“She’s with me,” Isabelle said. “Now will you listen to me?”
The guard said nothing. He was watching her, holding a spear with a curved blade at the top — afraid, Madeleine thought. Afraid of what she could do, in this kingdom that was no longer young, or powerful, or undamaged.
“We don’t have a policy of welcoming strangers,” the guard said.
“I found the door,” Isabelle said.
“A party trick,” the second guard said, frowning. “Do you have the gifts?”
“What gifts? I already told you—”
“Fallen magic isn’t welcome here,” the taller guard said. He hefted his spear; his grip on it was white. “Play your power games above the surface, but don’t bring them here. There has been enough destruction, my lady.”
“I told you,” Isabelle said, “I’m just here to find a friend, and then I’ll leave.”
“Your friend enjoys the hospitality of the king.” The guard smiled at that, a not entirely pleasant expression, as if he’d remembered a joke at their expense.
“So he is here,” Madeleine said, aloud.
“Of course,” the guard said. “It’s hardly a secret.”
Isabelle was obviously getting nowhere; not that Madeleine was more gifted in diplomatic matters, but by comparison… “Who rules here? The king?”
The two guards looked at each other, and then back at her. The pearls under their chins pulsed, faintly, to the rhythm of Isabelle’s light. “The king is… indisposed.”
“Then his son,” Madeleine said. “Or his daughter.” She tried to remember the little she knew about Annamite society, but her thoughts slid away from her. Damn this place — she could barely focus here. “A prince? A princess? Take us to them.” She bent toward the guard, letting the magic trapped within her roil to the surface. “Or do you want us to bring the devastation of the surface world your way?” It was a lie, of course; judging by the rank darkness of the waters, and the unhealthy look of the guards, the surface had already intruded. The pollution of the Seine had spread to the underwater kingdom.
The guards looked at each other again, and then back at Isabelle — who waited with arms crossed on her chest, the water around her getting warmer with every passing moment. The taller one swallowed, a sound that rang like a gunshot underwater; resonating for far longer than it would have on land. “We’ll take you to Princess Ngoc Bich.”
The palace turned out to be a maze of courtyards with small buildings. Everything was open and airy, the roofs resting on lacquered pillars, and the gardens filled with water lily pools, and a distant music like drums or gongs, moving to the same slow, stately rhythms as the touch on Madeleine’s thoughts. At last, they reached a squatter, larger building; its windows slit faience, drawing elegant characters in a long-forgotten script. They entered it, and found themselves in darkness. Gradually, as they walked forward, Madeleine’s eyes became used to the dim light, and she was able to make out the room.
It was huge and cavernous; in a palace made of coral and mother-of-pearl, something that seemed to hearken to a more primitive time, its walls carved of black rock, its floor skittering sand instead of square tiles.
At the center of the room was a throne, raised on steps covered with ceramic tiles: a riot of blue and yellow and other vivid colors, painted in exquisite, alien detail, under a delicate canopy of glass, though there, too, rot clung to the tiles, and unhealthy-looking algae had crept over the painted characters and landscapes. On the throne, a golden statue of a man, seated, dressed in ample robes and looking straight at them. Like the guards, he had a pearl at his throat, and a thin mustache, and a scattering of scales on his cheeks.
“The Dragon King,” Isabelle whispered.
There was another, similar dais a bit farther down; still being erected, with workmen carrying in tiles and wooden planks. An artisan was working on a matching throne, carefully laying gilt over the intricate wooden carving. He was doing so under the gaze of a woman, who turned as they came in. “What do we have here?” she asked. She smiled, but it was a thin, joyless thing: a veneer of courtly politeness that ill masked her annoyance.
“They said they wanted to see you, Your Majesty,” the taller guard said.
The woman — Ngoc Bich — looked at them, carefully, like a hound or a wolf, wondering how much of a threat they were. “Visitors. It’s not often that we have them.” She wore white makeup, which didn’t cover the places where her skin had flaked off; the bones poking through her flesh were an obscene, polished ivory on a background of vivid red. “Fallen. And”—her gaze rested longer on Madeleine, and she smiled again—“not Fallen, but partaking of their magic. You shouldn’t, you know. It’s a cancer.”
Madeleine certainly wasn’t about to be lectured by anyone, least of all a dragon princess from some nebulous, unspecified realm that kept grating on her nerves — never mind that they’d stepped into that realm and were at her mercy. “I’m quite all right, thank you.”
“We’re not.” Ngoc Bich’s hand trailed, encompassed the entirety of the place; the pervasive rot, the workers with their mottled skin; the golden man on his golden throne. “You’d do well to remember it was angel magic that did this.”
“Precisely.” Isabelle’s smile had the sharpness of a knife. “We’ll be on our way when we have what we want.”
“Don’t tell me,” Ngoc Bich said. “If you came here following your head of House, you’ll be sadly disappointed. He left some time ago.”
“We’re not here—” Isabelle started, but Madeleine cut her off.
“What do you mean?” They’d only had two heads of House, and only one Fallen who had manifested as a man. “Morningstar came here? When?”
“Some years ago,” Ngoc Bich said. “It’s hard to keep track — time wanders and meanders here, away from the mortal world.” She paused, made a show of remembering — clearly she had no need to do so, even to Madeleine’s untrained eyes. “Twenty years ago.”
Just before he had vanished for good. “I don’t understand,” Madeleine said. “Why was he here?”
Ngoc Bich smiled, showing the fangs of a predator. “Because like speaks to like. Power to power. He wanted power like a dying man wants life.”
“Your power,” Isabelle said, flatly.
“Anything that would have helped him,” Ngoc Bich said. “There was a ritual he wanted to attempt; something he needed my help for. He wanted to keep his House safe, you see.” She smiled, again — a wholly unpleasant expression.
“From what?”
“A threat.”
The shadows. The ones Philippe had brought into the House. “Shadows? The shadows that kill. What are they?”
“I don’t know.” Ngoc Bich shrugged. “He left when I couldn’t give him what he wanted. He was going to attempt his spell without my help. I presume it worked — you’re still here. The House is still here.”
Still here — such a casual assessment, failing to encompass Morningstar’s disappearance; the gentle decline of Silverspires; and the quicker, bloodier deaths of the previous days. “What spell?” Madeleine asked.
“A beseeching.” Ngoc Bich’s voice was emotionless. “An offering of himself as a burned sacrifice, to safeguard his House and forever be delivered from darkness.”
None of it made any sense to Madeleine. She was going to ask more, but Isabelle finally lost patience.
“The past is all well and good, but it doesn’t concern us,” she said to Ngoc Bich. “You know that’s not why we’re here, or what we want.”
“Which is—?”
“Philippe. And you know exactly who I mean. Don’t lie.”