Aliette de Bodard: The House of Shattered Wings

Madeleine reached for the fingers next, and for her scalpels. She carefully scraped the flesh free from the delicate bones underneath. So far, she’d done what was expected of her: preserve magic where it could be preserved.

And, as expected of her, she sealed the flesh in one of the containers set aside for this purpose.

That only left the bones.

Selene’s instructions on this had been clear. Bones should be burned, nothing of them preserved. Bones could be used, with a little chemical expertise, to manufacture angel essence; and angel essence was forbidden in the House. Not because it was more refined and powerful than preserving Fallen’s leavings; but because — as Madeleine knew all too well — it was highly addictive, and Selene wouldn’t support junkies in Silverspires.

Bones should be burned. Always.

Madeleine’s hands were shaking. She thought of the heady rush of power spreading from her lungs to her entire body, a sweet, sweet sensation that made her feel that she, too, was in the City, that she was the equal of a Fallen: what did it matter that the stuff was eating away at her lungs? She hadn’t come to Silverspires for a long life.

Madeleine threw a glance at Oris. He was still busy cleaning the young man up for her inspection, and unlikely to look up from his task.

Good.

Casually, in one practiced movement, Madeleine removed one of the bones from the tray and slipped it in the small box. There was enough there to last her a few months, if she was careful, if the need didn’t come on her too often…

She said aloud, keeping her voice even, “I’ll go and burn the bones in the incinerators.”

Oris nodded. He trusted her. He shouldn’t have, but he always did.

All the way to the incinerator and back, Madeleine kept expecting something to happen: some orderly jumping from one of the other deserted rooms, some nurse taking a break in the ruined cloisters, inquiring what she was doing. But nothing happened. There was only the silence of the night; and her own conscience.

Ah well. She’d never had much of one in the first place. Silverspires wasn’t her refuge; it was the place where she would die, and she’d known as much since the night Morningstar carried her into the House.

If she was caught, though… Selene wasn’t merciful. It’d be back on the streets of a city that had grown alien to her, with no easy means of sustenance — another kind of death by inches, far more unpleasant and painful than the one she’d chosen for herself.

But she wouldn’t be caught. Not if she was careful, and she always was. Selene need never know what she did; Aragon would likely figure it out at some point, but she would deal with that then.

Good.

In the admissions room, Oris was fussing around the young man. He raised his gaze when she arrived. “Madeleine? May I use your mirrors?”

Madeleine nodded. She wished she could muster some anger at his lack of initiative, but she had none, too relieved he hadn’t questioned her further. She turned back to her patient, and to the last thing that needed to be done.

She reached for the scalpels; and, carefully picking one out from the row of blades, made a small nick in the palm of the Fallen’s left hand, where the heart line would have been. Blood leaked out, red and lazy, sinking into the beaten earth of Silverspires. She braced herself for saying the binding words; but before her mouth could curve around them, the young man sat bolt upright in bed, clutching at his own left hand. “No,” he said. “Don’t — I may not be bound to the earth of this land, of any land—”

Oris, in shock, had taken a step backward, leaving Madeleine to say aloud, “What do you mean?”

The young man’s narrow eyes turned toward her, though it was clear he wasn’t seeing anything in this world. “I know what you want to do, alchemist ,” he said, and there was a touch of malice in his voice. “Bound to the earth, bound to the House. Do you truly think you can have this one?”

“This one?” Madeleine said. “The young man, or the girl?” Either term, of course, was relative, since Fallen didn’t really have gender; or much that was human about them.

But the young man had fallen back on the bed, unconscious. “Don’t move,” Madeleine said to Oris. Someone had to keep a level head, and it would definitely not be her assistant.

She spoke the words of binding over the girl first, finishing what she had started. Blood and magic and earth, the oldest things, as the young man had said: a spell-oath to bind her to the House, to its welfare, though how had he known, and who was speaking through him? “By this, I bid you welcome into Silverspires; I give the House leave—”

She never got to the end. As she spoke each word, the resistance in the air grew, an expanding weight that pressed against her throat; and when she reached “leave” it was all she could do to force syllables between clenched teeth. There was… something vast, something infinitely larger than either of them — larger than the House, larger than the City — and it was somehow tied to those two, to either or both of them. She broke off then. “Oris, can you do the binding for me?”

She’d hoped that, since Oris was Fallen, he would have more power to draw on; but as he stumbled his way through the binding, he, too, met the same obstacle. She rose, and touched the young man’s hands; they were wet and clammy to the touch, and his complexion was paler than it should have been, for all that he was Annamite. “You’re doing this,” she said aloud. “Aren’t you?”

“Doing what?”

Madeleine whirled around, her heart hammering against her chest. Selene stood behind her.

The mistress of House Silverspires wore practical, no-nonsense clothing — even though the fashion she favored was that of fifty, sixty years ago, before the war, at the height of the Belle Epoque: a black swallow-tailed coat over black trousers, a white bow tie, and a simple sash of indigo crossing the white shirt. She had no hat, and her short, masculine bob of auburn hair shone in the light. Behind her was a crowd: Father Javier, the archivist, Raoul, Dr. Lesbros and two orderlies, and a dozen other people who worked in the kitchens and in the libraries and in the classrooms of the House: a sea of gazes unerringly trained on Madeleine.

Selene’s gray eyes were mildly curious, but as always with her, Madeleine was… awkward, gangly. Selene might not have been the oldest Fallen in the city, but her master, Morningstar, had been, before he had vanished; and as his favorite student she had picked up many of his mannerisms and sharpened them until it seemed nothing of Morningstar’s occasional, amused mercy remained.

Madeleine swallowed, feeling embarrassed and ill at ease. “It’s… not working well,” she said.

* * *

SELENEreceived the new arrivals for a private audience, as had always been the custom of the House: alone in her office, with her bodyguards standing at attention outside the room. She received them both at the same time — not what custom dictated — because, as Madeleine d’Aubin’s report had made clear, they would not be so easily parted.

The young man, Philippe, was stiff and prim. Madeleine’s exam had confirmed he was no Fallen, that he bore no scars on his back, nor possessed any characteristics that could be of use. His breath, sealed in Madeleine’s containers, had no magical properties; to all intents and purposes, he was what he appeared to be: a young man adrift in Paris joining a gang as his only way to survive.

His behavior, though, was nothing like a young man’s; but spoke of customs and manners from another culture, from another age. “Lady Selene,” he said. “I understand we both owe you our lives.” His face was calm, expressionless, nothing of anger or of shame in it. What was he, truly? Like nothing she had ever seen or heard of — and there was potential in that. Morningstar might have considered him a threat, but she wasn’t Morningstar; and, especially, she didn’t have the magic he had used to effortlessly keep the House safe.