The House of Shattered Wings

“I know. What a pity. You’ll find, I think, that you need to play to survive, Madeleine; that you can’t go through life enamored of your artifacts and mirrors and scraping of bones.” Her voice was sharp, mocking—Madeleine froze at the reference to bones, but Claire couldn’t possibly know about the essence—couldn’t . . . No, she was going on, not touching on it again. . . . She couldn’t possibly know.

“If you don’t take control of your own life, other people will do it for you—with far less kindness and far less compassion than you would expect or deserve. The Houses shape Paris, and there is very little that isn’t caught in their nets. To attack them all . . . would be sheer folly.” A clink of wood against wood, as Claire played with the charred tracker disk; and the noise of the drawer as she closed it, gently leaning against it.

Madeleine struggled to see things the way Claire did—dead informants belonging to different Houses, killed by a spell no one had seen the like of. “Someone has found a way to power,” she said, slowly, lightly. The room felt too small, the air tightening around her as if it were going to crush her against the floor.

“Of course,” Claire said. “They always do, in this city. As I said—we all hunger for power; for what we grasp to haul ourselves to the top of the hierarchy, even if it’s just to crow over the ruins.”

“Silverspires doesn’t crave power at all costs.”

Claire smiled. Something was wrong. Something . . . “You don’t know much about what Silverspires does and does not do, do you? I imagine Selene finds it wiser to keep you in the dark.”

As she’d done, insisting Madeleine shouldn’t come here, but she’d been right—Madeleine shouldn’t have left all her protections behind—shouldn’t be here, trying to spar with Claire, who had so many more years of experience at this than her. Was Claire trying to rile her up? Madeleine didn’t have much pride to speak of. “Do you think I’m unhappy being kept away from the limelight? I’m not. To each her role.”

“Oh, Madeleine.” Claire’s voice was almost sad. “To each his or her place, and let no one question it? You are worth more than this.”

Something was wrong. Claire would never give her compliments unless there was something she needed from her. Something . . .

And then, with a lurch in her belly that seemed to turn the entire world upside down, Madeleine realized that there were only the two of them in the room. The assistant was gone—when had he left? She hadn’t paid much attention, engrossed by the corpses and what Claire was saying. A mistake. It could all have been innocent—a minor Fallen, gone because Claire had no more need of him.

Except . . . Except Claire had been stalling for time, hadn’t she—that rambling, lengthy tirade on power within the city, making small talk in a place where there should have been no need of it?

The assistant was gone, and no doubt he had carried a message—to whom, and what for?

She—she needed to get back to Silverspires. She needed to warn Selene; and she needed to warn her now.

“I need to go,” she said. “Thank you for showing me your dead. I’ll tell Selene to keep an eye out; I’m sure she’ll appreciate the attention.” She was babbling by now; utterly incoherent, her fear and worry all too visible, broadcast like a foghorn on a calm sea.

“So soon?” Claire hadn’t moved from where she stood, with her arms crossed on her chest, and that same satisfied smile on her face.

Keep calm. She needed to keep calm. She needed to . . . breathe, but the breath wouldn’t come to her clogged, wasted lungs. “You wanted me to warn Selene.”

“Perhaps I did.” Claire smiled. “Or perhaps I didn’t.”

No. Madeleine saw, suddenly, with painful clarity, that it had never been the point. Claire had wanted something from her; and she’d had it.

“If I were unable to read people, I wouldn’t have got to where I was,” Claire said, softly—with that same smile that Madeleine suddenly wanted to smash from her face. “And you’re so easy to read, Madeleine. Like a child.”

“You—” Madeleine shook her head. Nausea in her throat, sharp and acrid; the room seeming to compress around her—all the thoughts she was desperately trying to keep from showing on her face, in her voice. “You can’t—”

“Thank you. It was a pleasure to entertain you here, Madeleine,” Claire said; and her face seemed to fill the entire room, her voice like knives driven, again and again, into Madeleine’s ears until it was all she could do to keep upright.

She ran, then—tottering straight for the door of the cell with the memory of Claire’s thoughtful, smiling face indelibly etched in her mind—through the maze of corridors with barely any idea of where she was going, struggling to remember the way they had come—turning back once, twice, with the moans from the cells in her ear—panic rising, the breath rattling in her lungs, every false start, every wrong turn keeping her away from going back to the House in time; from warning Selene from whatever was going to happen. . . .

Too late. Too late.

*