The House of Shattered Wings

Aragon shook his head. Father Javier said, “We’ve turned the House upside down. I think it’s gone—”

No. She didn’t have the strong link to the House Morningstar had had, another item on the long list of why she wasn’t and would never be Morningstar—but she was still linked to it, had still had toll taken from her and bound to the substance of the House. If she called the magic of the House to herself; if she held it, like a trembling breath, she could still feel the darkness that had slain Samariel; could taste it like bile and blood on her tongue. “It’s here,” she said. It hadn’t gone with Philippe, though there was but little doubt Philippe had been its catalyst. But he’d released something; something large and angry and deadly; and she had no idea where it could be hiding in the vast spaces and corridors of those disused buildings.

“I’ll need you to prepare,” she said to Father Javier. “And tell Choérine to do the same with her students.”

Javier had gone pale; though with his dark, Mediterranean countenance, it was merely a slight change of skin hues. “I have a few spells,” he said, “but you know the position of the Church—”

Selene smiled, bitterly. “I have faith. But faith isn’t always enough. And, to Aragon, “I’m sorry.”

Aragon shook his head. “I’m the one who should apologize. But it would be good if—”

“I know,” Selene said. Asmodeus be damned, she needed to see Emmanuelle; even if she was afraid of what she’d look like, of the new hollows the sickness would have carved into her cheekbones. “I’ll be by later.”

Aragon nodded, and withdrew. After a while, Javier did the same. He was too well-bred to say what he thought, but he wanted to protest. She could feel the mood of the House; knew what they all felt but wouldn’t say. They needed strong leadership, and they didn’t feel Selene was providing it, not anymore. It had been easy to head the House in the years of its power—or in as much of its power they could salvage, after the war and Morningstar’s departure—but now that the storm had come . . .

Well, she was all they had, and short of a miracle that Selene didn’t believe in, they’d have to weather this together.

Selene shook herself, and went to see Madeleine.

She shouldn’t have had to. There were far better uses of her time, and myriad things that needed to be done. But she was rattled, and the laboratory wasn’t far, and she was sure that just a few words would be enough to dispel Claire’s suggestions. All she was trying to do was set them at each other’s throat; to weaken Silverspires from within after failing to undermine it from without.

The laboratory was deserted: no sign of Madeleine, or Isabelle, though the latter’s red cloak lay on one of the large armchairs. An assortment of magical artifacts lay on the table, all of them shimmering with the potency of stored magic. There was a sheet with Madeleine’s painstaking, precise handwriting, making a note that some of the ones at the end would need to be emptied and renewed soon. Good. In times like this, it was better to know what they had; though they should think about storing more magic. She herself had been remiss on that, lately, with the various emergencies. . . .

They couldn’t have been gone long, or planned to be gone for very long, given the state of disarray; though, to be fair, Madeleine’s laboratory was always in a state of disarray.

There was nothing in the laboratory to vindicate Claire’s suspicions. At least, nothing visible. Selene took a deep breath—what was she doing, giving in to suspicions?—and gathered to herself the magic of the House. For a moment, she hung in a timeless space; feeling the connections between the House and its dependents, the ghosts of the dead and the roiling, anguished magic spread throughout Paris; tasting blood on her tongue, and the darkness around them, barely held at bay by Morningstar’s wards.

There was . . . something in the laboratory, or rather the remnants of something. Selene spoke the words of a spell of retrieval, and let the magic guide her to a drawer in the secretary. When she opened it, it was empty, but a slight shimmering indicated a ward. She punched through it and the ward disintegrated, but the drawer was still empty.