“No, not fight,” Selene said. “You forget. I am head of House Silverspires.”
* * *
THERE.
Madeleine’s hands, twisting and turning, found a slight yield; pressed it.
The breath trapped in the mirror flowed straight into her—an unstoppable river—so much hatred and rage and malice and suffering—no, no, no—a raging whirlwind that invaded her mind and carried her along into deeper darkness, where it snuffed itself out—taking her mind with it.
* * *
NIGHTINGALE paused; raised her head toward the cathedral. “What is going—”
In that moment, Selene struck.
At Nightingale, but not where she expected it: not any spell, not anything that could have been dodged or parried, but a primal strike, one that stripped from her the link to the House, as Selene had once removed it from Madeleine. She was surprised at how easy it was: there was no resistance, because Nightingale had never thought that this could be done; that the magic she had stolen would be taken away from her.
“You—” Nightingale stood, watching her. The light was fleeing her, like clouds borne away by the wind, rushing across the surface of the sky.
“I am head of the House,” Selene said, softly, almost gently. “This is my prerogative.”
“I see.” Nightingale raised a trembling hand as one wound, then another, appeared on her: great open gashes that bled only a fraction of what they should have; fingers crooked out of shape, broken ribs poking through her shift.
Shall I tell you what they did to me in Hawthorn, Selene? Every cut of the knife, every broken bone, every wound that wouldn’t close . . .
Everything that had killed her, in the end. Selene watched, unmoving, as the wounds appeared one by one upon a body that had no right to exist. Nightingale didn’t appear to feel them; or perhaps she had transcended them. Her eyes—her large, piercing eyes—rested on Selene all the while, bright and feverish and mocking.
You would style yourself Morningstar’s heir, wouldn’t you? Say that you defend everything that he stood for? In the end, I still win, Selene. In the end, your House still teeters on the brink of extinction. . . .
Even when she sank to her knees—even when she bowed her head—even after she had turned to dust, borne away by the wind—her eyes still remained in Selene’s memory; and her challenge, too; a reminder that she was and had always been right.
* * *
PHILIPPE took the steps of the cathedral two by two; running through the ruined benches, the fluted tree trunks that were slowly losing their radiance, toward the altar and the throne. He almost stumbled on another body in his eagerness; stopped, then, staring at it.
There was no mistaking it, even lying in the debris with his eyes closed, and none of the towering presence that he remembered.
Morningstar. But Morningstar was dead. He had seen the corpse. . . .
Almost in spite of himself, his hands lifted Morningstar’s limp arms, bared the black shirt to uncover the skin; and he laid a finger in the hollow of the wrist bone.
A slow and steady heartbeat like a secret music; and, when he bent over the Fallen, there was a slight intake of breath, and the ghost of an exhalation on his face. Alive, then, if barely so.
Unfair. The dead would not remain dead, and yet Isabelle was gone: her presence an emptiness in his mind like an open grave.
Unfair.
He left Morningstar without a backward glance, and went on, to find Isabelle.
Her eyes were closed; she lay on her side, with the bulky wings on her back resting on the ground, looking so much like an angel that he could have wept. He found, by touch, her left hand; and rested his fingers in the hollow where two of hers were missing.
Where to start—what to say? “I’m sorry” didn’t cover anything; didn’t even begin to hint at what they’d had and how it had ended. He still wasn’t entirely sure what had drawn him back to the House, a mixture of self-pride and pigheadedness; and the desire to prove that he wasn’t ruled by the curse that still lay within him; and a will, in the end, to help her. To turn back time, and not be the one who had failed her, time and time again, until she turned into the symbol of all that he despised.
“I wasn’t fair to you,” he said, at last, holding her hand tight in his; his eyes dry and fixed on her still, vacant features. “I should have—”
But he had come too late; and there was nothing he could have done. “I wasn’t fair to you,” he said, again. Wedging his hands under her, he rose, taking her full weight in his arms; and walked through toward the side door he remembered from his night of endless, bloodied crawling.
He didn’t know where he was going; only that he couldn’t leave her in the House, where she would be dissected for her magic, everything collected by the alchemist who would come after her: skin reduced to powder, hair cut and saved in jewelry cases, all inner organs weighed and cataloged, every scrap of magic put into service again.
She had done her duty to the House, to its bitter end; and he would give her the rest she deserved.
* * *
WITH Nightingale dead, the roots stopped growing and regrowing; and they at last managed to cut away some of them. The hollow trunk of the banyan, though, remained, completely wrapped around Notre-Dame, a grim reminder of what they had survived. Aragon returned, grumbling, as though nothing had ever happened; and took Madeleine and Morningstar, neither of whom had woken up, to the hospital wing.
They didn’t find Isabelle’s body, or Philippe. Selene gave some thought as to whether they should search further; but Isabelle had died for the House, and Selene didn’t feel callous enough to hound her after death. Morningstar’s wings were a loss, but one she could deal with.
Ironic, given that she had been callous enough to watch Nightingale die—and sent Morningstar to die—the fact that he had survived it didn’t change anything.
Selene walked back into her office, which was a little worse for wear, with cracked walls and unusable furniture, though Javier found her a chair from the less damaged part of the House. She sat down before her broken desk, and stared at the wall for a moment.
Morningstar’s heir. Heir to a rotten throne, a rotted House, while all around them vultures circled, eager for their pound of flesh.
Speaking of vultures . . .
A knock at the door heralded the coming of Emmanuelle; and behind her, Asmodeus.
He had dressed soberly for once, with a white shirt and minimal amounts of ruffle; and pressed, impeccable trousers that conveyed quite effectively the fact that Hawthorn had suffered no damage whatsoever in the affair. “Selene. What a pleasure.”
“I’m sure,” Selene said, sourly. “Do make yourself at ease. I’d offer you a chair, but I’m afraid we’re a little short.”
“On many things, I should think.” Asmodeus smiled. “I won’t bother you for long. I’m here to collect my dependent.”
“Your dependent? Oh. Madeleine. Emmanuelle told me something of this.” She wasn’t clear on the sequence that had brought Madeleine back, or what she had been doing in the cathedral—probably running after Isabelle again—whatever her other faults, one had to grant her loyalty to her apprentices. “That’s fine by me.” Not that she was in a position to raise any objections. But still . . . “Asmodeus?”
“Yes?” he said, halfway to the door.
“I need to know where you stand.”
“Why, where I have always stood.”
“You know what I mean.”
He turned then, his eyes unreadable behind his horn-rimmed glasses. “What do you want, Selene?”
“You know what I want. Space and time to rebuild, without having all the Houses at my throat.”
Asmodeus smiled. “You lost a game, Selene, not the war. The days of destroying Houses are over. What would I gain by gutting Silverspires?”
“You seemed quite happy to help,” Emmanuelle said, quite pointedly.
“To help you fall? Of course,” Asmodeus said. He put on his white gloves again, taking an exaggeratedly long time; finger by finger, with the elegance of a pianist stretching before a concert. “As I said, my position hasn’t changed.”
“I’m sorry,” Selene said, finally. “About Samariel.”
His face didn’t move. “We declared the matter closed, I should think. But thank you.” He turned again toward the door. “I won’t interfere, if that’s what you’re worried about.”
“I see,” Selene said. She didn’t. She didn’t understand him at all; never had.
Emmanuelle, as usual, was blunter. “Why?”
“Consider it . . . a whim,” he said. “But should you rise too high, Selene, it will be my pleasure to help you fall again. Farewell, until next time.” And he left, sidestepping roots as if they were mere inconveniences.
“Do you think we can trust him?” Emmanuelle asked.
Selene took her lover’s hand, and squeezed it. “Probably not,” she said. The future stretched out in front of her: sorting and clearing the rooms of the House, and rebuilding from scratch what needed to be rebuilt, with the presence of Morningstar always in the background, a mute reminder of what she had done, as head of the House; no better or no worse than what he had done. Perhaps Philippe was right, and perhaps all Houses were equally bad—perhaps they did, indeed, deserve to be wiped from the surface of the Earth.
But this was her House, her dominion, and she would fight tooth and claw for it until her dying day.
* * *
MADELEINE’S dreams were dark, and tormented—images flashed by, memories of lying in the darkness emptying herself of all blood; of Elphon’s death; of Isabelle, stumbling backward with her eyes staring at nothing—falling, again and again, into the maw of darkness, and never managing to wake up.
There were footsteps in the distance; a warmth that enfolded her like a fire in winter; someone lifting her, the steady rhythm of their walking as they carried her.
“Where—” she whispered.
“Shh,” Asmodeus’s voice said. “We’re going home, Madeleine.”
And she ought to have been scared or angry or grieving—but all she felt, sinking back into darkness, was relief that she was no longer alone.
* * *
PHILIPPE buried Isabelle near the Grands Magasins. He waited until night had come, so that no one would see him. Then he moved khi currents of earth to create a makeshift grave beneath the cobblestones—into which he lowered her body, and the wings she had borne.
He closed the grave, and stood for a while, staring at the undisturbed earth that was her final resting place.
The curse was still within him; the pull of the darkness that had once doomed him. He had been a fool to think that he would ever be free of it: it was his burden to bear, just as her silence in his mind was his, forever and ever, through the ages of the world; a reminder of the task he had set for himself, walking away from the ruins of Silverspires.
He had seen Morningstar; not the phantom of his nightmares, not through Nightingale’s bitter memories; but as a living, breathing soul.
Somewhere in this city—somewhere in this teeming mass of Houses and gangs and other factions—was a way to resurrect the dead. And he could wait until Quan Am finally saw fit to grant Her mercy to a Fallen and give Isabelle the blessing of reincarnation—knowing that she wouldn’t reincarnate here, or now, or any place that they would have in common—or he could go out and look for that way; and return to Isabelle what had been stolen from her.
“Fare you well, Isabelle. Wherever you are. I hope we meet again.”
He knew they would.
ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
NOVELS, of course, do not happen in a vacuum; and this one went through a number of iterations!
I owe big thanks to Trish Sullivan and Steph Burgis, who have read multiple drafts of this, and supported me along the writing journey.
Many thanks as well to Alis Rasmussen, Kari Sperring, and Rhiannon Rasmussen-Silverstein, for convincing me not to set fire to the entire manuscript while we were in Brittany together. D. Franklin read the book (and other things) in record time and kindly discussed possible fixes with me. My writing group, Written in Blood (Genevieve Williams, Keyan Bowes, Traci Morganfield, Dario Ciriello, Doug Cohen, and Chris Cevasco), provided much-needed critiques right before I submitted the manuscript. Leticia Lara, in addition to being generally awesome, provided some much-needed feedback (and the much-needed feeling that this could be a real book!).
C. L. Holland came up with the awesome title during our brainstorming sessions on Twitter. Joe Monti very kindly gave me advice on publishing and promotional efforts.
I would also like to thank Elizabeth Bear, Mary Robinette Kowal, and Ken Liu for their advice and general support.
Many thanks to John Berlyne, John Wordsworth, and Stefan Fergus for making the right encouraging sounds on the first scenes of this; and the right comments on how best to revise this once I was done with the hard slog of writing it. My editors, Gillian Redfearn at Gollancz and Jessica Wade at Roc, are awesome, and their suggestions really helped put this book into (I hope) much better shape than the one I handed in. Many thanks as well to the Gollancz and Roc teams for their work on the book, and putting up with my newbie questions.
Finally, this book would not have happened if not for the support of Rochita Loenen-Ruiz, who listened to me vent about my inability to produce something I had faith in, and convinced me to put together an old idea of ground angel bones as magic and my abortive urban fantasy set in Paris—and who was beside me at every stage of the process. I could not have finished this without her.
And, as always, thanks to my husband, Matthieu; my son the snakelet (mainly for not crashing my laptop too much when I was revising the manuscript!); my sister for the general support, laughter and geeking over books; my parents and paternal grandparents for the love of reading—and a special thanks to my Ba Ngoai for the myths and legends that underpin the Seine.
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