The House of Shattered Wings by Aliette de Bodard Read Free Book Online

blood.”
    Her face was turned toward his, her need bare—for the familiar; for anything that wasn’t the House and its ageless, unwelcoming rituals. “Yes,” she said. “You did. I haven’t forgotten that. But—because of it—you’ll understand.”
    He raised his hand: the invisible collar Selene had woven around him rested like a yoke on his shoulders; tying him to the House, to its unbearably arrogant mistress and her will. “Fine. I’ll help you. Inasmuch as I can.”
    And when she smiled, the entire room seemed to become bright with the same soft, low-key glow she’d had in the Grands Magasins—when she was young and barely manifested; before everything had changed.
    *   *   *
    THE House creeped Philippe out.
    It was a big, sprawling place—not a single edifice, as he had assumed, but a series of buildings joined by a maze of corridors and courtyards, stretching across the entire Ile de la Cité. Most of it was derelict: the western part of the island seemed to be entirely deserted, with not even the lowest in Silverspires’ hierarchy daring to venture there, though it was not so much fear as a disinclination to go into empty rooms where every piece of furniture was covered in soot or dust or both.
    His first communal dinner had been a nightmare. He had sat at one of numerous trestle tables in the great hall, surrounded by what seemed to be the entire House: hundreds of people pressed together in a suffocating mass—turning, from time to time, to stare at him, the only Viet in the room, and then turning back to their discussion of subjects and House concerns that seemed utterly alien to him.
    He had fled then, back to the safety of his room, and begged until Emmanuelle agreed to let him dine alone. But even that didn’t make him feel better.
    It had been weeks since that first dinner; and he hadn’t stayed that long in a House since the fall of House Draken—in fact, he’d rather have swum in a river at monsoon time than go anywhere near the fastnesses of the Fallen. And to do so while under a spell of imprisonment . . .
    His only comfort was Isabelle. He never thought he’d say that of a Fallen, but she was fresh and young and naive—pulling warm bread from the oven and tearing into it with relish, while the cook, Laure, frowned affectionately at her—skipping stones in the courtyard with the children—and keeping a stash of biscuits and tea in the drawer of her room, which she shared with him around a card or a dice game—she was a terrible gambler, but then, so was he, so it all balanced out.
    Those were the bright spots—the few, desperately few. In between, there was the House.
    Philippe had a continuous feeling of ants crawling on his skin; an itch that never went away, that woke him up at night; an elusive, ghostly pain somewhere near his heart and liver, as if his organs had been subtly changed while he’d been unconscious. Perhaps it was the House; perhaps it was the spell; but he couldn’t seem to be rid of either, much to his annoyance. He’d been on a French leash sixty years before, in the war: taken from his home in Thu Dau Mot and conveyed to foreign shores under duress; abandoned in Paris to fend for himself when, against all odds, he’d survived the war. Never again, he’d sworn, but fate made fools of all men, it seemed.
    Isabelle found him in Laure’s kitchens, kneading dough. Laure, who had little time for anyone, had taken pity on him and allowed him a table corner—there was something infinitely relaxing about feeling the dough coming together between his fingers; the stretching and turning and pulling until it all came together smooth and silky, effortlessly detaching from his fingers. When he was done, Laure would find something else for him to do: chopping up meat or vegetables or keeping an eye on soup stock. He wasn’t sure