Selene, though her face was smoother, more childish than the one she’d shown to him. Younger, he thought; but the words seemed very far away, moving as if through tar through his mind. And other, younger faces: Emmanuelle the archivist; Aragon—who alone of everyone appeared unchanged, prim and unsmiling—two human warlocks holding breath-charged mirrors and watches; and a stern older woman wearing the mortar-and-pestle insignia of the alchemists, whose bag bulged with bottles of elixirs and boxes of charged artifacts.

And then Morningstar’s gaze, which had been trained on one of the stained-glass windows, turned; and fell on him.

The pale eyes transfixed him like a thrown spear—it wasn’t so much the power contained within, as the rising interest; the slow focusing of a monstrous magic exclusively on him; on who he was; on who he could become, given enough time in which to utterly reshape him; and who wouldn’t want to be reshaped by Morningstar, to be forged into one of his beloved weapons?

“Come here,” Morningstar said; and, like a puppet propelled by his maker, he walked up the stairs and stood in the shadow of the throne, shivering as the gaze unraveled him, picked apart his body until not even the bones remained. . . .

“Philippe!”

He was back in the ruined cathedral, and Isabelle was shaking him. His hand had left the mirror; hung, limp, bloodless, by his side.

“Philippe!”

He breathed in air—burning, painful air, but he had never been so glad for the irritation of the House on his skin. Everything seemed lighter, limned in starlight; and the oppressive anger and hatred seemed to have gone, as if the night wind had blown it away. What—what happened?

“Philippe?” Isabelle asked.

“I’m fine,” he said, the lie small and unconvincing to him. He could still feel the weight of Morningstar’s gaze; could still feel the magic turning, slowly focusing on him: the gaze of a gigantic cobra, annihilating his will, turning his own desires into dust.

And something else, too, something darker, quieter—that had lain biding its time away from the light, and that now stretched and turned, sniffing the air like a predator searching for prey . . .

A summoning. Of what?

“I don’t know what happened. But it’s gone now. There is nothing to worry about.”

His gaze, roaming, found the stone mirror: the luster had gone from it, leaving only a bleak darkness. “It’s gone now,” he repeated; but he knew that, whatever had been contained within the mirror, it was within him now; and that whatever had been summoned with its magic was outside—within the House.

*

IT was late at night, and Madeleine couldn’t sleep.

By no means unusual. Nights like these, with the lambent starlight hanging over the House, brought back memories—of how she’d first come to it; of Elphon’s death, and his shimmering blood on her hands as she crawled away from the House of Hawthorn; as she prayed so very hard to a God she no longer believed benevolent to spare her, to let her go just a bit farther, to reach safety before Asmodeus’s thugs found her.

On nights like these she took angel essence; breathed it in, and let the rush of power sweep everything from her mind; let herself believe that she was safe, that nothing like Asmodeus’s coup would ever take place in Silverspires; that even if it did, she would have the power to protect herself, to protect Oris. That what had happened in Hawthorn would never happen to her again.

It was a good lie, while it lasted.

An insistent knocking at the door of her laboratory drew her from her trance. Slowly, carefully, she rose, fighting a feeling of weightlessness that promised she only had to wish to take flight; the rush of power slowly settling into her limbs. In that moment, she was the equal of any Fallen, had she wished to cast spells—but of course that wasn’t why she took angel essence. It never had been.

“What is it?”

She’d expected many things, chief among them either Selene or Isabelle; but the one on her doorstep, his face pale with fear, was her assistant, Oris.

“What are you doing here?”

“There’s . . . there’s something in the House,” Oris said. “It’s after me.”

“Don’t be ridiculous,” Madeleine said, but then she took a closer look at him. His hands were shaking; and if she focused the magic within her she could see through his skin, could feel the panicked rhythm of his heart. Whatever he’d seen had badly frightened him. “Fine. Calm down. Tell me about it.”

“It’s . . . I don’t know. It’s dark and angry and if I turn my head to look at it, it’s gone. But it’s following me. It’s . . .” He stopped then. “You think I’m lying.” His voice was flat.