Free The House of Shattered Wings by Aliette de Bodard Page B

understand what he was and what he drew on—because his magic was as alien to them as his customs; because he was far from home, an exile in the midst of this broken, decadent city; a foreigner even among his own people, trapped in the ruins of a wrecked city.
    No anger. No sorrow. He couldn’t afford them.
    He’d already observed where the
khi
currents in the room were; it was but a simple matter to call up fire, even as diminished and as weak as it was, here in Silverspires; to cradle the living flame in the palm of his hand, feeling the warmth of it travel through his veins—through his shoulder and straight into his heart.
    Through the light of the flame, he saw Emmanuelle’s shocked face—the dilated pupils, the dark features frozen in shock, the gaze trained on him, frantically trying to see a trace of magic and finding none.
    Good. Not everything in the world was subject to the Fallen.
    Gently, slowly, he closed his hand around the flame; let the magic dissolve in the midst of the
khi
currents and of his body until no trace of it was left. As he did so, for a bare moment, something else connected to the
khi
currents: water, but not the stale water within the House—something bubbling and simmering, almost youthful in its enthusiasm. Something he’d felt once before in Annam; but no, this was impossible. There were no dragon kingdoms here—no spirits of the rain and rivers, not under the polluted clouds that rained acid; not in the blackened waters of the Seine; not in the wells that had long since run dry.
    But he’d felt this, once before—in the ruined cathedral—much fainter, almost spent, but still . . .
    Impossible. Nostalgia and the fancies of a prisoner, that was all it was.
    â€œSatisfied?” he asked, shaking his head to dismiss the odd feeling.
    Emmanuelle grimaced, but she nodded. “As much as one can be, I guess.”
    Aragon returned to his desk, put down his stethoscope with an audible thump. “I trust that is the end of the examination.” His face was severe; his opinion of the entire affair all too clear—a waste of time.
    Philippe said nothing. At length, Emmanuelle got up, closing the file she held in her hands. “I will report this to Selene,” she said; and left the room.
    Aragon waited until her footsteps vanished from hearing; and they were well and truly alone. “You surprise me.”
    Philippe raised an eyebrow. “Why?”
    Aragon’s smile was terrible to behold. “You are still here.”
    â€œNot by choice,” Philippe said, stiffly. He tried, every night, to untangle Selene’s spell on him; stood on the border of the House, feeling the resistance in the air and wondering if he dared test himself against it. But that spell was a vast maw; something larger than anything he had seen. “Believe me, if I could undo Selene’s spell—”
    â€œYes? Do tell me.” Aragon put down the paper he was holding. “What would you do? Go back to your games with the gangs and the misery of the streets?”
    â€œCareful, old man,” Philippe said.
    But Aragon went on, relentless. “Or will you go home instead? Surely you have to realize it’s a dream you can’t go back to?”
    The rest of Europe was ashes as well: the Great War had spilled outward from Paris, engulfing every region and every department—and reaching across borders through the alliances struck between Houses, a network of mutual support that had turned into tinder for a continent-wide conflagration—English Houses against French Houses; and then, as governments collapsed and the circle of conflicts tightened, each House for itself. Outside Paris, ruins dotted the landscape—the minor, provincial Houses in other cities shattered, their Fallen and human dependents dead in their hundreds, and the manors of the countryside fastnesses in the midst of wastelands. The travelers from