“First? In my rooms,” Oris said. “But it has been moving around—”
“Then let’s start with your rooms,” Madeleine said, gently.
The House at night was different; expectant, as if poised on the edge of something that Madeleine could not name. It wasn’t the first time she’d been out at night — a few weeks ago she’d gone to Hôtel-Dieu to examine Philippe and Isabelle — but surely things had been different?
Or perhaps she was just overreacting. Oris was frightened, yes, but that didn’t mean his fear was of something real.
His room was on the side of a cloister courtyard, in an architectural complex that must have dated back to the Middle Ages. The ceiling of the room was low and skewed, and wooden beams crossed the whitewashed walls — each of the two floors was actually larger than the previous one, creating an unnerving impression, from outside, that the entire building was going to collapse. Climbing the narrow stairs, Madeleine gazed left and right; but even with the essence in her, she couldn’t see or feel anything out of place. A few wards were set, here and there, and they were a little singed, but that happened, especially so close to the Seine and its magical outbursts.
Inside, the room seemed almost claustrophobic, overrun with bookshelves. On a low table was a book held open by means of another, heavier one; and a small book stand that held a sheet of paper covered with a spiky handwriting: presumably what Oris had been working on. The bedsheets were rumpled, and a simple icon of the Virgin Mary lay on the bedside table.
“Still at your research?” Madeleine asked.
Oris forced a smile. “Of course. I found a rather interesting passage, which argued that the proper translation of ‘adelphos’ was ‘brothers,’ not ‘cousins.’…” Bible studies were Oris’s hobby: he begged Father Javier for lessons, and had borrowed an astonishing number of religious books from the library. Together with Emmanuelle, he was one of the few Fallen in the House who was quite confident in his faith. “We’re not here to talk about books, Madeleine—”
Madeleine nodded, keeping a wary eye on the room. “I know. But I see nothing.” The room was bathed in gentle magic residue, the inevitable traces of a Fallen; and only in a few places could she feel the tug of a deeper, sharper fear. “I can’t see anything,” she said.
“It was here.” Oris pointed to the book stand. “I was working on a translation, and all of a sudden it went dark, and—” He swallowed, and fell silent.
Madeleine moved, touched the paper on the book stand. It was warm, but there was nothing wrong with it, other than that the paper seemed curiously brittle.
She withdrew and focused her essence-fueled magic on the paper, willing it to show what it had shown Oris — what had fed the fear she could feel traces of in the room. Nothing changed, or moved.
“I don’t think—” she said; and then the surface of the paper went dark — as if something huge and black had passed in front of it, spreading its wings as it moved — a moment only, and then it was gone, but she could imagine what it would have been like, to be staring at printed paper only to see that show up.
“That was it,” Oris said. “But it was everywhere. Every time I turned my head, it was a shadow in the corridors; every time I looked at something, it would seem to lie across it. I’ve never seen anything like it.”
Madeleine sent a small, fading burst of magic into the paper; watched the darkness cross its surface, once again. Definitely something large, and she wasn’t quite sure where the suggestion of wings came from, but it was… unpleasant. Stomach-clenchingly frightening — a hint that it would spread, and forever engulf her, take her apart until not a trace of her was left, nothing but her screams…
The last of the essence vanished from her system, leaving her drained, her lungs reddened and hoarse — while she was on it, it was so easy to forget what the drug was doing to her, but she wasn’t fool enough to lie to herself. She was dying; but she’d been dying for twenty years, ever since Hawthorn ceased to be a haven — ever since Elphon died. “I’ve never seen anything like this, either,” she said. Her voice rasped against her throat; she brought it under control with an effort. “But it’s gone now, right?”
Oris nodded. “It could come back.”
“Mmm,” Madeleine said. She considered her options. He seemed worried, but not as bone-deep frightened as she’d been — was what she’d seen a hallucination induced by angel essence?
On the one hand, she emphatically didn’t want to be there when it came back; but on the other… with it gone, she couldn’t investigate further. She could take it up with Selene, but then there was a risk — a not insignificant one — that Selene would see she was on essence. “It won’t come back.”
Oris grimaced. “I don’t want it coming back, Madeleine. You saw it.”
“I did,” Madeleine said, doing her best to keep her voice level. “I’m sure it’s nothing.”
“Nothing? Are you…” Oris hesitated. “Are you sure?”
Madeleine said, with a glibness she didn’t feel, “It’s an old House. Not everything in it is entirely savory. You should know.” God knew Morningstar had had his share of darkness.
“I…” Oris frowned. “I guess I do?”
“You’ll be fine,” Madeleine said. “It’s gone. And if it does come back, you can call me. Anytime. I’ll come. Promise.”
She could feel Oris wavering — he trusted her and her opinions, and she seemed confident enough to sway him. She wished she felt as confident as she appeared to him.
“Look. Why don’t I stay here awhile tonight, and we’ll see what happens?”
It was a mark of how desperate Oris was that he readily acquiesced to this, without even a show of protesting.
But at the end of the night, there was no trace of whatever had frightened him out of his wits, nor could any of Madeleine’s spells detect any trace of an intruder. “Let me know if it comes back,” she said, as she left the room and went back to her own quarters for some much-needed rest.
Oris didn’t see anything the next day, or the next night, or for the next week. By then, Madeleine had lulled herself into thinking they’d just had a hallucination; or seen the last of a stray spell from the war, which had finally spent itself in manifesting to Oris. She went through the routine of her days at Silverspires: collecting breath and nail clippings from Fallen and making artifacts out of them; teaching the children in the House’s school the bases of alchemy — and through the routines of her nights, too, inhaling angel essence and glorying in its futile rush of power.
FOUR. MARKET OF BETRAYALS
PHILIPPE found Aragon in his office, reading a file yellowed by age. How old was Aragon, really? All he had told Philippe was that he owed Morningstar a debt, and this was the reason why he gave part of his time to Silverspires, taking away from his valuable practice — it had no small value, to be an independent doctor in a polarized city.
Aragon’s office was a small room that looked like a cross between church stalls and hospitaclass="underline" the lower half of the walls was covered with wooden panels, while the upper half bore a thick layer of white paint, over which Aragon had aligned pictures and paintings. The room had a faint, unpleasant smell — a remnant of bleach or some other chemical, mingling with the heady one of wood varnish.
Beside Aragon was Emmanuelle, who gave him an embarrassed smile. “Selene told me to report on the exam.” She, too, had a file in her hands. She didn’t sound altogether happy, or approving.
Aragon nodded, curtly, at Philippe. They’d been observing each other warily in the weeks that had preceded, and had had a few desultory exchanges, nothing particularly deep or meaningful.