“You understand it? How?”
“I don’t know,” Isabelle said, carefully. She laid her hand on the paper, following the curve of the words on the page. “I think it’s a Fallen thing. The language of the City, maybe…”
“I thought that was meant to be love,” Philippe said, attempting to summon some remnant of sarcasm, though it was hard, with the cloud of anger and hatred hanging thick around them.
“The love that drowned the Earth underwater and caused Noah to build the ark?” Isabelle asked, her voice flat. “That sent us tumbling down to Earth?”
“I don’t have answers,” Philippe said dryly. “A priest would probably tell you about atonement and forgiveness, but that’s your religion, not mine.” Not quite true: the Buddha also preached forgiveness, but Philippe couldn’t forgive. Not those who had torn him from Annam.
“I don’t even know what your religion is,” Isabelle pointed out, carefully folding the paper. Philippe searched her face, but there was no hint of reproach or sarcasm, merely a statement of fact. Her calm was uncanny: how could she not feel the magic roiling in the air, the pressure against their lungs, the irrepressible urge to pick a weapon and—? No. He was stronger than that.
“What was inside?” Isabelle asked.
It was a black stone disk, polished until he could see his distorted reflection in it; and it shimmered with the same power that was all around them. “Angel breath,” he said. “Trapped in a stone mirror.” And before he could think, he had reached out and touched the cold, shining surface — Isabelle cried out a warning, and then everything went dark.
He was in the House, but not in its ruins. Rich paintings and tapestries hung in the corridors, and the cathedral was whole, the graceful Gothic ribs arching into the vault; majestic and overwhelming, as it had always meant to be. Someone sat in the throne: a Fallen with pale blond hair that seemed to catch all the light streaming through the stained-glass windows. Unlike all the Fallen Philippe had seen before, this one had wings — not his real ones, but a metal armature that supported sharp, golden feathers, spreading out behind him like a headdress. Across his lap was a double-handed sword, his hand loosely wrapped around his handle; the sense of coiled power was almost unbearable, a pressure to abase himself, to bow down to age and power….
Morningstar. Lucifer. The Light Bringer, the Shining One, the First Fallen.
By his side were other Fallen, other humans. He caught a glimpse of Lady Selene, though her face was smoother, more childish than the one she’d shown to him. Younger, he thought; but the words seemed very far away, moving as if through tar through his mind. And other, younger faces: Emmanuelle the archivist; Aragon — who alone of everyone appeared unchanged, prim and unsmiling — two human warlocks holding breath-charged mirrors and watches; and a stern older woman wearing the mortar-and-pestle insignia of the alchemists, whose bag bulged with bottles of elixirs and boxes of charged artifacts.
And then Morningstar’s gaze, which had been trained on one of the stained-glass windows, turned; and fell on him.
The pale eyes transfixed him like a thrown spear — it wasn’t so much the power contained within, as the rising interest; the slow focusing of a monstrous magic exclusively on him; on who he was; on who he could become, given enough time in which to utterly reshape him; and who wouldn’t want to be reshaped by Morningstar, to be forged into one of his beloved weapons?
“Come here,” Morningstar said; and, like a puppet propelled by his maker, he walked up the stairs and stood in the shadow of the throne, shivering as the gaze unraveled him, picked apart his body until not even the bones remained….
“Philippe!”
He was back in the ruined cathedral, and Isabelle was shaking him. His hand had left the mirror; hung, limp, bloodless, by his side.
“Philippe!”
He breathed in air — burning, painful air, but he had never been so glad for the irritation of the House on his skin. Everything seemed lighter, limned in starlight; and the oppressive anger and hatred seemed to have gone, as if the night wind had blown it away. What — what happened?
“Philippe?” Isabelle asked.
“I’m fine,” he said, the lie small and unconvincing to him. He could still feel the weight of Morningstar’s gaze; could still feel the magic turning, slowly focusing on him: the gaze of a gigantic cobra, annihilating his will, turning his own desires into dust.
And something else, too, something darker, quieter — that had lain biding its time away from the light, and that now stretched and turned, sniffing the air like a predator searching for prey…
A summoning. Of what?
“I don’t know what happened. But it’s gone now. There is nothing to worry about.”
His gaze, roaming, found the stone mirror: the luster had gone from it, leaving only a bleak darkness. “It’s gone now,” he repeated; but he knew that, whatever had been contained within the mirror, it was within him now; and that whatever had been summoned with its magic was outside — within the House.
* * *
IT was late at night, and Madeleine couldn’t sleep.
By no means unusual. Nights like these, with the lambent starlight hanging over the House, brought back memories — of how she’d first come to it; of Elphon’s death, and his shimmering blood on her hands as she crawled away from the House of Hawthorn; as she prayed so very hard to a God she no longer believed benevolent to spare her, to let her go just a bit farther, to reach safety before Asmodeus’s thugs found her.
On nights like these she took angel essence; breathed it in, and let the rush of power sweep everything from her mind; let herself believe that she was safe, that nothing like Asmodeus’s coup would ever take place in Silverspires; that even if it did, she would have the power to protect herself, to protect Oris. That what had happened in Hawthorn would never happen to her again.
It was a good lie, while it lasted.
An insistent knocking at the door of her laboratory drew her from her trance. Slowly, carefully, she rose, fighting a feeling of weightlessness that promised she only had to wish to take flight; the rush of power slowly settling into her limbs. In that moment, she was the equal of any Fallen, had she wished to cast spells — but of course that wasn’t why she took angel essence. It never had been.
“What is it?”
She’d expected many things, chief among them either Selene or Isabelle; but the one on her doorstep, his face pale with fear, was her assistant, Oris.
“What are you doing here?”
“There’s… there’s something in the House,” Oris said. “It’s after me.”
“Don’t be ridiculous,” Madeleine said, but then she took a closer look at him. His hands were shaking; and if she focused the magic within her she could see through his skin, could feel the panicked rhythm of his heart. Whatever he’d seen had badly frightened him. “Fine. Calm down. Tell me about it.”
“It’s… I don’t know. It’s dark and angry and if I turn my head to look at it, it’s gone. But it’s following me. It’s…” He stopped then. “You think I’m lying.” His voice was flat.
“No,” Madeleine said. “But Silverspires has strong protections, so unless someone within the House is working magic on you, I can’t see why…”
Oris drew himself to his full height. “I don’t have enemies in the House.”
“I didn’t think you had.” And even if that had been the case, personal vendettas were outlawed by order of Selene. “Where did you see it?”