FOURTEEN. SICKBEDS
AS Madeleine could have predicted, Aragon was not happy. “Did I miss a note about wounding season?” he asked, turning to look for his trays of instruments. “Still, at least you’re conscious, which is a huge improvement on the previous patient.”
He was making light of it, but he was obviously still worried — his eyes deeply shadowed, with the same hint of fear Madeleine had seen him show at Samariel’s bedside. She had her artifacts, her mirrors, and her infused containers — enough protection, if she needed to — if she could convince herself that she was safe from whatever stalked the House.
“I’m fine,” Emmanuelle said from the bed. She lay propped on a pillow; her skin the color of muddy milk, her wounded hand painful to see: the circle a little smudged, sitting smug in the center of a swell of red, raw skin.
“No, you’re not,” Aragon said. He slipped into a white gown, and went to a basin to wash his hands. “To start with, you’re running a high fever, and only a fool would insist that injury is a harmless wound. What happened?”
“I wasn’t there. But she tried to catch Philippe as he ran out of the door.” Madeleine couldn’t take her gaze away from Emmanuelle’s hand; from the circle of raised, red skin that wouldn’t go away — the mark that killed.
No.
“Philippe?” Aragon asked, from what felt like a world away.
“He touched me.” Emmanuelle spoke up. “And it was… I’m not sure. It felt like his fingers burned — and it traveled upward. I can’t feel my arm, not so well.”
Madeleine fought panic.
“You didn’t see any shadows?” Aragon asked, slowly, carefully. “Nothing beyond his touching you?”
Emmanuelle closed her eyes, and opened them again with a clear effort. “Maybe a glimpse? I’m sorry. I don’t remember. It felt… as though there was more of him than there ought to be, if that makes sense? His hand was heavier than it should have been.”
It made no sense to Madeleine.
“It doesn’t matter,” Aragon said, gently, pushing one pillow under her back. “We’ll find out.” And then, to Madeleine: “I don’t understand why Philippe would do such a thing.”
“Me, neither,” Madeleine said. She wasn’t altogether sure she had pieced everything together. Had it been Philippe since the beginning, truly? If he’d had a secret agenda against Silverspires, he’d hidden it well, under what seemed to be an entirely understandable grudge against the people who had yanked him from his home and enlisted him into a war that didn’t matter a whit to him. But still — still, the evidence was inescapable. She looked at the wound on Emmanuelle’s skin, the perfect circle with its bloody dot in the middle. “Is she going to recover?”
Aragon turned to her. His face was the mask she knew all too well, cool and professional, expressionless. But she could tell he was worried. “She will, if you let me do my job.”
“It really does look like a snakebite,” Isabelle said. “Can I do anything to help? I have magic—”
“That you won’t use,” Aragon said, curtly. “Healing spells cast on unknown magical wounds isn’t an experiment I’m ready to run, not until we know more.”
“Waiting until we know more could kill her,” Madeleine pointed out.
“I’d rather appreciate if you didn’t talk about me as if I were already gone,” Emmanuelle said, but it was an absentminded comment. Her attention appeared focused on the wound in her hand; her brow furrowed, as if she were trying to remember something.
“It’ll be fine,” Madeleine said. “Really.” But, like Aragon, she was worried. This was something that killed — violently, messily — something that took apart a Fallen’s body, breaking down bones and organs. She wasn’t sure how long contact would need to be, but even that short second between her and Philippe seemed to have had a huge effect.
She’d live. Of course she would. She was strong.
But no one had lived. No one had survived, so far — that was all the truth she had, all the comfort she could offer herself.
For as long as she could remember — since even before she came into the House — Emmanuelle had been there, a solid presence at the heart of Silverspires — like Madeleine, seldom speaking up, doing her job as best she could. To think of her gone; to even consider that tomorrow would be a day when she wouldn’t be found in the stacks, gluing together old books and poring over faded images as if they were treasures…
Aragon put a syringe in Emmanuelle’s arm. “A mild sedative,” he said. “You need rest more than anything else.”
“And you need to talk away from my hearing. Really, you could have gone in the other room,” Emmanuelle said, grimacing. “I’m fine.” She laid her head back against the pillow, staring at the moldings on the ceiling. “It’ll pass in the night anyway….” Abruptly, her gaze focused on Madeleine. “Madeleine. I’ve seen that wound pattern before.” Her voice was low, urgent, but her eyes were already rolling up again.
“Where?” Madeleine asked, but Emmanuelle had sunk down into sleep; and only an indistinct word escaped her lips. Madeleine suppressed a curse.
“She’ll wake up,” Aragon said.
“Are you sure?”
“No, of course not. I can’t be sure of many things. She’s running a fever, which means she’s fighting it.”
“People have died of fevers, Aragon.”
“Samariel didn’t have a fever,” Aragon said. “Oris didn’t have time to have one. She’s alive, and fighting. See it however you want. I’m choosing to be optimistic.” His voice was weary. “We’ve had enough death here for several lifetimes.”
No disagreeing with that.
“I expect Selene will be along later.” Aragon put the syringe back on its tray, and sighed. “And I suggest you both get some sleep. You look like you got about as much as I did.”
* * *
IN the end, as on so many nights, Madeleine couldn’t sleep. She drifted back into the library, staring at the pile of books Emmanuelle had been working on; and, on impulse, took a pile of them with her. If she’d indeed seen that circle, perhaps it was recent. Perhaps it had been in something that Emmanuelle had been reading.
After some hesitation, she also dropped by her laboratory, and took with her one of her strongest remaining artifacts: a nail clipping from Selene set in an amber pendant, a warm, comforting weight in her hand, like a live coal on the coldest nights. Whatever had stalked the corridors during those fateful nights seemed to be gone — vanished with Philippe’s departure — but she wasn’t fooled. Something that strong wouldn’t be so easily banished; and they still had no inkling of what it was, or what it wanted. Why target Samariel? Had it been smart enough to know what his death would cause, how it would weaken the House?
It wanted Silverspires’ downfall; and perhaps that of other Houses, too. Perhaps, like Philippe, an end to the whole system—“feudal,” Philippe had called it with a sneer, as if he came from a more enlightened place, and not a distant land locked in internecine fights between regions. The nerve of him — but he was gone now, dead; or if not dead, as good as dead. Asmodeus’s fury wasn’t to be ignored.
In Emmanuelle’s room, everything was dark. The bed was heavily warded: Aragon’s work, no doubt, though how effective would the wards be against something that could disrupt magic? Beyond the wards, Emmanuelle slept fitfully; the mark on her hand still raw and angry. No matter what Aragon said, she didn’t look well — her cheeks were flushed, and Madeleine would find her skin red-hot if she reached out — though to do so would also trigger Aragon’s wards, and wake him up from what little rest he was getting.