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

Madeleine could not name. It wasn’t the first time she’d been out at night—a few weeks ago she’d gone to Hôtel-Dieu to examine Philippe and Isabelle—but surely things had been different?
    Or perhaps she was just overreacting. Oris was frightened, yes, but that didn’t mean his fear was of something real.
    His room was on the side of a cloister courtyard, in an architectural complex that must have dated back to the Middle Ages. The ceiling of the room was low and skewed, and wooden beams crossed the whitewashed walls—each of the two floors was actually larger than the previous one, creating an unnerving impression, from outside, that the entire building was going to collapse. Climbing the narrow stairs, Madeleine gazed left and right; but even with the essence in her, she couldn’t see or feel anything out of place. A few wards were set, here and there, and they were a little singed, but that happened, especially so close to the Seine and its magical outbursts.
    Inside, the room seemed almost claustrophobic, overrun with bookshelves. On a low table was a book held open by means of another, heavier one; and a small book stand that held a sheet of paper covered with a spiky handwriting: presumably what Oris had been working on. The bedsheets were rumpled, and a simple icon of the Virgin Mary lay on the bedside table.
    â€œStill at your research?” Madeleine asked.
    Oris forced a smile. “Of course. I found a rather interesting passage, which argued that the proper translation of ‘adelphos’ was ‘brothers,’ not ‘cousins.’. . .” Bible studies were Oris’s hobby: he begged Father Javier for lessons, and had borrowed an astonishing number of religious books from the library. Together with Emmanuelle, he was one of the few Fallen in the House who was quite confident in his faith. “We’re not here to talk about books, Madeleine—”
    Madeleine nodded, keeping a wary eye on the room. “I know. But I see nothing.” The room was bathed in gentle magic residue, the inevitable traces of a Fallen; and only in a few places could she feel the tug of a deeper, sharper fear. “I can’t see anything,” she said.
    â€œIt was here.” Oris pointed to the book stand. “I was working on a translation, and all of a sudden it went dark, and—” He swallowed, and fell silent.
    Madeleine moved, touched the paper on the book stand. It was warm, but there was nothing wrong with it, other than that the paper seemed curiously brittle.
    She withdrew and focused her essence-fueled magic on the paper, willing it to show what it had shown Oris—what had fed the fear she could feel traces of in the room. Nothing changed, or moved.
    â€œI don’t think—” she said; and then the surface of the paper went dark—as if something huge and black had passed in front of it, spreading its wings as it moved—a moment only, and then it was gone, but she could imagine what it would have been like, to be staring at printed paper only to see
that
show up.
    â€œThat was it,” Oris said. “But it was everywhere. Every time I turned my head, it was a shadow in the corridors; every time I looked at something, it would seem to lie across it. I’ve never seen anything like it.”
    Madeleine sent a small, fading burst of magic into the paper; watched the darkness cross its surface, once again. Definitely something large, and she wasn’t quite sure where the suggestion of wings came from, but it was . . . unpleasant. Stomach-clenchingly frightening—a hint that it would spread, and forever engulf her, take her apart until not a trace of her was left, nothing but her screams . . .
    The last of the essence vanished from her system, leaving her drained, her lungs reddened and hoarse—while she was on it, it was so easy to forget what the drug was doing to her, but she