Aliette de Bodard: The House of Shattered Wings

“Philippe!”

Outside, it was no better. The pall of pollution seemed to hang heavier on La Goutte d’Or, or perhaps it was just him, feeling sweat run down his body in rivulets. Perhaps he was the only one with that hardening mixture of panic and resolution within him; who couldn’t tell, anymore, if it belonged to Isabelle or to him.

Stay out of this. It was a House struggle, like House Draken, and he’d lost enough to Draken and Draken’s fall; it was a ghost more powerful than him, a House that he had no cause to love. Keep your head down. Rebuild, always with the darkness at his back, haunting him as surely as it haunted House Silverspires. Always, with the memory of Isabelle — of stepping away from her, and leaving her to fend for herself — to die — in the storm that was engulfing Silverspires.

He couldn’t do it. He couldn’t be free of her. He—

He had to go back.

* * *

MADELEINEsat in the gardens, watching water pool on the rim of the fountain. If she closed her eyes, she would see Asmodeus again; feel the heat of his radiance on her hands, hear his voice again, level and emotionless, calmly stating the obvious.

A truth like a salted knife’s blade…

Do you really think he came halfway across the city to find you dying on the cobblestones?

She had believed; or had wanted to believe, so much; that she had been chosen by Morningstar himself, that her presence in Silverspires had meaning. That there was safety there, yes — that it was the oldest House — but that he had known. That he had extended his hand as his last act in this world.

And it was a lie. It wasn’t kindness that had saved her, but merely a whim. Worse than that; a whim of the Fallen who had killed Uphir, who had killed Elphon — who had destroyed her world — and who had decided, because it cost him nothing, that he could spare her life.

It would cost her nothing to deny him his victory.

A knife’s blade, or a noose, or a pool of water: so many ways she could leave. He might stop her once, or twice, but he couldn’t keep her forever. In the end, she would win.

No one would miss her. Selene would be glad to be rid of her, and the House at Silverspires had already forgotten her. In a way, the sentence had already been passed, long ago, her twenty years nothing more than suspended time, a miracle that had had no right to exist. No one would — Isabelle would weep. But no, Isabelle was young, and naive — give her a few centuries, and she’d be as hard as Selene.

She stared at the water, knowing she didn’t have the courage for any of this. If it had been essence, perhaps she’d have gone on, slowly killing herself. But every other solution required fortitude she didn’t have.

In this, as well, she was a failure.

* * *

SELENEwas staring at the wings, wrapped in a corner of her office where Isabelle had left them. She’d looked distinctly unhappy, muttering something about shoddy work; and had left abruptly. Even for her, that had been beyond politeness. Whatever the case, it was done. The wings were now infused with magic; with the combined breaths of every Fallen in the House from Choérine to Alcestis to Morningstar — God grant that it would be enough, though she knew all too well the futility of prayers for such as she. Now all that remained was…

Her thoughts, as usual, drew back from the abyss: she knew what had to be done, the only thing that they could do, but…

“Selene?”

“Come in,” she said.

It was Emmanuelle, dressed in a simple white cotton tunic that set off the darkness of her skin. “There’s a sprig of green just around the corridor.”

“I know.” And, more softly: “I will give the order to evacuate this wing. And I will go with them.”

“The parvis?” Emmanuelle asked.

“Yes.” There was no choice. Because a House was not merely a fortress of spells and wards, but a collection of dependents, and she couldn’t wait for them to be picked off one by one. The parvis remained clear of roots; and yet still within the protection of the wards: that was where she would tell them to assemble, Javier and Choérine and Gauthier and Geneviève and all the others, from the youngest children to the eldest mortals, grown old in the service of the House. And she would go with them; because it was more important that someone defend them than a last-ditch, desperate attempt to stop a ghost who had almost already won.

She had thought herself unworthy as the head of the House; she hadn’t expected to be the one who saw its demise. Unless… Unless.

Morningstar was behind Emmanuelle, watching the office with bright, curious eyes. Selene looked away, unable to meet his gaze. “It doesn’t matter, Selene,” Emmanuelle said. She reached out, but Selene evaded her grasp.

“You didn’t come here for that, did you?”

“Oh no,” Emmanuelle said. “I came to tell you I’d found something.”

“Nightingale’s grave?”

Emmanuelle grimaced. She pulled one of the chairs to her: one of the old Louis XV ones, with a pattern of embroidered flowers on red suede. “Forget the exorcism,” she said. “A ghost like this, with this kind of power, enough to summon the Furies in the hour of her death… you can’t exorcise, not that simply. But you can destroy her curse.”

“How?”

Emmanuelle bit her lip. “I know what kind of tree this is, Selene. It’s a banyan.”

“And—?” The name meant nothing to Selene.

“It’s a tree from the tropics. He was, after all, the catalyst for the spell — it quite probably drew from his memories.”

Selene scowled, but forced herself to listen. Emmanuelle regularly forgot how much the subject of Philippe was a sore point.

“The point is, it’s a strangler tree. Starts as a seed borne by the wind into a tree’s branches, and then extends roots until the tree it encases shrivels and dies.”

Just like Silverspires. Selene shivered. “I don’t want to think on that.” She shook her head. That was childish, and beneath her. “How do you destroy a banyan, then?”

“Destroy its roots,” Emmanuelle said. “But most of all — because this is no ordinary banyan, Selene — there is a place that’s of particular significance.”

“Which one?”

“The hollow,” Emmanuelle said. “The place left by the encased tree when it dies. You could say that’s the banyan’s secret. In the Far East, they say that’s where the spirits of the tree reside.”

In the Far East… Perhaps they should have found Philippe in the end; but no, she didn’t want to think on Philippe. It was only because of him that they were here.

Because of him, and Morningstar, a treacherous voice whispered in her mind. If he had not betrayed Nightingale…

But no, she couldn’t think that: because, without Morningstar, there would be no Silverspires, no refuge in Notre-Dame. He had done what was necessary to maintain the House, and so would she, if it came to that. Because it was her duty as head of the House. Because the Fallen now staring at her, puzzled and without any comprehension, was nothing like the distant, radiant head of the House; the powerful magic wielder who had taught her, who had worn wings as a reminder that he was the only Fallen who had dared to wear what they had been stripped of; who had dared to use it as a weapon.

“The hollow,” she said. “What about it?”

Emmanuelle handed her something, which she almost dropped, because the malevolence contained within was almost palpable. But she wasn’t about to be defeated by a mere artifact. “A mirror,” she said, aloud. Made of obsidian and not glass, an odd affectation that placed it somewhere two centuries ago, perhaps? When anything from the New World had still been new and fascinating.