The Road to Bedlam: Courts of the Feyre, Book 2 (24 page)

    I looked up at the mirror and hesitated. If Blackbird was sleeping then I didn't want to rouse her. They would have swapped watches during the night and she had started out with a sleep deficit. The last thing I wanted to do was wake her when she was getting what little sleep she could. On the other hand, I needed to talk to her and I had no idea whether she would be sleeping now or later. I would have to take my chance.

    I placed my hand gently on the mirror and reached within to connect it to the core of power within me.

    "Blackbird?"

ELEVEN

Blackbird wasn't happy to be woken by being prodded. "What?" It had taken her forever to get to sleep and now she was awake again.

    "There's something wrong with the mirror," said Claire.

    "What time is it?"

    "Just after six."

    "Six? I thought it was my turn at four?"

    "I didn't wake you. I'm not going to be able to sleep with all this going on and you looked like you needed it."

    "You're the second person to say that to me," Blackbird grunted as she struggled upright.

    Claire stood by the bed, wringing her hands. "It's doing that thing again, where it makes noises."

    "Someone is trying to talk to us. It's probably Niall. Give me a moment."

    Claire bustled away while Blackbird struggled back into the smock-top and pulled on clean socks and shoes. She pushed her hair back from her face and scrubbed her eyes with her knuckles. It would have to suffice.

    "Listen," said Claire, returning from the kitchen, nodding towards the big mirror over the fireplace.

    There was a random ticking sound coming from the mirror, like an insect compulsively scratching.

    "Have you got the portable mirror we used last night?"

    Claire fished around in her handbag while Blackbird retrieved the horseshoe she had secreted under the pillow. Blackbird took both items to the fire door at the back of the kitchen. She tugged back the curtain and surveyed the grey morning. There was no sign of anyone on the fire escape, but then she knew she would be unlikely to see them until it was too late. Holding the horseshoe up like a talisman she prodded the fire door open and edged out on to the metal balcony. Checking carefully around, making sure that nothing had been tampered with and that the balcony would still hold her weight, she surveyed the back of the flats. Then she jammed the door open with the horseshoe and opened the mirror compact.

    "Blackbird?" Niall's voice came clear through the mirror, making her smile.

    "I'm here," she said. "Can you hear me?"

    "I was beginning to wonder if you were OK," said Niall. His voice sounded tinny and distant.

    Claire made hand signals through the doorway.

    "Not coffee," said Blackbird. "Tea would be nice, though."

    "What?" said Niall.

    "It's just Claire. She woke me when she heard you trying to contact us through the mirror. She's getting me a drink."

    "Sorry, I didn't mean to wake you. I had no way of knowing whose turn it was."

    "Never mind. Claire was supposed to wake me hours ago, but she didn't feel like sleeping, so she left me. My back aches like a coal miner's. That sofa should have a warning sign on it."

    "It did have a label," said Claire. "I peeled it off." She handed a steaming mug to Blackbird.

    "What was that?" asked Niall.

    "Only Claire. Stop fretting."

    "You sound as if you're getting on OK," said Niall.

    "Well, there's nothing like shared adversity to bring people together, is there?"

    "Any sign of visitors?"

    "Not as far as we can tell. If they came, they went away again. Maybe they didn't like the welcome reception."

    "How are you feeling?"

    "Apart from the chronic backache? Tired. I'm always tired at the moment. It comes with the territory. How are you?"

    "I'm OK. Tired too, but for different reasons. I need your help."

    "My help?

    "Yes. I need your advice."

    "Niall Petersen, Warder of the Seven Courts, protector of the weak, vanquisher of the enemy, scion of the wraithkin, needs the help of the beach-ball once known as Blackbird."

    "Are you going to help me or not? What's a scion, anyway?"

    "A descendent of a noble family. Has Raffmir been back?"

    "No, it's something else." Niall described how he'd been trying to find the girls through the mirror and how that had somehow led to the encounter with the girl. He recounted the dream and told her about the scratches it had left behind.

    "Are the scratches still there?"

    "Faintly. They're healing fast, but they're definitely real. It can't be Solandre, can it? She's dead. You killed her."

    "The wraithkin can be very hard to kill. Maybe she was just scattered. Did you feel her presence in the dream?" Blackbird sipped at the steaming mug.

    "Not directly, but I've had the dream more than once. When Tate woke me the other night, I was dreaming I was in the glade then as well. I thought it was because Altair and Raffmir had turned up. Maybe I could somehow feel their presence and the dream was my subconscious, warning me."

    "Are you sure you didn't scratch yourself in your sleep?"

    "My nails aren't that sharp. Anyway, it's more than that. At first it was just me, but now other people are being drawn into the dream too."

    "Are you sure you weren't just dreaming? You were looking at pictures of young girls and one of them turns up in your dream, all naked and willing. I'm a big girl. I know what men are like. It's not a completely unnatural thought."

    "Blackbird, she's young enough to be my daughter."

    "And I'm old enough to be your great-great-grandmother. It didn't stop you having sex with me."

    "That's different. You're not old. You've just been around for a long time."

    "Thanks. Now I feel ancient. I know where to come when I want to fish for compliments."

    "Don't be like that. I don't know what I'd do without you." Suddenly he sounded hesitant, unnerved.

    "I expect you'd get into worse scrapes than you already have." She changed the subject. "I want you to try something."

    "What?"

    "Try and find Solandre through the mirror."

    "What! Are you nuts?"

    "Old and nuts as well. You are doing well this morning."

    "I just meant…"

    "Try and find her in the mirror. You don't have to speak to her. Just find out whether she's alive."

    "What if she knows I'm trying to find her?"

    "Well then, she's already found you, so you're not giving much away. If you know she's hunting you, maybe you can do something about it?"

    "OK. Give me a few minutes."

    "I'll wait."

    The mirror went silent, leaving Blackbird surveying the fire escapes and sipping her mug of tea. It was a few minutes before Niall's voice returned.

    "Nothing," he said. "I can't find her."

    "Well, that's a relief. For a moment I thought she was coming back for a rematch."

    "It doesn't explain the dream, though, does it?"

    "There is another explanation."

    "Which is?"

    "Some of the Feyre are very old."

    "I know that. I've met some of them."

    "They tend to get cranky and become difficult to live with. Some of them withdraw and become more and more reclusive."

    "You think Solandre might be hiding away somewhere?"

    "No, I think Solandre's dead. Your dream, though, may not be a dream."

    "How do you mean?"

    "Some of the very old ones don't really die. They fade into the landscape, and become part of the scenery. No one even knows they're there. They don't harm anyone or do very much, so they get left. Over time, they drift, and become detached from the world. They're not dead, they're just… disconnected."

    "Like hibernating. What's this got to do with my dream?"

    "All creatures need to feed, Niall, even if it's only once in a while. The ones that fade, they survive on the life that passes, taking only what they need to keep going. A fallen tear here, a drop of blood there. If you're really not doing anything, you don't need very much."

    "This is a dream, Blackbird. It's not a place." Niall sounded worried.

    She tried to explain. "You know yourself that there is more than the world we live in. There are other worlds, and spaces between those worlds."

    "Dreaming isn't a place. Is it?"

    "You have scratches all down your arm, Niall. What makes you think you were dreaming?"

    "I was asleep."

    "Your body was asleep, but your mind was awake. You drifted, and ended up somewhere else."

    "But Solandre summoned me there to feed on me."

    "Solandre may have discovered the glade, and then used it to feed on unwary sleepers. By taking people there she could feed on them with minimal risk of exposure, while supplying her host with a steady stream of unwilling victims for itself. It would work for both of them."

    "But Solandre is dead."

    "And now there is no food coming to the glade."

    "So you think it's bringing me there to feed from me?"

    "Not from you, Niall. It honoured you. It clothed you in silk and made you welcome. It plucked Debbie from your mind and brought her to you, all willing and naked. Sex is as much food to such a creature as blood is. I don't suppose it would mind either way."

    "That's horrible."

    "It's no better or worse than any other creature. It wants to survive and it's offering you the chance to benefit from the arrangement. It's offering you a symbiosis."

    "Why me? I don't want anything to do with it."

    "You were the last person there, apart from Solandre."

    "No, I wasn't. She had Jerry Crossland, the Queen's Remembrancer, trapped there. He was there after I was."

    "But he's not fey, Niall, and you are. You're wraithkin, as Solandre was. Maybe it was wraithkin too? Maybe as long as you provide some nourishment for it while you're there, it will let you do whatever you want."

    "I'm not providing it with nourishment. It's gross."

"Then you're condemning it to death."

"No, I'm not. I don't want anything to do with it."

    "It doesn't know anyone else, Niall. Solandre was its link with the world and now she's dead. We have no idea how long she'd been feeding it or how often. She wasn't exactly a spring chicken herself. They could have been living off each other for centuries."

    "How do I tell it I don't want it? How do I tell it to find someone else?"

    "I'm not sure you can. It may hear you if you speak to it, but such a creature is beyond conversation. In some ways it's more a place, now, than a person. How will you tell a place to find somewhere else to be?"

    "Can I ward my dreams against it?"

    "Yes. I suppose you could, but it will die without someone."

    "I'll introduce it to someone else, then?"

    "Who, Niall? Would you want Raffmir to have it? Or Garvin, even? Who would you trust to look after unguarded sleepers? You know what Solandre was doing with it."

    "This is awful. I can't feed people to it."

    "Then kill it, but don't just let it starve to death."

    "How?"

    "You're wraithkin. You already know how."

    "You want me to use gallowfyre?"

    "It's not my choice, Niall. It's attached itself to you and for better or worse you have to deal with it. You're a Warder now. If you can't deal with one ancient fey then you're going to have real problems when they start giving you executions to carry out."

    "If I brought you there, could you deal with it?"

    "No! If I end up there, it will feed on me and your unborn child. Don't even think about it."

    "No, you're right. I have to kill it. It's the only way. What's that racket in the background?"

    The sound of sirens echoed around the backs of the flats, one of the unwanted consequences of city living.

    "It's a fire engine, or a police car maybe. I think we're OK. They do seem to be slowing down, though." The noise became deafening. A police car drove into the alley below, filling the narrow space with a cacophony.

    "What's happening?" Niall's voice was almost drowned out.

    The sirens were joined with another noise. A piercing alarm sounded from the flat. "Claire? What's that? What's going on?" She could hear Niall asking the same questions.

    Claire appeared in the doorway. She was holding a short piece of black pipe, wrapped with a bunch of red roses, gathered together with a black ribbon with a gift tag dangling from it.

    "Where did you get that?" asked Blackbird, taking it from her. The tag had the single letter D.

    "It was left by the front door. I went to get the milk in," said Claire.

    "I told you not to open the door!"

    "I had my horseshoe with me. This was outside on the doormat."

    The sound of distorted speech reverberated up between the buildings.

    "Blackbird? What's going on?" Niall's voice was barely audible.

    "Someone left a piece of pipe outside our door with some flowers. There's a label. It just has the letter D. Niall, I think it's written in blood."

    The loudhailer came clearer the second time.
"Exit the
building as quickly as you can. Extinguish all smoking mate
rial. Do not touch any light switches or show any naked flame.
Move quietly and quickly. Do not panic. Do not delay to collect
personal possessions. Leave now."