The House of Shattered Wings

There had been no safety for such, such a long time.

“I see,” Nightingale said, and reached out, power blossoming within her. Madeleine stepped aside, instinctively raising wards that the power tore to shreds. She wasn’t made for this: she wasn’t Isabelle; she wasn’t Selene or any other Fallen. She was an alchemist, not a fighter!

She tried to see Isabelle, but Nightingale blocked her field of vision, smiling. “You’re not much of a challenge.”

She had to—Madeleine reached within her, felt something shift; and magic flowed through the floor, raising little bumps like a hundred fingertips poking through the stones. Nightingale stepped aside, but not in time: she stumbled, mouthing a curse, and leaves scattered from her shift.

Her response was a cold wind, flowing through the trees. Madeleine dived behind one of the fluted trunks, but the wind tore through it: her fingers were locked into place, and everything was frozen within her.

Where was Isabelle—she couldn’t keep this up for long; she’d never been trained . . .

Nothing. Silence.

She bent around the trunk; and saw, like a response to her prayers, that Nightingale’s attention had shifted to Isabelle; who was straightening from her crouch, with Morningstar’s wings spreading wide behind her.

She was bright, and terrible: light streaming from her skin, her presence so palpable, so vivid, a pressure in the air that made Madeleine want to prostrate herself; for what else could she do, before Morningstar’s heir? Behind her, the wings fanned out, as sharp as sword blades, and she had picked up a knife from the wreckage: Morningstar’s knife, or perhaps the one Emmanuelle had given her in Selene’s office?

Nightingale was watching her, a mocking smile on her face. “Commendable,” she said. “But not, I think, enough, in the end.”

She flung her arms outward; Isabelle moved faster than Madeleine had thought possible and was almost upon her, the wings scraping against the trunks, leaving deep gouges as they did so. Nightingale dodged, and sent a trail of fire streaking through the air, which Isabelle caught in her hands and flung away. . . .

Madeleine, watching them, was reminded of nothing quite so much as dancers, moving with inhuman fluidity, as if to a rhythm only they could hear, some slow and ponderous music played on a now defunct organ.

She crawled, instead, to Morningstar; fearing, with each jolt, that the magic within her would tear her apart. It would fade, eventually, the sense of coiled fire within her sinking down to dull embers; leaving her once more craving its touch, once more staring at the aimlessness of her life. It would go away. All she had to do was wait.

Neither Isabelle nor Nightingale paid her any attention, too engrossed in their fight. Nightingale’s fingers were moving fast, as if playing on piano keys, and Isabelle was leaning on a tree trunk, breathing hard, eyes closed, while frost coalesced around her fingers. . . .

Madeleine had seen Morningstar in life, a long time ago. In death he looked almost ordinary, his hair the color of freshly cut corn, his hands long-fingered, with nails that curved almost like claws; his skin with a faint glow, not like Oris, whose corpse had lost its luster . . .

No. Wait. Fumbling, Madeleine looked for the heartbeat in the wrist and in the chest—then gave up and called on the magic within her. It rose, wringing her lungs out like a cast-off floor cloth: a jolt that traveled from her heart to her fingers; and, as she touched Morningstar’s wrist, she felt the magic earth itself; felt the slow, regular heartbeat under her fingers. Alive, then. Barely so, if it took magic to hear it.

There were healing spells; and ways to keep him farther away from death’s door. She knew none of them; only Aragon’s gloomy warnings that one did not meddle with human or Fallen biology. Anything she did risked making matters worse. But—she raised her eyes. Nightingale and Isabelle were fighting a little farther away from her, throwing magic at each other with abandon. Isabelle’s face was flecked with sweat; Nightingale’s hadn’t changed as she flung trails of fire at Isabelle.

Isabelle, obviously weary of the spells exchanged, lunged at Nightingale: once, twice, the wings following her every movement. Nightingale dodged two moves that should have slashed her from shoulder to hip, smiling. “Is this all you have?” she asked.

“You have no idea.” Isabelle shook her head. “This is my House. The place that took me in, that gave me space to grow and learn and be safe. I—will—not—lose—it.” Her knife sliced; Nightingale leaped away again, and the knife scraped against the edge of a ward she’d put up. She was smiling, not even out of breath.