She closed her eyes, and let the power wash over her: the tingling sensation in her fingers; the sharp taste on her tongue; the sensation that she could cast any spell, pay any price demanded by magic; that the world lay at her feet, hers for the taking.
Was this what it felt like, to be Fallen? To know that anything you did or said was saturated with that magic — magic that would kill a man, reduce him to the bloated husks she’d seen in Claire’s morgue — the harbingers of her own fate, when her lungs finally gave out. Not that she cared. All that mattered was feeling safe, now, forever.
Safe. That was what Morningstar had said, when she first met him, bowing low to her, unfailingly courteous even though she was just a minor dependent of Hawthorn. “I hope you enjoy what you see here.” And when she remained silent, too awestruck by his presence to speak, he’d smiled. “This is the first and greatest of Houses, Lady Madeleine. The safest place in Paris.”
At the time, she’d thought it courtesy, nothing more; had doubted whether he would even remember her name. But, nevertheless, for some reason she couldn’t quite place, the words had stuck with her; to be remembered when, shuddering, struggling to breathe through the pain of shattered ribs, she’d dragged herself out of Hawthorn, and into the deserted streets — toward Silverspires and the impossible hope of salvation. Wounded, bleeding, she had crawled rather than walked — every gesture sending a fresh wave of agony in her chest — and she had known, even then, that she wouldn’t make it; even before the world began to waver and fold itself into darkness. She had known that death was the only possible end of the journey.
She’d heard the footsteps, then; slow and measured; had felt the presence that seemed to distort everything with its warmth; had felt him bend down, picking her up in his arms, and starting to walk. Then all was darkness, until she’d woken up in the Hôtel-Dieu with Aragon’s face looming over her; and started the long, painful apprenticeship that saw her rise from mediocre kitchenhand to apprentice alchemist, and later mistress of the laboratory.
That night, that lambent, bloody night, was the last time anyone had seen Morningstar; and she herself the last person he had met. After he had left her on the hospital’s doorstep, unseen, he had taken his sword and his wings, and walked out of the House he had founded; and never come back. He was dead; had to be, and Selene had to know more than she let on — why else would she rule Silverspires in her own name?
A knock at the door made her look up. Startled, she got up, feeling the pain of her old wounds.
“Madeleine, Madeleine!”
Isabelle was on the doorstep, staring at her with familiar fear in her eyes. “There’s something out there, Madeleine. Something bad. And Philippe isn’t in his room… I think — I think it’s what killed Oris and the others.”
Once, she’d have gone out with a lamp, speaking reassuring words until Isabelle went back to sleep. But now she knew the darkness had never really vanished, that, like a snake in high grasses, it bided its time until it struck. “Come in,” she said, and closed and locked the door.
Madeleine cleared one of the chairs of the paraphernalia on it. “I wasn’t expecting anyone tonight,” she said.
Isabelle shook her head. “Doesn’t matter.” She looked at the door, and back at Madeleine. “Can’t you feel it?”
“I can’t,” Madeleine started to say, and then the words were crushed out of her. There was something — a growing pressure, a growing shadow, something that wouldn’t let itself be pinned down, that wouldn’t even hold still — something winged and fanged and clawed, seeking to destroy them utterly, to rend the flesh from their bones, to suck their skins dry until nothing was left but scattered remnants of what they had once been — bloated corpses in some morgue with eyes like dead fish…
The door was locked. She knew the door was locked, but to even think about moving was an effort. It won’t find us. We’re safe. Safe, safe, safe…
“Madeleine—”
Isabelle’s face was white with fear. She’d backed away from the door, holding the chair as a shield — but she was sinking down with every passing moment, curling into the fetal position against the wall. “Please, please don’t come here,” she whispered with the intensity of a prayer. “Please, please, please.”
The laboratory had been lit by a single lamp. Now that lamp cast dancing shadows upon the walls; and those shadows lengthened, moment by moment — there was nothing Madeleine could see, nothing that would come into focus — nothing but that awful sense that they were being followed, dissected — that any moment now, something would leap at them from the shadows. The door was still locked, but the wood was bending, bulging inward. It was standing on the threshold.
Her ribs ached with the growing pressure. She was afraid to look down; if she did she might see blood on them again, might find herself crawling through the streets again.
“Madeleine…”
No. She wasn’t that powerless any longer. Fumbling, cursing, she forced herself to move, one agonizing centimeter at a time — where had she put her most powerful artifacts? The second drawer of the secretary desk, the third?
The light of the lamp wavered. Out of the corner of her eye, Madeleine saw shadows flow across the dozens of small mirrors in the room — scattered pieces of the same reflection, something inhumanly huge, and it wasn’t even in the room yet — this was just what came ahead of it. There was a noise, a hiss like a hundred snakes — it was snakebites that had killed Oris and the others.
Do not think. Do not fear. She couldn’t afford to waste time. Neither door nor lock would hold it for long.
She opened the drawer by touch — the room had gone utterly dark — her fingers scrabbled for a hold on the objects within, trying to remember what it had felt like.
Once, Elphon had given her a locket filled with his breath; but she’d used the last of the magic a few months ago — not even for something worthy, simply to remind herself, one last time, of what his presence had been like. How she wished she had it now, so she wouldn’t have to use something else.
Found it.
Isabelle’s soft whimpers in the darkness; and the creak of wood as the door bent yet farther; and the hiss like a thousand snakes. They couldn’t let it in: its touch would be death. The thought of Isabelle — pale and lifeless, taken apart for scraps of magic — rose in her throat like bile. No. She wouldn’t let her new apprentice go the way of Oris.
Her hands closed on cold metal, which flared into warmth at her touch; and then there was another presence in the room, something vast and terrible and infinitely more powerful than anything the darkness could conjure. The heat on her skin was searing now, but she didn’t care. She wove the strongest spell of banishing she could think of, and hurled it, half weeping, half screaming, at whatever was trying to come through the door.
The door collapsed into a thousand splinters. Madeleine ducked behind a chair, but nothing touched her. On the threshold was… nothing, just a sound she couldn’t quite identify, growing farther and farther with every passing minute. Retreating.
Then there was silence, broken only by the sound of Isabelle’s breath. “What”—she asked, struggling to speak—“what did you do?”
Madeleine withdrew her hand from the drawer. The container she’d used came with it, now no longer fused to her skin, though it had left a perfect, circular scar on her palm. She felt… light-headed, giddy — as if she could do anything, and yet all she wanted to do was to lie down and empty her guts on the floor. Isabelle had almost died. And she — she had almost succumbed again to that gut-wrenching, sickening fear of Elphon’s last night, had almost lost herself. It wasn’t death that she feared, but that touch, that reminder of what it had felt like, crawling with blood sticking to her skin, to her hair, hardening so it could never be washed away — that inescapable knowledge that Elphon was dead, that she would soon be caught and brought back to Hawthorn, to hear Asmodeus’s mocking voice before she, too, died….