Claire shrugged. “You might say we have found… common interests. And Silverspires hasn’t fallen so far, has it? You still have many things to call your own; and Asmodeus hates that. Though, to be fair, he would seek to destroy any House, if they did this to Samariel. It’s no longer strategic; it’s personal. And that’s why he won’t back down.”
“But it’s not personal for you,” Selene said. She hesitated — she didn’t care for Claire — but there was an opening, and she took it. “In the long run, is this the best thing for your House?”
“In the long run?” Claire smiled, and lifted her hands, so that Selene could see the wrinkled, dotted skin. “There’s not much long run for me, Selene. We both know it. Magic doesn’t work miracles, and no one lives forever.”
Mortals, especially: they grew up in a blur of speed and bloomed like flowers, expending in a few meager years all the energy Fallen put into centuries. Selene had seen so many of them come and go, in the years she’d been with the House. An infusion of enough angel power could prolong life, but beyond a couple of centuries the human body seemed to decay on its own, as if hitting some limit that had been there all along. The work of God, perhaps: they were, after all, His subjects, and Selene was the last one who would deny His presence; or rather the hollow, dull pain of His continued absence. “You still ought to think of the future,” Selene said. She looked at the children; at Eric the bodyguard, who stared stubbornly ahead and refused to meet her gaze. “Of what you will leave behind.”
The future. The House she had been entrusted with — Morningstar would have wished to see it prosper, but the best she could hope for, in the current situation, was simply to survive. But of course she was the student, the apprentice; and never truly the master.
“Maybe so,” Claire said. “Let me be blunt, then: what could you offer that would convince me to side with you?”
Magic, spells, angel toll; all these flashed through Selene’s mind, and were swiftly discarded. Asmodeus could offer the same. If there had been any of Morningstar’s magical objects left, she would have put them in the balance; but Morningstar had been stingy in sharing his power, and she had exhausted her meager source of artifacts.
“My goodwill,” Selene said. “And certain… techniques that Morningstar passed on to me, which you will not find elsewhere.”
Claire pursed her lips. “I’ll think about it.” She rose from her chair and bowed to Selene. “You’d do well to think on what I’ve said to you, too.”
“Oh, I will,” Selene said, not bothering to disguise the irony from her voice as Claire and her escort left the room.
Then there was blessed silence — no Father Javier introducing further heads of Houses in her office, no emergency that required her immediate presence — nothing except a faint tinkle of bells as Emmanuelle drew back the curtain and stepped into the room.
“I heard her,” she said. She carried a tray with dinner for both of them: veal blanquette with rice, the carrots peeking through the milky-white sauce; and a simple dessert of oven-baked apples with cream.
Selene stifled a bitter laugh. “Did you turn chef of Silverspires when I wasn’t looking?”
Emmanuelle didn’t rise to the aggressiveness in her voice. “Laure brought it up herself, as a matter of fact — she’s worried, though of course she won’t breathe a word of it. You need to eat. You’ve been running yourself ragged. It’s not because you’re Fallen that you lack limits.”
“I know where my limits are,” Selene said. I don’t need a nursemaid, she started to say, but then she saw the anxiety on Emmanuelle’s face. “I’m fine, truly. Thank you for the meal. And sorry for being a horrid killjoy.”
Emmanuelle shrugged. “It’s a stressful time. Here.” She grimaced. “We shouldn’t be eating at your desk. It’s hardly proper.”
Selene sighed. Emmanuelle, like Aragon, was always concerned with appearances, propriety, and all the niceties Selene used as loose guidelines or as weapons. “Let’s move to the dining room, then.”
The “dining room” was a small corner of the bedroom with a round table, two chairs, and a tablecloth of white embroidered linen that Emmanuelle changed every other week. Today, the embroideries were birds with their young: colorful feathers against the pure white of the cloth. Selene sat down, and took an absentminded bite of her food.
“Do you think she’ll accept your offer?” Emmanuelle asked.
Selene shook her head. “No. She won’t. She’s prevaricating, but in the end she’ll see that it’s not worth her while.”
“All that you said about Hawthorn—”
“Is true,” Selene said. “But they’re not that powerful, not yet.”
“I don’t get the feeling we’re particularly powerful, either,” Emmanuelle said, dryly.
“We’re still the biggest threat to Lazarus.”
Or rather, they were, but not for much longer. Not after this.
“You’re not considering—”
“I am,” Selene said. The food tasted horrible, drained of all sharpness. Had Laure forgotten the salt, or was she too tired to properly taste it? “It would get Asmodeus off my back.” It wouldn’t solve the murders — at least she didn’t think it would, didn’t think Philippe was responsible for them; but everyone would pack up and leave, and she’d get some much-needed peace and a chance to protect her own people, without members of the delegations crawling in every corridor and every room.
“It’s wrong,” Emmanuelle said. “You know what Asmodeus is going to do to him.”
“He’s not one of my dependents.” She’d seen something, in that cell; as Asmodeus turned toward her, framed by the magic he’d summoned; she’d have sworn she’d caught a glimpse of something else; of something dark and chillingly fluid — shadows like the ones Philippe and Madeleine had mentioned, or merely her own imagination overacting?
But, if Philippe wasn’t the killer — and he couldn’t be, because if he’d had that kind of power he’d already be free — then what were the shadows doing in his cell?
Emmanuelle said, “He’s only here because you imprisoned him. Even if he were guilty — which he’s not — it’s a horrible way to die.”
There were no good ways to die, though. Selene set her fork down, ignoring the look Emmanuelle shot her — no, she hadn’t eaten enough; she would catch up later. “It would save us so much trouble, though, wouldn’t it?” She didn’t need to look up to see Emmanuelle’s horrified gaze. But, as she said, she was considering it. Morningstar had, more than once, advised her to be more ruthless; and certainly he had always been ready to sacrifice whatever was necessary for the House. That had included his own dependents, sometimes.
But Selene wasn’t like that, surely?
Still… still, if she gave Asmodeus what he wanted, the House wouldn’t be the poorer for it. In fact, it might earn her Hawthorn’s goodwill, at least for a few months, and that was something in short supply at the moment. And it would certainly placate the heads of the other Houses; effortlessly show her as a ruler not to be crossed — and not as one of Morningstar’s youngest students, desperate to fill the gaping void her mentor had left in the heart of the House. And it wasn’t as though Philippe was innocent; whatever he was hiding from her, it wasn’t for the good of the House. He hated Silverspires as much as all the other Houses; more, perhaps, since she had imprisoned him. “He is resourceful,” she said aloud. “He might even escape.”
“You know he won’t,” Emmanuelle said. “And even if he did, be honest: it would change nothing. You would still have given him up. That’s the guilt you would bear. It doesn’t depend on how well he survives. It’s all about what you did or didn’t do.”