Aliette de Bodard - The House of Shattered Wings

“Weakness?”

“Your House collapses, even as we speak.” Asmodeus did not even smile. “Morningstar’s little schemes have finally borne fruit; and behold, it’s as rotten as the heart of Silverspires.”

“Do you truly think there is a House whose heart is not rotten?” Isabelle didn’t look at Madeleine. She sounded — old, weary, cynical; Madeleine ached to wrap her into her arms, to tell her everything was going to be all right. But of course it was too late; had been too late for a long while.

Asmodeus laughed. “Of course not. We are all equal, are we not? One day, the many schemes of Hawthorn might bear the same kind of fruit as Silverspires’. But I would be a fool to intervene while a rival is removed.”

“Only if you’re sure that’s how things will work out.” Isabelle smoothed her silk skirt, with that same smile that was like a knife twist in Madeleine’s heart. “If we should survive, in any fashion—” She let the words hang in the air for a bare moment. “—then we would remember those who helped us in our hour of need.”

“Your survival is unlikely,” Asmodeus said, dryly.

“But then again, I’m not asking you for much, am I?”

Asmodeus’s eyes had not moved; they were still on Madeleine, with a peculiar expression she could not name. “I went to some trouble to recover her,” he said, still not talking to her. “It wasn’t to let her go at the slightest threat.”

“Do you fear she’d never return?”

Her. They were talking about her. Madeleine turned her eyes from Asmodeus’s horn-rimmed gaze, and took a deep breath, trying to steady herself. Isabelle had come back for her. She had—“I know she wouldn’t,” Asmodeus said. “Would you, Madeleine?”

She didn’t know what was expected of her; what would help, what would hinder Isabelle. Negotiations had never been her strong suit, and she struggled to understand most of the undercurrents in the scene before her. Asmodeus’s fingers drummed, lightly, on the surface of the desk.

“Answer me.” The voice was light; the threat unmistakable.

She ought to have lied; but she couldn’t. Nothing but the truth would come, springing from some deep place, as uncontrollable as the first flow of a spring. “I’m not your toy. I’m not your whim or your project. You spared my life; that doesn’t mean you own it.” She was angry, and frightened; and she wasn’t even sure if she ought to return to Silverspires; to a House that wasn’t hers, that might well be fading away — once her perfect refuge, her dying place, her quiet and undisturbed grave.

There was silence, in the wake of her words. She turned her head, slightly: Asmodeus was watching her with the same faint, amused smile on his face. Isabelle might surprise him; but it seemed Madeleine didn’t — couldn’t. You don’t own me, she repeated to herself, and wasn’t sure how much of that could be true.

“Commendable,” Asmodeus said, “but I own the keys to your jail. And did you truly think that Selene didn’t own you? We’re all, in the end, the toys of someone else.”

“And whose toy are you?” The words were out of her mouth before she could stop them.

Asmodeus raised an eyebrow, but didn’t flinch. “Samariel’s, once. Hawthorn’s, once and now and always.” His voice was toneless; Samariel’s name barely inflected. Had he taken another lover? It didn’t sound as though he had. Perhaps in his own, twisted way, he had genuinely cared for the other Fallen; enough to still grieve. But she couldn’t afford to think of him that way.

“And the city’s?” Isabelle asked, softly. “Do you even know why Silverspires is falling?”

“I suspect,” he said. “But it is of no matter.”

“Of no matter.” Madeleine laughed, bitterly. “Morningstar’s little schemes, as you call them, involved Hawthorn. She died in Hawthorn, didn’t she? Morningstar’s betrayed apprentice, to pay the price of a treaty. Whose hand struck the blow?”

Asmodeus raised an eyebrow. “Before my time, I’m afraid. Uphir’s, perhaps. But I would not have shied from it. I told Selene as much already: House business is not for the squeamish. If you have no heart for it, then do not rise so high.”

How could he — how could he sit there and say this to her face, knowing what he had done? “That’s not my point,” Madeleine said softly. “You should ask yourself what will happen should Silverspires fall. Do you think vengeance will stop at our doors?”

“No longer your doors. You keep forgetting you’re no longer part of Silverspires,” Asmodeus said; but it was reflex. At length, he took his glasses, and carefully wiped them clean. “I should think we are adequately protected; and while the points you make are valid, I don’t find them quite compelling enough, I’m afraid.” He turned again toward Isabelle; smiled: a thin line that had nothing of amusement in it. “I would suggest you leave, and return to your House, while there is still a House to save.”

Isabelle bit her lip. “I see,” she said. She rose, making her way toward the door — Madeleine’s heart sinking with every step she took, watching the only miracle that would have freed her from Hawthorn leaving. At the door, Isabelle turned, slowly, and stared at Madeleine. There was a light in her eyes: something ancient and fey, and wholly unlike the Fallen Madeleine remembered. “Asmodeus?”

Asmodeus looked up, mildly curious; but then something hardened in his face, and he stared at her; the light from her body glinted on the rim and arms of his glasses. “Yes?”

“Uphir was a fool, and so are you. You remember a day long gone by, don’t you?”

“Do tell,” Asmodeus said, softly; but he no longer looked flippant or sardonic. What had been so frightening about Isabelle’s words?

“Do you truly wish to antagonize me, kinsman?”

Madeleine had never heard anyone call Asmodeus “kinsman,” especially not with that derisive familiarity. For a moment she thought Asmodeus was going to strike Isabelle down where she stood, that he’d find a knife or some magic and drive it all the way into her heart; but that didn’t happen. He sat stock-still, staring at Isabelle. At length, he said, “So you set yourself up as his heir, do you? That’s a dangerous position to occupy.”

Isabelle stood, framed in the doorway, limned in an old, terrible light that haloed her dark hair, and drew the shadows of great wings over her shoulders — surely… Surely that was impossible. “I don’t set myself up as anything, save that which I already am. But you would do well to remember that I have survived this far.”

“Indeed.” There was cutting irony in Asmodeus’s voice. “Very little of it being my doing, I should say.” He looked at Madeleine again. “I won’t release her, and you know it as well as I do. It’s high time Hawthorn got back what is due to it. But let’s talk.”

“There is no talk.” Isabelle’s face was serene, otherworldly so. They were going to fight. Here, now, in this room, in the heart of Asmodeus’s and Hawthorn’s power.

Madeleine, struggling for breath, found only a memory of what Asmodeus had said, tumbling over and over in the emptiness of her mind like a dust ball adrift in a storm. “Call it a loan,” she whispered.

“Of twenty more years? I think not.”

“A day. A week. What would satisfy you, Asmodeus? I will return. As you pointed out — I have no House of my own anymore.”

A silence; and his presence at her elbow, strong and nauseating, the smell of orange blossom and bergamot as overwhelming as always. “You’re wrong.” Arms, encircling her but not touching her; his fingers on her hand, over the scab from his earlier knife stroke — warm, suffocating skin; she would have pulled away, but he held her, effortlessly — a touch of warmth, and suddenly she was part of Hawthorn again, the House’s magic a muted rhythm in her mind; the presence of Asmodeus like the points of a thorn tree — both in her mind and against her body. She pulled away, spluttering — retching, still feeling his touch on her skin like a pollution. “Who gave you the right—”