The House of Shattered Wings

“I think we should go and help Philippe.”


It took a moment for all the words of that sentence to realign themselves in Madeleine’s mind. “He’s dead,” she said. “They found the trail of blood leading into the Seine, and there’s probably a corpse somewhere, playing with the fishes.” If Selene was right, the thing he’d let loose was still in Silverspires; but it didn’t mean that Philippe had survived—Asmodeus’s attentions had been thorough, and unpleasant.

Isabelle shook her head. “There is—I don’t really know how to explain it, but there is something in the Seine. Somewhere.” She played with her hands—the fingers of the good hand in the crippled one, worrying at the hole.

She was tied to Philippe; inextricably linked somehow, though in the days before the banquet their relationship had seemed more strained than before. She couldn’t help defending him; to her, it would be as natural as breathing.

Whereas as far as Madeleine was concerned, Philippe could go hang. “Let me be clear. He wounded Emmanuelle. He was the catalyst for something that killed Samariel. Something that wrecked the House. And you somehow think it’s a good idea to go find him wherever he’s hiding?”

Isabelle flushed scarlet. “I don’t know what happened. I think it’s connected to him, but he’s not controlling it. He’s not doing any of it.”

“That’s great comfort, but no. If he’s alive somehow—”

“He is. I know it. And he could help Emmanuelle.”

Unlikely. He was the one who’d harmed her, after all.

“I wasn’t doubting your ability to find him,” Madeleine said. She sighed, and massaged her brow, feeling the beginnings of a headache. “Selene should be the one to find him, not us.” Just look at them. One washed-out alchemist, and one young Fallen too naive to see the political implications of the fight she was dragged into. Hardly the elite group of magicians it would have taken to keep Philippe’s magic at bay.

“Selene won’t go,” Isabelle said.

“You asked?”

“I had to,” Isabelle said. She bit her lip. “But she said no. She has too much to do; and she hates Philippe.”

“With reason,” Madeleine said. She didn’t much care for Philippe, either; even before the conclave, he had been surly and uncivil.

Isabelle bit her lip. “He—he promised to look after me. He wouldn’t attack me.”

“He cut off two of your fingers. That’s hardly—”

“That’s the past,” Isabelle said, more forcefully than Madeleine had expected. “Before he came to the House. And he’s . . . not himself now.”

“Which doesn’t excuse what he has done. If he has done it,” Madeleine said, grudgingly. She was willing to grant that all of it was a bit much for a young man; even if said young man was older than he appeared. Whoever had killed Samariel had known the effect it would have, and that spoke of familiarity with the city and its fragile equilibrium of warring Houses; something Philippe had been demonstrably uninterested in. “But I still don’t understand why you want to go running after him. You’re not—”

“In love with him?” Isabelle smiled. “I saw the thought cross your mind. Of course not, Madeleine. I know what I am.”

“Fallen doesn’t mean emotionless.”

“Oh, no. I mean that he’s still in love with his country above all else, and I—I’m still trying to figure out how things work.”

“That would certainly give you a head start on how things work,” Madeleine said, suppressing a smile; and raised a hand to forestall Isabelle’s objections. “But never mind. If it’s not that, then . . .”

“We’re friends,” Isabelle said. “He made a promise to look out for me, and I can’t do any less.”

“It does you credit,” Madeleine said, slowly. “But—” But what you want is insane, she wanted to say. To go wherever she thought Philippe was, to confront what had killed Samariel and Oris and countless others . . .

“Don’t you want to understand what’s going on?” Isabelle asked.

No. She had no desire to; but then she thought of Oris, lying cold and naked on the slab as she took him apart—the only thing she knew how to do anymore. “I want justice,” she said. “But I’m not sure how this would help me.”

“Because it’s not over,” Isabelle said, at last. “It never was. Look at Selene. She’s known, all along. She watches the darkness, knowing that it will return.”

“It?”