'Is there something else?' I asked her.
'Are you sure you won't have the talisman? You may find you need it sooner than you think.'
Did she know something or was she just pressuring me? She'd gone back to the first offer before moving on, which in my experience meant there was something else she could offer, though I couldn't tell what it might be. Perhaps in Fey culture, as in some human cultures, it was a matter of honour to try and get the best price for your bargain.
'No, not the talisman, Kareesh, but something else, something I need.' I didn't know what it was, but I was now pretty sure she did.
'Well then, young Rabbit. Will you accept the sight of something to help you secure your place in the courts? Something that will soon be needed — not far away, but not easily found, no.'
I glanced at Blackbird. She was like stone. What did she mean by the sight of something? Not the thing itself, obviously, but a picture maybe?
'Truly a generous offer.'
I wanted to ask her, if I was able to secure a place in the courts whether that meant my daughter could also join with me but I sensed that, as with her other suggestions, the offer was what it was and it would be up to me to judge the value of it.
I looked for a sign from Kareesh that it really was as generous as she made it sound but her inhuman face was unreadable to me in so many ways. Was there a reason she had offered me the talisman first? She'd hinted that I might need it. I had turned down her initial offer almost on principle, though that could be a double bluff.
No, Blackbird had said that joining in the courts might provide safety for me and my daughter for a while. That was why she brought me here. I had to trust her and get what we had come for.
'And one I would like to accept,' I told Kareesh.
Blackbird let out the breath she'd been holding.
'That's a fine bargain you've struck, Rabbit,' Kareesh remarked.
I glanced at Blackbird and she gave me a tense smile. Clearly there was affection between these two, but there was a sense of tension too.
'Come then gauntlet runner, witness and suspect, evader of traps, bringer of hope. Rabbit, you are well- named, but not for always. Another name will be yours when you have earned it. The sun will rise and they shall fall. So say I.'
Blackbird looked at Kareesh and her jaw dropped. I was lost, still trying to follow what she had just said. By the look of Blackbird's face she thought it was significant. I made a mental note to ask her about it later. Kareesh, meantime, continued without pause.
'Here, Rabbit, hold out your hands and, when you are ready, rest them in my palms. You can remove them any time you wish and the vision will end. You might find it easier to close your eyes.'
'Will it help?'
'No, but you may find it easier to bear that way.'
To bear? That was a strange word to use. I repositioned myself on the cushions so I had slightly more support. I had no idea how long this might take so I wanted to be as comfortable as possible. I took a deep breath and let it out slowly.
'OK, I'm ready.'
'No, you're not. But then, no one ever is.' She showed me her teeth again and I lowered my hands into hers.
Cold rushed up my arms, clamping my heart and seizing the breath in my lungs. Echoes of the heart attack I had survived earlier flooded my veins with fear. The cold wrapped itself around my gut and pooled in my groin, killing all sensation. My eyes flooded with tears and blurred. I couldn't move to wipe them. Lights expanded and shattered into refracted fragments of delicate snowflakes and rushed inwards. I was blind, cold and numb. I think I screamed.
Images hammered into my head: a heavy door that swung ponderously shut, the dull thud reverberating; letters carved into pale stone that I couldn't read; a familiar looking building with a roof stained with livid green verdigris; a black cat, ready to pounce, silhouetted against a darkening sky. Autumn leaves swirled around me in a vortex of red, orange and gold. There was a green twig haloed in a sickly light and a room striped with sunlight, bedclothes scattered across the floor. It shifted into a vaulted ceiling like the roof of a wine-cellar, walls lime- washed and inset with dark stones.
I spun upwards like a reverse skydiver, the wind whipping my clothes around me. I recognised the Thames wriggling out below me until I floated momentarily. Then I fell, my eyes streaming with blurred tears as London rushed up to meet me, the river suddenly large and gleaming in dull menace. At the last second, I swerved aside to pass through a heavy metal grating into a brick-vaulted tunnel where I twisted manically, left and right, to a giant hall filled with the sound of rushing water. In the centre was an island with an altar, strung with detritus and misshapen in the darkness.
My final image was of a square iron door in the wall above the water, its edges caked with rust, a keyhole, black at its centre.
Breath rushed into me and I collapsed backwards, rolling off the cushion onto the cold tiled floor, banging my head in the process. The reprise of my experience this morning was not lost on me as I coughed and retched onto the floor, pins and needles prickling my legs as the flow of blood returned. Kareesh and Blackbird watched, waiting for me to recover myself.
After I had calmed and wiped the spittle from my lips with the back of my hand, Kareesh spoke to me.
'Were you ready?'
I shook my head slowly and had the grace to laugh at myself. The gift I had bargained for had turned out to be a thumping headache and a series of fractured images. I felt cheated and somehow soiled by it, as if something dirty had trampled through my head.
Blackbird was more practical. 'Did you see what it was?'
I looked up at her from the cold floor. The memory of what I had seen was already indistinct. I remembered the door with the keyhole and the tunnels, and there had been a cat. What was the green twig, and where was the familiar building? It was like remembering a badly edited movie. 'I'm not sure.'
Blackbird let out a sigh of frustration and turned to Kareesh, but before she could say anything Kareesh held up her strange hand to pause her. 'No child, you know how it is.'
Blackbird's face fell, but whatever she'd been going to say she kept to herself. She stood up and moved closer to me so she could help me to my feet. I felt as though I had been beaten in the middle of a hangover. My first attempt at standing was unsuccessful. I only made it to my knees. Then Blackbird, with surprising strength, put her hands under my arms and lifted me so I could stand. She kept hold of one arm, supporting me emotionally as well as physically. My mouth tasted of dry ash and there was shimmering in my vision that screamed migraine.
Kareesh addressed her. 'Take him somewhere quiet and dark, girl, and he will recover in a little while. He'll sleep well tonight, perhaps too well.' She ushered us slowly out onto the head of the steps, patting Blackbird's cheeks affectionately. 'Don't be so long next time, girl. And bring an old one some boiled sweets, eh?'
'They're bad for your teeth,' Blackbird objected half-heartedly.
'There are lots of things that'll be the death of me before my teeth, girl, and I can always grow new ones.'
Kareesh looked up at me, as you might at a curiosity.
'Goodbye, Kareesh, and thank you for your gift,' I whispered, my voice unsteady.
'You can thank me later, Rabbit. If you live.'
She stood at the top of the steps while Blackbird helped me down into the dark. There was no sign of Gramawl, either in the corridor or at the base of the stairs, though he may have been lurking in the darkness somewhere. My own vision was still haunted by glowing after-images of things I'd never seen.
Using a mixture of cajoling and support, Blackbird got me up the steps and into the lift. We were joined by a group of German tourists who looked distastefully at me when I came close to throwing up as the lift jolted into motion. The lift reached the surface and we let them disperse. Blackbird steered me after them to the exit.
'Do you have your card?' Blackbird asked me.
'Yes, it's in my wallet somewhere.' I made a hesitant attempt to find it, but Blackbird walked me forward to the barrier.
