The House of Shattered Wings

“Ground floor.” Emmanuelle’s voice shook. She kept it steady only through a visible effort of will. “Is that good enough?”


Selene’s face was grim. “It’ll have to be. I’m gathering search parties.” She looked at Isabelle; and at Madeleine, who was still hovering nearby. “That includes both of you.”

Isabelle tugged at Madeleine’s hand as they went out. She still looked awful, her eyes ringed with gray, her skin as pale as the corpses Madeleine had seen in the morgue; and her hands twitching in movements not entirely controlled. “You’re still in contact with him,” Madeleine said.

Isabelle grimaced. “It’s like I said. He’s always at the periphery of my thoughts, but now that I’ve focused on him, he’s . . . hard to ignore. But he won’t last long, Madeleine. Not under this kind of strain. No one can.”

Madeleine could imagine, all too well, what kind of strain they were talking about—this was Asmodeus, after all, and he had learned from the best. Her own skin felt cold, but she kept her voice level as she answered Isabelle. “I’m sure we’ll be in time,” she said, and did not even flinch as she uttered the lie.

Mother of God, look over him, please. She didn’t like Philippe much; but no one deserved to go through this, no matter what they might or might not have done.

*

THERE was . . . pain. There were fingers that would not flex; ribs that hurt every time he tried to suck in a burning breath, and a wet, gurgling sound that didn’t augur well for the state of his lungs—pierced, maybe? What could Aragon put back together, given enough magic? Perhaps not even that—perhaps it was too late, just as it had been too late for the poor student Morningstar had betrayed and left to rot—their agony running red-hot through them like molten lead—the battered legs, the dislocated shoulders, the myriad exquisite cuts as their jailers tried to make them admit to secrets their master had never given them—the babble that ran out of their mouth, mingled with blood and drool. A few lucid, cold thoughts here and there, though he wasn’t sure if they belonged to him. Or to the sharp, implacable will that had waited decades for its revenge.

Given away. Bartered away to broker a fragile peace between the House of Silverspires and the House of Hawthorn—a peace that would not last anyway, for a few years later the Great War would come and destroy everything Morningstar had ever hoped for.

Good.

All you hold dear will be shattered; all that you built will fall into dust; all that you gathered will be borne away by the storm. . . .

The voice, running over and over in his mind; no longer a human voice, but something darker, rasping and coughing and breathing a smell of brine, as if the old stories of the Christian Hell were true . . .

A door slamming open, in a world far, far away. Emmanuelle’s horrified expression, her eyes two pits of darkness in the muddy-milk paleness of her face. “Philippe—”

“Untie him. Now.” Selene’s voice, cold and cutting. “I won’t ask twice.”

She—she hadn’t sold him to Asmodeus? She—he started to say he didn’t understand, but his swollen tongue wouldn’t obey him.

Asmodeus, rising, turning—the words all blurred together, too low to be made out; but Selene’s reply was sharp and clear, like broken glass. “I think you’ve done enough, Asmodeus. Are you happy now? I should think this is proper compensation, insofar as you’re concerned—and I would highly suggest you leave us alone now. You’re this close to going too far.”

And Asmodeus’s face turning again—his eyes as hard as beetle’s shell, but the corners of his mouth turned slightly upward, in horror, in disapproval; he wasn’t sure.

He had to . . .

Needed to . . .

“Let him go,” Isabelle said, and the sound of her voice—and the power blazing from her—was enough to drag him back to sanity for a moment. For a moment—a single, suspended heartbeat—he was himself again, in a body that kept twisting and twitching in pain—but then he was calling the khi currents from the roiling, writhing mass in the room—and fire leaped into his hands, circling his wrists—incinerating the rope and blasting through Asmodeus’s weakening protections.

From his armchair, Morningstar smiled, and raised a crystal glass as a salute—a glass in which shadows slid and merged and waited for their opportunity to leap. . . .

He was up, and tottering across the room, leaning against the doorjamb before either Selene or any of the Fallen could touch him. “Philippe!” Emmanuelle said, but she’d never had the power to hold him. She must have reached out for him, because he felt her touch on his skin—something reared, deep within him—a head, darting forward, a bite, and Emmanuelle falling back with an incoherent scream.