“Excuse me,” she said.
They looked at her, puzzled. The older woman pinched her lips as if noting the unkempt state of Madeleine’s dress, or her hoarse voice, or both. “You’re the alchemist for Silverspires?” the woman said at last. “What can we do for you?”
“Can I speak to your friend?” Madeleine asked, pointing to the Fallen who looked like Elphon.
The woman shrugged. “If you want. Elphon?”
Madeleine’s heart skipped a beat; seemed to remain suspended in her chest in an agony of stillness. But when Elphon looked up, there was nothing but mild interest in his eyes. “Good morning,” Elphon said, looking at her with puzzlement. “What can I do for you?”
Show some hint of recognition. Something, anything that would explain why he was there — why he still bore the same name, still behaved the same, but he didn’t recognize her. “How long have you been in Hawthorn?”
Elphon shrugged; and even that gesture was heartbreakingly familiar, a dim but treasured memory from the depths of the past. “A few months,” he said. “Lord Asmodeus found me near Les Halles.”
A few months? That was impossible. “Are you sure?”
“Of course.” Elphon’s voice was mild, but it was clear he was wondering about her sanity. So was Madeleine. This conversation could in no way be described as sane. “Are you trying to recruit me to Silverspires? I assure you I’m already spoken for.”
“No, of course not,” Madeleine said, feeling the blush start somewhere in her cheeks and climb, burning, to her forehead. “I wouldn’t dare. It’s just… I knew someone very much like you, once.”
“Some Fallen look very much alike to mortals,” Elphon said, with a tight smile. He hefted his basket, and made to rejoin his companions. “Now, if you’ll excuse me… Lord Asmodeus will be expecting us, and he has little patience for tardiness.”
“I have no doubt.” Asmodeus had little patience for anything. He’d chafed enough, in what he viewed as an inferior position in Hawthorn; had waited just long enough to be certain of his coup. “I’m sorry for disturbing you,” Madeleine said. “It seems I was mistaken.”
Elphon bowed — low, old-fashioned, the same bow he’d used to make to her, all those years ago, half in mockery, half in earnest. “There’s no harm in it. Good-bye, my lady.”
She watched him retreat, the basket shifting with each movement of his body. Whatever he said, it was him. It had to be him; another Fallen, especially a young one, could have mimicked his appearance for a while, but not the gestures. Not the expressions.
But, if it was him, if he had somehow been resurrected by some mystery she could not comprehend — then why did he not remember her? Was it something Asmodeus had done? Surely he had to know that the “young” Fallen he had rescued was one of the loyalists who’d opposed his coup twenty years ago?
Surely—
Lost as she was in her thoughts, it was a while before she realized that, in the place where she’d left the others, there was no trace of them whatsoever.
At first, she wasn’t unduly worried; they were adults, and the market was as safe a place as there could be in Paris. She looked for them, desultorily, amid the brightly colored stalls, sure that she would meet them at the House if she couldn’t find them.
A scream — terror and agony, rising through her mind — no, not hers, someone bound to House Silverspires was in mortal danger.
She ran, but she knew even before she started to run that she would be too late.
FIVE. THE HOUSE OF HAWTHORN
PHILIPPE had used Madeleine’s departure to slip away from the group, mumbling something about looking at primed lacquered boxes. Oris had made a face, but Isabelle also expressed a desire to do some shopping of her own. So they split up, each going in a separate direction — after all, what could happen to them in the middle of the busy crowd, in a place where the old alliances still held?
It was after midday, and the crowds of the market were thinning away, leaving Philippe free to leisurely walk to his destination.
On the edge of the market, he ducked into the Old Wing, the barely used buildings that had once been the Police Préfecture and the Commerce Tribunal. There was a side street there, which widened into a makeshift courtyard between the two derelict buildings.
There was a man there, waiting for him, sitting under the wide arch of the entrance to the Préfecture.
Philippe recognized him as one of House Hawthorn’s members, still wearing the gray-and-silver uniform with the ease of a soldier; and the eyes, too, were those of a soldier, wide and blue and naive, until one truly looked into them, and saw the darkness lurking within.
“Ah, Aragon’s little friend,” the man said. He rose, impossibly lithe, scarecrow thin, dancing to music only he could hear: he was Fallen, though his face was as round and as smooth as a baby’s, without any of the edge Philippe would expect from a former angel. But the eyes… the eyes gave him away. “My name is Samariel.”
“Philippe.” He felt awkward, gangly, out of place — even though he was quite probably older than Samariel. Arrogant bastard, like the rest of them.
“‘Lover of Horses,’” Samariel said, gravely. “Was that the name Lady Selene gave you?”
Philippe flushed. “That is the name I gave myself. I owe nothing to Selene.” Nothing except the chains she’d wrapped around him.
“I see.” Samariel’s gaze was mocking. “Aragon tells me you need help. I assume he also told you—”
“That it would come at a price? I’m no fool.”
Samariel looked him up and down, as if weighing his options. “No,” he said. “Perhaps you’re not.”
“What makes you think you can remove Selene’s spell?”
Samariel smiled. “May I?” He reached out, and stroked Philippe’s neck — a careless gesture that made Philippe shiver. His skin was cold to the touch, as cold as the high reaches of Heaven; but soon it grew warmer. Philippe saw the tangle of threads around his neck, plunging deep into the earth — linking him to the House, Aragon had said, shaking his head. Samariel reached out, thoughtfully plucking two of the brightest strands and raising them to his eyes. He pursed his lips and spread out his fingers like a conjurer doing his best trick; and, just like that, the threads were gone.
Illusion. It had to be. The casualness with which Samariel had acted, the frightful ease with which he’d undone a spell that had had Philippe stumped for weeks, that Aragon had said only Selene could raise…
“You can’t—” Philippe started, but when he shifted he felt it; the slight yield in the bonds that tied him to Silverspires; the lessening of the weight around his neck; and it wasn’t an illusion.
“A nasty piece of work,” Samariel said. His face was still impassive; his hand still casually rested on Philippe’s neck, once more as cold as carved marble. He made no move to withdraw. “Untangling the entire thing, of course, would be another matter. Each thread is harder to smooth out than the previous ones.” He smiled — this close, Philippe could see the sharp, white teeth under the lips as red as blood, the smile of a predator in the instant before it struck. “I don’t know what you did to Lady Selene, but she must value you very highly.”
Philippe had no desire to go there. Samariel was no fool; and if told about his little tricks in the Grands Magasins, he would no doubt wish to take Philippe for Hawthorn, just as Selene had taken him for Silverspires. “I did something foolish,” he said.