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.
“You forget. It was my House, too.” She extended both hands; looked at Isabelle, her gaze intent, her eyes two huge black holes in the oval of her face. “Just as it was yours.” Her hands shot forward; the air seemed to crumple in front of her; and she drove them, effortlessly, into Isabelle’s chest.
Isabelle froze. She stared at Nightingale, her eyes widening, slowly glazing over. Her mouth opened, but no sound came out.
No, no, no.
Slowly, gracefully, Isabelle fell back; and a spray of blood fell forward, onto the stones of the cathedral.
No.
Madeleine rose, and ran, screaming, the magic streaming out of her, uncontrollable — fully expecting to have to fight Nightingale, too; and to fail as Isabelle had failed, to fall as Isabelle had fallen….
But when she reached the body, Nightingale was already gone, walking away without a backward glance toward the entrance of the cathedral; the roots opening in front of her in an obscene parody of the sea parting before Moses’s staff. Madeleine knelt, shaking, pouring all the magic she had left into Isabelle’s body, trying to find a way, any way, to heal her.
Nothing happened. A glance should have told her — as she looked up, weak, trembling — that it was useless, that no one recovered from two bloody holes of that size in the chest. Isabelle’s eyes were wide-open, vitreous; her breath inaudible; her skin already losing its luster, becoming gray and fragile and mortal.
No, no, no.
Fallen outlived mortals. Apprentices outlived teachers, not the other way around; and Madeleine had lost so much already, so many people in her care. She… It wasn’t fair.
The last of the magic left her; now it was just her and her meager skills, trying to shake some life into a corpse. Trying to make Isabelle move, to make her say something, anything. Please, please, please, let there be a miracle.
Useless, all of it. As it had always been.
Madeleine knelt on the cold, hard floor between the fluted trunks, and wept.
* * *
PHILIPPE was halfway across Ile de la Cité when he felt it. He was crossing a deserted avenue, heading in the vague direction of the Hôtel-Dieu or the parvis — hard to tell, at night — when Isabelle’s presence in his mind flickered and weakened, and went out like a snuffed candle.
He stopped, then. The bond between them was strong, sealed in Fallen blood, and nothing should have been able to remove it.
Nothing, save one.
No. That wasn’t possible. He took in a slow, trembling breath; and heard only silence in his mind. Gone. She was gone; back to the City she’d had so few memories of, or to whichever destination awaited Fallen, after their time on Earth was done. He hoped she got the answers she’d craved for in life; or the rest that had been denied to her.
He — he needed to keep moving, to find Emmanuelle or Selene or someone who would have some idea of what was going on; to warn them about Nightingale. He needed to— But for the longest time, he simply stood rooted to the spot, watching the darkened skies above him blur; like rain running down a glass pane until the entire world seemed to have vanished into a maw of grief.
* * *
SELENE sat in the center of the market’s square, listening to Javier report on the evacuation of the House. Everyone appeared to have made it out, which was a relief.
“So he went in.”
Emmanuelle grimaced. “Yes. That worked, it seems.”
“Yes.” They both knew what that meant; and she had no regrets. “And the rest—”
“I don’t know.”
The House’s magic was flickering and weak in Selene’s mind. Earlier, she had heard the cracks as the roots tightened around the walls, and felt the magic slowly squeezing out. Like a pressed lime: it would have been an incongruous comparison, if only it hadn’t been her walls; if she hadn’t seen, in her mind’s eye, the familiar corridors bend out of shape, the furniture in her office crack into a thousand pieces, the beds in the hospital heaving and shattering…
Aragon would have been angry; but then, Aragon, not bound to the House, had left them. She couldn’t blame him; though part of her wished he had stayed. She certainly could have used his help.
Even if it did work — even if they could banish the curse — the House would still be as it was: all but destroyed, its magic gone, channeled into the roots of that huge tree, into all the damage the curse had wrought.
Some leader she was.
“You look gloomy,” Emmanuelle said.
Selene forced a smile. “Of course not,” she said, because Javier was listening. “Come on, let’s go and see everyone.”