“A weakness,” Selene said. She didn’t blame him. No, that wasn’t quite true. She understood him, because in his position she’d have done the same; but he was the reason they were in this mess, and if he hadn’t been dead she might well have strangled him herself.
“I–I’m not sure,” Emmanuelle said. “He sounded worried.”
“Do you remember what you gave him?”
“Yes, of course. I can look at the books, but it won’t tell me what drew his attention. He knew some of what was going on.”
“And he’s no longer in a position to tell us.” Good riddance.
“He was the catalyst,” Emmanuelle said, at last. “But no longer. The game has changed, Selene. We must find out who really is behind that spell.” She lay back against her pillows, breathing heavily.
“You’ll exhaust yourself. Get back to sleep; and you can ask Aragon for those books tomorrow, if you want.”
“Don’t baby me, Selene. You’ve got much better things to do.”
Entirely too many, Selene thought, but didn’t say it: there was no point in worrying Emmanuelle. She’d save all the worries for herself, and chew on them until she choked.
SEVENTEEN. GRAVE MATTERS
THEY came up in the mortal world near the Pont de l’Archevêché, where Philippe had first seen Ngoc Bich. It was night again, with the low, diffuse glow of pollution over the city, the glistening of oil on the waves that lapped at their feet.
“We weren’t gone that long,” Madeleine said, shocked.
Isabelle’s voice was distant. “Time passes differently there.”
It wasn’t only time. Philippe could feel the tug of the House again now, could feel the roiling anger within him. Morningstar stood on top of the flight of stairs, limned in his terrible light — hefting, in one hand, the large sword that he always carried. Was he defending the House against them? Of course not, he was simply a vision, a memory.
He hadn’t told Madeleine or Isabelle about the vision he’d had while Asmodeus had tortured him; not because it seemed like a fancy of his sick mind, but because he had no intention of helping Silverspires beyond healing Emmanuelle and ridding himself of the curse.
“We’ll go around the cathedral,” Madeleine said, biting her lips. “There’s a maze of disused corridors there.”
A maze where he’d lost himself; where he’d found himself. The world seemed raw to his senses, the light too harsh, the sounds jangling in his ears; even the touch of Isabelle’s hand on his shoulder scraped like a blade across his flesh. He longed for the dark and quiet of the dragon kingdom already, even knowing that it was but a mirage.
You could have stayed, Ngoc Bich’s voice whispered in his ear, and he didn’t know what answer to give her.
They crossed the small garden behind Notre-Dame: corrugated benches, skeletal trees in the midst of scorched earth; and walked toward one of the side doors of the House, a postern that gave access to the East Wing.
You could have stayed. Would it have been so bad, to be her consort? She was smart and fierce and beautiful, and doing honor to her devastated kingdom; but then again, what wasn’t devastated, in this day, in this place? He would have ruled with her, renewed and rejuvenated daily by the khi currents. He would have found a manner of peace; and, with Annam unattainable, it was probably the closest thing to coming home.
He didn’t deserve it. He was nothing but a disgraced Immortal, his offense so old and so papered over, it barely stung.
The Court of the Jade Emperor was beyond him; and, as Ngoc Bich had known, there would be no return to Annam; not even if the way magically opened, not with this curse within him. Aragon was right, he ought to make a home here in Paris, in this city of murderers who sucked the resources of Annam like so much lifeblood. He ought to…
And then the shadows shifted across the burned-out trunks of the trees, like blacker dapples on birches — vanishing every time he focused on them, but quite unmistakably flowing toward them.
* * *
SELENE felt it long before she saw it, of course. The shadows had been one thing — scurrying at the back of her mind, a blot on the power of the House that slowly sank to an annoying whisper. This… this was something else: a feeling that something was not quite right, that something was gnawing away at the foundations of the House’s power.
Javier had come back with one of the search parties: they all clustered in her office, looking glum — but at least they were alive and unharmed. One of the previous parties hadn’t been so lucky: their brush with the shadows had sent a man to the hospital with a flesh wound eerily similar to Emmanuelle’s. Aragon didn’t expect him to survive the night. One more confirmation, then, that Philippe had been the catalyst; but that the shadows had a life beyond him and were, in fact, spreading faster now that he was dead, as if he had been the only thing holding them in check — his mortality the only curb to their frenzy.
She’d have been in a better position to appreciate the irony if her House hadn’t been coming apart around her.
“Tell me again,” she said to Javier, fighting back the urge to snap at him.
“It’s not what you think,” Javier said.
“I have a very good imagination.” The House, its power and reputation diminished after the Samariel “incident,” could hardly afford another emergency. And she — she needed to be the rock they all stood on, not a Fallen shattered by the sickness of her lover. It would be fine, if she focused; if she forgot the awful pallor of Emmanuelle’s face, the dark circles under her eyes like bruises, everything Aragon wasn’t saying in his silences. We’re all mortal, Morningstar would have said, and he would have smiled. Secretly, he wouldn’t have believed anything like this would ever apply to his Fallen. What a fool he had been, sometimes. “Now tell me again why I can’t go to Asmodeus’s rooms and ask him what is going on?”
Javier’s face was pale. “Because you need to see this first.”
Selene dismissed the rest of the search party with her apologies — and summoned two of her bodyguards, Solenne and Mythris; as well as the butler, Astyanax. Then she followed Javier.
It had once been a bedroom on the first floor of the East Wing. Now its floor was shot through with… “Plants?” Selene asked. Whatever she’d expected, it wasn’t that.
They were slender green shoots with long, elegant leaves: she could imagine using one of them as a boutonnière, its vibrant green in stark contrast to the dark gray of the suit, a welcome note of freshness. They didn’t sound harmful, exactly, but they were plants. Growing on dusty parquet floors.
“That’s… not natural,” she said.
“No. They’re only in this room, though,” Javier said.
So far. “I assume you’ve tried pulling them out.”
Javier gestured toward the nearest shoot, which grew inches from the curved legs of a low marble table. “Be my guest.”
Selene reached out, felt the tingle of magic on her hands. Apart from that, it looked like a usual plant; though not something that would ever be found in French gardens. It was a jungle thing, blown in from Guyane or Indochina or Dahomey; longing for warm, humid weather in which to grow. That it could take root here, under the perpetual pall of pollution from the war…
She tried to pull it out; and her fingers slid through it, as though it hadn’t been there. And yet… and yet she could feel the silky touch of its leaves on her hands; could feel the sap pulsing through the stem, the slow ponderous heartbeat of the plant… She reached again, this time drawing to her the power of the House, whispering the words of a spell to start a fire. Again, her hand did not connect with the plant; and the fire died without fuel to consume. It was… it was as though the thing didn’t exist; or more accurately, wasn’t properly part of the House.