The House of Shattered Wings

“Will I?” Asmodeus pointed to Philippe, who still hadn’t moved from his place by the wall.

Selene didn’t move. “He had nothing to do with it.” But her voice lacked the force of conviction, and Asmodeus must have felt that. Or perhaps he would have reacted the same way regardless of what Selene said.

“Possibly yes, possibly not. But you know how reparations work, Selene. Eye for eye. Blood for blood.”

“You quote the Bible now?” Philippe asked. He couldn’t help himself: he should have been more afraid, since it was his fate they were debating. But they were passing him around like some magical parcel—weighing and dissecting and selling him like coffee or rubber or anything else they owned.

Asmodeus did not even turn. “You will be silent.” And then, to Selene: “You know what I want.”

Selene nodded, but her gaze was wary. She didn’t protest Philippe’s innocence again. Her dress rippled in the wind from the corridor as she bent her head left and right. “Reparations usually involve the guilty party, Asmodeus.”

Asmodeus smiled. “That would be you.”

“You know what I mean.”

“And so do you. Reparations are a gesture of goodwill, Selene. If you do not meet my demands—well, I and the other heads of Houses have to ask ourselves how sorry you are, exactly, about the attack on Samariel.”

Selene’s hands had clenched into fists, but she didn’t move. “Fine,” she said. “I’ll think on it. In the meantime, you will leave me access to Philippe.”

“Oh, I wouldn’t dream of impeding you. As you say, it’s still your House.” He left, without turning back, but the irony of his words hung in the air long after he had gone.

“Sorry,” Philippe said to Selene.

“Not as sorry as you’ll be if Asmodeus gets his way,” Selene snapped. She came into the room, bringing the smell of expensive perfume with her: patchouli and a hint of some other scent he couldn’t identify, a breath from an entirely different world.

Philippe took a deep breath, and spoke, trying to put everything he had into a casual lie. “I had nothing to do with it, I swear.”

Selene did not answer. She was watching him, scrutinizing him from all angles. On show again; a freak; a man for sale. “My spell is almost gone,” she said sharply.

Philippe bit back a curse. Of course she’d know how her own work had fared. “And I’m still here.”

“That’s not the question.” Selene watched him for a while; and then she sighed. “I can’t read you, Philippe, or whatever your real name is.”

Gone. Dead in the war, like so many things. “I tried to break the spell on my own,” Philippe said. “But it didn’t work.”

“Of course it wouldn’t,” Selene said. She glanced at the door, where Asmodeus’s two guards still waited. Of course she wouldn’t admit that Philippe was more than he seemed, not in front of them.

“I think—” Philippe shook his head, and went for the lie nearest to the truth. “Something happened in Samariel’s bedroom. Something that undid it, but I don’t know what. It was like nothing I’d ever seen.”

Selene’s gaze rested on him; he couldn’t read her expression, much as she couldn’t read him. Then she started weaving magic, frowning—a cool cocoon that wrapped around them both, magnifying sounds until all he could hear was the sound of his own breath. “There. This should keep Asmodeus from listening in.”

“You—”

Her face was hard; almost alien in its bleakness. “I saw you and Samariel together at the banquet. You will tell me everything that happened from that moment onward.”

*

LATER, after she was gone, Philippe lay back against the wall, winded. He wasn’t sure whether his highly censored version of what had happened had passed muster with her: the tale he’d woven, of Samariel’s being intrigued by him, had been barely plausible. In her normal state she probably wouldn’t have swallowed a word of it. But she was preoccupied, and so was he. The only thing she’d been interested in was the shadows; she’d made him describe them several times; and bit her lips thoughtfully, as if comparing them with something else. An eyewitness to Oris’s death? He had obliged, because it seemed to be his only chance to get out of the cell.

He’d mentioned he suspected Claire; though he wouldn’t very well explain the vision he’d had of her with the mirror without explaining what the mirror was—and of course he hadn’t mentioned the curse or the memories: he wasn’t crazy enough to admit to that.