Sixty-One Nails

black stain with my fingertip. I shivered involuntarily, remembering the sound of strange manic laughter drifting up though my window over the screams of the policeman. I thought about the other officers and the firemen that had been called to the flat.

'There was a fire engine,' I told her. 'I think it was sent to my flat to deal with the darkspore. Will they be able to contain it?'

'The darkspore will revert to mould once she withdraws her power,' she said, 'and she wouldn't have stayed long. The news would be too important to delay for the sake of a little fun.'

She had a strange idea of what constituted fun. I thought about my ruined door and my mould-stained walls. I wondered whether I would ever be able to return there now it was filled with the memories of spreading blackness and the sounds from the garden.

'When the screaming started, that's when I ran. I kept running until I couldn't run anymore.'

'If she had really wanted you, she would have had you. Maybe she changed her mind about you once she saw the gallowfyre?' The question was more to herself than to me.

'You said that before. What's gallowfyre? Is that what my glow is called?'

'Will you show it to me?'

'What, now?'

'Call it forth, but stay down there where I can see you.'

I closed my eyes and concentrated on reaching inwards. The darkness answered and the room chilled suddenly, a fickle breeze shifted in the room, drawn up the stairs from below. I heard Blackbird's sharply indrawn breath. When I opened my eyes the room was dim with the speckled light shifting in milky waves on the wall in front of me. My hands were black against the wall.

Blackbird's voice was soft behind me. 'Dismiss it. Get rid of it, please.' She sounded over-keen for me to stop when I had only just called it, but something in her tone told me it would be wise to indulge her. I released it and it died, the light in the room returning to normal.

'Do you remember I told you that the creature pursuing you was one of the Untainted?'

'Was that what came after me last night?'

'The Seventh Court of the Feyre are the Untainted. They are the one court that has never mingled its bloodlines with humans. They regard all the other courts as being tainted by the stain of humanity, a refuge for mongrels and half-breeds like you, and like me. We are the reason for their exile from this world.'

'We are?'

'The Feyre were a dying race. They lost the ability to reproduce and their numbers were dwindling.'

'What happened to them?'

'They were the victim of politics.'

'What?'

'Politics led the Feyre into a selective breeding programme that spanned millennia, a side effect of which is that they have become infertile. Children among the Feyre are rare indeed. Their numbers plummeted until there were barely enough to survive extinction. Then they discovered that the union with humanity was fertile. It gave them new hope.'

'So that's how I came to have a Fey ancestor?'

'In all likelihood, yes. The Seventh Court rebelled, though. They said that humanity would dilute Fey blood until all that remained were petty conjurers and snake-oil merchants. It caused a schism. In a desperate move, they tried to eliminate the half-breeds, all in one night. Fortunately the alarm was raised before they could complete their task. There was a bloody and brutal skirmish which the Untainted lost. They escaped to a world apart, exiled from their own kin. Now they return to complete the job they started, one mongrel at a time.'

'What has this got to do with me?'

'As darkspore is a gift of the shades, Rabbit, gallowfyre is a gift of the wraiths. Only male wraithkin can summon it.'

'I don't get it. If the only ones who can call gallowfyre are the wraithkin, and the wraithkin are the Untainted, then how did I inherit the ability to call it?'

'You shouldn't be able to, but we've seen you do it. One of your ancestors must have been wraithkin.'

'I thought you said they don't breed with humans?'

'Until this day I would have said that with my hand over my heart.'

'I still don't see how it could be, though. I mean, they must have, mustn't they? One of the Untainted must have… you know?'

'All I know, Rabbit, is you shouldn't be able to do that. You can rise now, if you wish.'

'You're not going to kill me?'

'You summoned gallowfyre, Rabbit. When the Seventh Court rebelled, gallowfyre was used by the Untainted to drive a wedge into the armed ranks of the other courts. Those that didn't flee in terror had the life sucked out of them until their dried husks fell from the air. I took a grave risk letting you call it, but if you wanted to kill me, you could have done it then. You are who you say. Get up.'

She didn't sound very pleased about it, but I settled for being able to stand up. I leant against the wall and stumbled to my feet. Cold from kneeling on the hard floor had seeped into my joints and I tried to rub some warmth back into them.

'The path I took you on yesterday was deliberately long,' she continued. 'After I left you at Leicester Square last night I retraced our steps and set wards along the path so I would know if you followed it again.'

I suddenly realised why we had taken such a circuitous route the day before.

'You set me up.'

'I set the Untainted up. If it retained some of your knowledge then it was possible it would try to follow the route back to Kareesh, seeking to kill her. She is one of the oldest and the opportunity to eliminate her would be a hard temptation to resist.'

'You used me as bait.'

'No one survives the Untainted, Rabbit, least of all someone as naive and inexperienced as you. I set the wards on the path to give myself time to be waiting for your body, should it return along the path.'

'You were going to use me to lead it underground where you could kill it.'

'Not you. I hadn't expected you to survive the night.'

'You might have given me the benefit of the doubt.'

'I did. When I saw you speak with Megan it set me wondering if perhaps by some chance you might have survived.'

'You watched me talk to her? But if I had been taken by the Untainted then she was in terrible danger.'

'Megan is small fry compared to Kareesh. I couldn't see the Untainted risking exposure just for her sake.'

'And what about Fenlock? Did you set him up too?'

'He was an unexpected complication. Once he had you, though, there was little I could do to intervene. I knew what would happen once he got you into the alley.'

'He damn near killed me.'

'He confirmed what I'd already deduced. You used gallowfyre on Fenlock. He was so convinced you weren't a threat that he didn't understand what was happening until it was too late.'

'I didn't mean to. It just happened. I was trying to get his hand from around my throat and I started blacking out. When I opened my eyes my glow was everywhere.'

'Panic reaction. Your instinct brought it on, but you would still need to have intended to use it.'

'I was trying to push him away with magic. I tried to get him to forget me.'

'He was already using his magic on you, filling you with fear and panic.'

'When I couldn't get free, I let it loose. It was the only other thing I could do.' The memory of my hands clawed into his wrists returned to me. I felt vaguely nauseous.

'It's ironic really, he probably saved you. Your panic reaction sucked the life essence out of him, consuming the very thing that makes him exist. It's obscene.'

I was shocked by the cold tone in her voice. 'He was trying to kill me.'

'Sure, and he would have, but your essence, your lifeblood and your magic would have spilled out, consuming your flesh and returning it to the earth, completing the cycle and at the same time, beginning it again.'