The House of Shattered Wings

It was tiring work: poring through diagrams adorned with spidery handwriting, and through paragraph after paragraph of nearly incomprehensible jargon, struggling to make sense of the subject. There were sicknesses and symptoms, and the results of experiments, and everything merged and ran together in her mind, like ink on wet paper. . . .

She woke up with a start. There was someone else in the room—her hand, fumbling, found the amber pendant, released its power into her before she could think—and then, in the growing light of magic, she saw it was only Selene.

The ruler of Silverspires looked awful. There was no other word. She was disheveled, and there was something wrong with her clothes. It took Madeleine a moment to realize that the black jacket hung slightly askew, and the shirt was slightly creased: negligible, except that Selene would rather be dead than be seen with a less than perfect outfit.

Selene exhaled when she saw Madeleine. “Oh. It’s you.” She sounded disapproving.

Madeleine put the book she’d been reading back on the precarious pile at the bottom of her chair. “I thought I’d keep her company,” she said, obscurely embarrassed, as if she’d been a child again, caught out when stealing jam from the communal kitchens. “In case—”

“In case it came back?” Selene shook her head. “It’s gone.”

“What do you mean?” Madeleine asked.

Selene massaged her forehead for a while. “I know the signs. It’s not Philippe who is doing this. It’s something . . . some power he’s the catalyst for. He let something loose in Silverspires. Something . . . deadly, and it’s still loose.”

“I don’t understand.” Slowly, stupidly.

“It’s gone. For the time being.” Selene came in, and watched Emmanuelle for a while. Her face did not change expressions; but her body seemed to sag a fraction, as if something had given out within her. “She doesn’t look good.” She pulled a chair, and sat down, watching her lover with that same curiously impassive face.

“Where were you?”

Selene didn’t look up. “Negotiating with the other Houses,” she said. “Making sure they didn’t blame Silverspires for this mess, and that it won’t find us defenseless when it comes back.”

“Comes back?” Madeleine asked slowly, stupidly; feeling as though she and Selene walked in entirely different worlds.

“You didn’t think it’d stop now, did you? That’s why I asked Asmodeus what he’d do, if it turned out Philippe was alive.”

“I thought you wanted to question him yourself.”

“Question him?” Selene’s face still did not move, but her hands clenched. “I would like to, though Asmodeus will find him first. In the meantime, I do know that powers like that don’t die fast, or easily. No, it will be back.”

“But you don’t know what it is,” Madeleine said. She’d shared everything she had with Selene; and Selene still hadn’t found anything. Emmanuelle had been looking; but . . . “You don’t know what killed Oris or why.”

“I know it’s threatening the House. That’s enough for me. Do I need detailed motivation? No. Detailed motivation for whoever summoned that power would be nice, but isn’t necessary, either. The motivations are always the same, after all.”

“One of the other Houses—”

“Oh, it’s one of the other Houses,” Selene said, sharply. “Who else in the city has that kind of power? I would guess it’s Lazarus. But I’ve already done what I can with them. If they will not negotiate or align themselves with me”—her face was hard—“then there isn’t much I can do, save prepare us for more attacks. I will not lose this House. You know that, don’t you?”

“I know you won’t lose the House,” Madeleine said. “But we need more than that.” The words were out of her mouth before she could think; the light in Selene’s eyes shriveled and died.

“You don’t trust me, do you?” Selene asked. Her tone was mild, almost curious; but her gaze had the edge of a blade—asking Madeleine whether she would dare voice her doubts and her fears, whether she would face Selene’s anger.

Madeleine knew she couldn’t. She was an alchemist; not a ruler, and certainly not even close to Selene in terms of power. She spread her hands in a gesture that was as unthreatening as she could make it. “It’s not that. It’s—” How could she make Selene understand? “Forget it. I meant nothing.”

“You didn’t,” Selene said, but she didn’t speak again. She watched Emmanuelle with the intensity of someone dying of thirst in a desert. Clearly not a moment Madeleine should intrude on; and so she went back to her books, straightening out the stack, and prepared to go back to her laboratory.

But, when she got up, the pile of books precariously balanced on her arms, Selene was up as well. Already?

“You’re leaving?”

Selene shrugged. “I have something else I must do.”

Something—what could be more important than Emmanuelle? “You should be with her,” Madeleine said.