The House of Shattered Wings

by Aliette de Bodard

  He’d survived that; but it had been sheer luck, and nothing else. Heaven no longer looked upon him with favor, as he knew all too well. He was not Fallen, but he might as well be; exiled from the Imperial Court of Immortals, and unable to speak with his own kind; his kin long since dead, the only remnants of his blood descendants who worshipped at a distant altar.

  He might not survive this. But did it matter? There was no way forward, no return to the Imperial Court. He was trapped in Paris, all the paths back to Annam closed to him—and now worse than this, trapped in a House as a prisoner.

  Sometimes, on the edge of sleep, he would dream of when he had first ascended, and turned from mortal to Immortal. He was back in the cave where he had fasted, a thousand years ago—shivering with hunger, hanging on the knife’s edge of unconsciousness as he meditated—and there was a sound like the bell toll of a pagoda resonating in his bones; and the shadow of cloud-encrusted buildings and of a vast courtyard, materializing a hand span away from him; and the Jade Emperor awaiting him on the throne, congratulating him for overcoming his banishment . . .

  Such a wishful, childish dream. There was no truth in it, not a single gram. He was stuck in France, in Silverspires; and no amount of meditation would make the Imperial Court’s power stretch to foreign shores.

  The door opened. Philippe was on his feet, drawing on the few scattered hints of khi currents in the room, before he saw that it was Isabelle.

  “Oh,” he said. “Hello.” After the interview with Selene, he’d walked away, back to the room he’d been assigned. The last thing he’d wanted was to talk to her—his brief apology was all he felt like extending to her. He fully intended to stay away from Selene’s prize; and he didn’t want to be reminded of what he’d done to her. But it was a small room, and there was only one exit, in front of which she stood.

  She looked at him for a while, speculatively. Her brown eyes were still halfway translucent, the irises dilated and washed out, as if some of the light he’d seen resided still in her. “I thought I would find you here. We need to talk.”

  “I’m not sure we do.”

  Isabelle smiled. There was something primal and innocent about the look, something that seemed to set the whole room alight—but then again, she knew the power of that smile, and she was using it. Fallen all over, that curious mixture of naïveté and guile. She raised her hand; the one that was missing the two fingers, the ones he and Ninon had cut off. Demons take him, he wasn’t one to shirk away from responsibilities.

  “I owe you that: apology for inflicting that wound,” Philippe said. “But nothing else. Can we leave it at that?” He sat on the bed; which wasn’t much, but was the farthest he could get from her.

  “Do you think I can? Breath and blood and bone”—she sounded as though she was quoting an old children’s rhyme—“all linked in the same circle. Can’t you feel it?” To Philippe’s horror, she bent her hand toward the parquet floor in a graceful gesture, letting him see the two threads of luminous magic that started from the stumps of her fingers and stretched through the air, straight toward his face—no, straight toward his mouth, which was suddenly filled with the same sweet, electrifying taste of Fallen blood, a memory from his nightmares.

  “I can’t do more than apologize.” Philippe swallowed, trying to banish the taste in his mouth. Never get tangled with Fallen—a lesson he’d learned, over and over. Why hadn’t he listened to it? “I’ll apologize again, if that’s what you want to hear, but it won’t change anything. . . .”

  “Can’t you feel it?” Isabelle asked, again; and suddenly she was no longer ageless or terrifying, but merely a young, scared girl.

  “The—” Philippe swallowed, trying to banish the taste of blood from his mouth. “The link? Of course I can. I’m assuming it’s not a usual thing.” He meant to be flippant, and regretted it when he saw her face. “I’m sorry.” It seemed all he could do to her was apologize.

  Plenty of people drank Fallen blood without any side effects; but then again, plenty of people weren’t former Immortals. Blood was the body’s embodiment of khi, of the vital breath that saturated the universe—the source of long life and stability. He closed his eyes—could still feel her, a tenuous presence at the back of his mind, like a distant pain.

  “I don’t know what to do,” Isabelle said.

  “And you think I do?” Philippe shook his head, unsure of where the conversation was going. He doubted the link could be broken, and with Selene’s spell on him he wasn’t about to attempt experiments.

  “You have more experience,” she said, slowly.

  “I’m no Fallen,” Philippe said. “And not experienced in magic, either.” He’d never made use of magic that wasn’t his, or consumed the more refined magical drug of angel essence, save for that one moment of weakness—why did such a small thing always have such large consequences? But of course he understood about discipline, and how the smallest lapse could lead to the largest failures. “I can’t tell you what to do.”

  “Selene says no one can,” Isabelle said. She came into the room; and sat on the bed, by his side. He held himself rigid—trying to be polite; to not frighten her, even though everything within him screamed at him to move away as far as he could, as fast as he could. He couldn’t help breathing in her smell—musty, like old books falling into dust—couldn’t help feeling the raw magic in her, a temptation forever beckoning to him. No wonder mortals went mad over Fallen, one way or another; hungering for essence, for breath, or even for a simple touch. “But I’m not Selene. I need—”

  “Advice?” Philippe said. It wasn’t much, but he could give her that, at least. “Look, it’s not a bad place, as Houses go.” It was the House keeping him prisoner, but that wasn’t her problem. “You have people to talk to, inside and outside it. I can’t give you guidance or wisdom; I’m not qualified.”

  “What about company?”

  Startled, he looked up at her; at the dark eyes that seemed to have no expression. “You’re among your kind here.”

  “They’re old,” Isabelle said. Her hands, he saw suddenly, were shaking; the threads between them contracting and expanding on a rhythm that seemed to echo a heartbeat. “They talk about things they barely remember. I can’t—”

  “Neither can I,” Philippe said, more gently this time.

  “No, but you can help me. Can’t you?” There was something in her eyes, a reflection of the fear and emptiness the City had left behind. What would it be like, to remember snatches of what you’d lost; to know that you were in the mortal world, away from the communion of angels or whatever else had fulfilled her in Heaven?

  Not far from how he’d felt, when he was first cast out of the company of Immortals: the bleak despair that had sent him roaming from end to end of Indochina; the black veil descending over the forests and the rivers, turning the chatter of town markets into small, petty tripe, and the beauty of mountain retreats into aimless desolation.

  There was a gulf between them—in age, in nature, in magic. But . . .

  They were not so different, after all—isolated and new to the House, trying to learn its rules fast enough to survive—and linked, by blood and magic—thrown into similar circumstances. No wonder she would see a kindred spirit in him, no matter how incongruous the thought was.

  “You heard Selene. I’m not House; and I shouldn’t be here. I won’t stay,” he said.

  “I know,” Isabelle said. “But while you’re here . . .”

  “You realize what you’re asking?” Philippe asked. “I cut your fingers. I tasted your blood.”

  Her face was turned toward his, her need bare—for the familiar; for anything that wasn’t the House and its ageless, unwelcoming rituals. “Yes,” she said. “You did. I haven’t forgotten that. But—because of it—you’ll understand.”

  He raised his hand: the invisible collar Selene had woven around him rested like a
yoke on his shoulders; tying him to the House, to its unbearably arrogant mistress and her will. “Fine. I’ll help you. Inasmuch as I can.”

  And when she smiled, the entire room seemed to become bright with the same soft, low-key glow she’d had in the Grands Magasins—when she was young and barely manifested; before everything had changed.

  * * *

  THE House creeped Philippe out.

  It was a big, sprawling place—not a single edifice, as he had assumed, but a series of buildings joined by a maze of corridors and courtyards, stretching across the entire Ile de la Cité. Most of it was derelict: the western part of the island seemed to be entirely deserted, with not even the lowest in Silverspires’ hierarchy daring to venture there, though it was not so much fear as a disinclination to go into empty rooms where every piece of furniture was covered in soot or dust or both.

  His first communal dinner had been a nightmare. He had sat at one of numerous trestle tables in the great hall, surrounded by what seemed to be the entire House: hundreds of people pressed together in a suffocating mass—turning, from time to time, to stare at him, the only Viet in the room, and then turning back to their discussion of subjects and House concerns that seemed utterly alien to him.

  He had fled then, back to the safety of his room, and begged until Emmanuelle agreed to let him dine alone. But even that didn’t make him feel better.

  It had been weeks since that first dinner; and he hadn’t stayed that long in a House since the fall of House Draken—in fact, he’d rather have swum in a river at monsoon time than go anywhere near the fastnesses of the Fallen. And to do so while under a spell of imprisonment . . .

  His only comfort was Isabelle. He never thought he’d say that of a Fallen, but she was fresh and young and naive—pulling warm bread from the oven and tearing into it with relish, while the cook, Laure, frowned affectionately at her—skipping stones in the courtyard with the children—and keeping a stash of biscuits and tea in the drawer of her room, which she shared with him around a card or a dice game—she was a terrible gambler, but then, so was he, so it all balanced out.

  Those were the bright spots—the few, desperately few. In between, there was the House.

  Philippe had a continuous feeling of ants crawling on his skin; an itch that never went away, that woke him up at night; an elusive, ghostly pain somewhere near his heart and liver, as if his organs had been subtly changed while he’d been unconscious. Perhaps it was the House; perhaps it was the spell; but he couldn’t seem to be rid of either, much to his annoyance. He’d been on a French leash sixty years before, in the war: taken from his home in Thu Dau Mot and conveyed to foreign shores under duress; abandoned in Paris to fend for himself when, against all odds, he’d survived the war. Never again, he’d sworn, but fate made fools of all men, it seemed.

  Isabelle found him in Laure’s kitchens, kneading dough. Laure, who had little time for anyone, had taken pity on him and allowed him a table corner—there was something infinitely relaxing about feeling the dough coming together between his fingers; the stretching and turning and pulling until it all came together smooth and silky, effortlessly detaching from his fingers. When he was done, Laure would find something else for him to do: chopping up meat or vegetables or keeping an eye on soup stock. He wasn’t sure she ever served what he’d touched—though she did present him with his baked loaf of bread every morning—but it was a way to pass time.

  “Still here?” Isabelle asked.

  Philippe shrugged. “As good a place as any.”

  Isabelle slid in next to him, dislodging a kitchen boy—who smiled at her, though she didn’t acknowledge him. “Want help?”

  He held out the dough to her. She took it in both hands, and started kneading in turn. “No, not like this. Here.” He moved, placed her hands, showed her how to do one stretch and one fold. “You turn, and then you do it again.”

  Isabelle frowned. Her hands moved, slowly, carefully.

  “Feeling it take shape yet?”

  “No. I feel dough sticking to everything. You make it sound much simpler than it is.”

  “Of course.” He’d learned back in Annam, baking rice cakes he’d later steam in bamboo baskets—the dough, made with a mix of wheat flour and rice flour, had been sticky and translucent—but the kneading was the same. “Try again. You did volunteer.”

  Isabelle smiled, but didn’t speak. For a while there was nothing but her hands, folding and stretching and turning, again and again. Philippe watched the dough. “Almost,” he said. “See how it’s coming loose?”

  “Mmm,” Isabelle said. “Emmanuelle’s been teaching me more about the history of the House. It’s the oldest one in Paris.”

  And they’d never let her forget it. “You’re done,” Philippe said, taking the dough from her.

  “How do I know?”

  He took a piece of dough the size of a ball; stretched it, gently, until they could both see daylight through it. “It holds,” he said. He divided it in half and carefully shaped his half into a round, laying it in the floured basket by his side. “Try it.” And, to answer her, “The oldest House. That’s good. Old is safe.”

  Isabelle shivered. “You don’t really believe that, do you?”

  Philippe shrugged. “It’s . . . not my world.”

  “No.” Isabelle paused, gently prodded at her piece of dough—which refused to tighten up into a ball. “I don’t even know what it’s like, where you come from.”

  He started to say, “Different,” another platitude, and then changed his mind. “It functions on different rules. We . . . don’t have Fallen in Annam. Didn’t used to.”

  “But they’re there now.”

  “They were,” Philippe said. Who knew what was happening in Annam and the other colonies, after the war? Had the Fallen’s arrogant, brash magic finally faltered? Had the Jade Emperor finally decided to end the court’s isolation and interfere in the affairs of mortals once more? “And the Fallen carried their magic with them. It’s . . .” He paused then, wondering how much he would reveal to her. No more, he guessed, than what Selene would find in books. “The Fallen were powerful,” he said at last. “More powerful than any magical beings we might have had. It was . . . not pretty.” The guardian spirits of the villages had been slaughtered; the dragons, the spirits of the rain, had withdrawn to the depths of the sea, to the safety of their coral and nacre palaces; the mountain spirits had retreated to their most isolated peaks, licking their wounds; and the Jade Emperor had sealed the court, forbidding Immortals to approach mortals.

  And Philippe, of course, had had no refuge.

  “Emmanuelle said it was because Fallen magic was innately stronger. That it had been our destiny to conquer.” Isabelle shrugged. “She didn’t sound convinced.”

  She might not be, but there were plenty of others who would. Philippe said nothing. He stared at the dough, trying to ignore the memories; the powerlessness he’d felt then, watching the Fallen come and take anything they wanted—and destroy what was of no use to them. “I didn’t come here by choice,” he said at last. “And it’s not choice that keeps me here, either. I don’t know how much you’ll believe of what they teach you. But—if you can, remember that.”

  Isabelle looked at him, uncannily serious for once. “I didn’t come here by choice, either,” she said, dropping her piece of dough into another basket. “And I’ll try to remember.”

  She meant it—he could tell from the sense of stubbornness he got from their link—and yet she probably wouldn’t remember. He was guessing that even Selene had started out this young, this earnest, this naive—and look at what she was now.

  “Philippe?”

  “Yes?” He peered at the dough, drew a cloth over both baskets. It was the kitchen’s slack hour. The kitchen boys and girls had scattered, some of them playing cards in a corner, some of them listening to Laure telling a fairy tal
e about a Fallen who was unable to pay the price for summoning a manticore—the kitchen staff was rapt, listening to Laure’s elaborate descriptions of blood, gore, and disembowelment as if their lives hung on it. Isabelle and he were alone around the large table, surrounded only by the preparations for this night’s dinner.

  “You’re not mortal, are you?”

  He’d had some inkling she was going to ask an awkward question—it was the only reason he didn’t drop the cloth. His first instinct was to lie, to deny as he’d denied Selene. She was Fallen; he couldn’t trust her.

  But then again . . . he felt her presence at the back of his mind; her curiosity, tinged by no afterthought of greed or thirst for knowledge she could use against him.

  Such a child, and the thought was like a fist of ice closing around his heart. “I was mortal once,” he said, exhaling. Now he was . . . not Immortal anymore, and not mortal, either; he hadn’t aged since being thrown out of the Jade Emperor’s court—some remnant of what he’d achieved still clinging to him, as did the magic he’d mastered. It probably didn’t make any difference. Selene knew, or suspected, that he was no young man. “Before I ascended.”

  “There are others like you?”

  “In Paris?” There were other former Immortals in Annam—it wasn’t as though the Jade Emperor had been particularly tolerant or compassionate. “I’m not sure, but I don’t think so.” During the war, he’d caught glimpses of other creatures from French books, sphinxes and golems and chimeras—made with magic, his sergeant had said, curtly and in a tone of voice that discouraged further questions—and he’d fought colonials who weren’t Fallen or witches, and yet moved a little too fast, a little too smoothly out of the path of danger.