'You believe in reincarnation?'
'Not in the sense of a soul reborn, but in the cycle of nature and magic, yes. All magic is given by the earth as life is given. It is eventually returned to the earth to become again. It is not a belief so much as an expression of the Feyre's existence. We live, we die and others will come after us, it is our nature.'
'I was only defending myself.'
She continued as if I hadn't spoken. 'But that way, nothing comes after. The cycle is broken. It's what was originally thought to be the cause of Fey infertility. The wraithkin were slowly consuming us, one by one, until there was nothing left to come back. They were preventing us from beginning the cycle again.'
'But you said it was selective breeding. Politics, you said.'
'I still believe that, but I am one of the Gifted, a half-breed, and partly human. There are many of the Feyre who still believe the wraithkin are sucking us dry and that is the reason we cannot breed. They believe that by consuming life in its essence, the wraithkin are eating our future.'
'Can't you explain it to them? Make them understand?'
'You're asking me to overturn a hundred millennia of belief with five minutes of science.' Her expression said this was unlikely to work.
'So that leaves me as some kind of ghoulish parasite.'
'It's not like that. The Feyre believe the world is in balance, that where there is true beauty there must be ugliness, where there is life, there must be death. The wraiths and the shades are our darkness, Rabbit, but they're not parasites, they're Fey.'
'Either way, it doesn't leave me in a very good position, does it? The Untainted are already hunting me and as soon as the rest of them realise what I am, they will be too.'
She laughed bitterly. 'They're not going to hunt you. They will avoid you. The wraithkin are what the Feyre frighten their children with. And as for the Untainted, I have no idea what they'll do. As far as they are concerned, you can't exist. That must have been what saved you. She must have been as surprised as I was to find you could summon gallowfyre. I only wish I could have seen the expression on her face.'
'Would you want to get that close?'
She was silent. I looked up and for a fleeting second there was something cold behind those grey eyes. She turned away, walking towards the street window, looking down onto the traffic and concealing her expression.
I worked my knees then gingerly walked forward towards the brightness of the windows, using the wall to steady me as my joints regained their mobility and joined her at the window, though not too close.
At the windows I stopped.
'Blackbird, that's it!'
'What is?'
'That building, the one with the roof covered in verdigris across the street, that's the building from the vision, the one Kareesh showed me.'
'Why would she show you a vision of Australia House?'
I looked out at the distinctive green-stained roof of the building opposite.
'I honestly have no idea.'
TEN
The building across the road was the one from my vision. It was suddenly sharp and clear in my mind. No wonder I had thought I recognised it. I must have been past it hundreds of times.
Blackbird stood at the window, looking across the street, but she wasn't focusing on the building. She was lost in thought. Whatever it was she was thinking about, it didn't lighten her mood.
'Are the visions always like this, so fragmented and disjointed?'
There was a pause while she returned to herself and then she spoke, looking out over the street rather than at me.
'The way Kareesh once explained it to me, the future is a warren of paths and junctions. She has shown you the main junctions you might pass through from your present. Which path you take, though, and where you end up is for you to choose.'
I tried to imagine time as passages and tunnels criss-crossing into the future. It didn't help. I glanced at Blackbird, staring stiffly out of the window.
'What's wrong?' I asked her.
'It's nothing.' She dismissed my question and continued to watch the traffic, but I could hear the lie in that statement.
'Does finding out that my Fey ancestor was wraithkin make that much of a difference?'
She didn't answer my question.
'Look, I can't help who my ancestors were. If it makes you feel better, I just won't summon it again, OK?'
My words fell into her silence.
'If there's anything I can do…'
'You can't.'
It was said in a flat quiet voice, without emotion or warmth. It wasn't a reprimand as much as a statement of cold fact. I turned and looked at the building again, unsure of what to say. I understood that there was a part of her that hurt, the part that showed in her eyes at odd times, like last night and now. I wanted to offer her simple comfort against that hurt but I knew if I faced her now, it would be raw in her eyes and she would turn away.
'I'm sorry,' I offered.
'What for?'
'I don't know, but if it makes any difference, I am.'
'You're sorry.' She laughed without humour.
'Yes.'
'It's not you that should be sorry.'
'Why?'
'Because…' She stopped and then sighed. 'Because I was going to kill you.'
'You didn't know it was really me.'
'I didn't know at first, but then I realised it was you and I was going to do it anyway.'
I took a deep breath. 'Can I ask why?'
'It's complicated.'
'I don't understand.'
'No, you don't. But a big part of me, a strong part of me, wanted to shove that knife in as far as it would go. I wanted to see your blood pool on the floor and watch you die.' Her voice was brittle and she was more of a stranger to me in that moment than at any time since we had met.
'But you didn't.' I kept my voice calm, trying to steady her.
'I knew it was you and I still wanted to kill you.'
She was trying to explain it to herself, as if her hand had been guided by some external force.
'The important thing is, you didn't.'
'I was going to.'
'But I'm still here. So it's OK.'
'It's not OK. It'll never be OK.'
And there it was, the dead end I encountered every time I tried to reach out to her. I stood watching the traffic, unable to cross the chasm between us. I was surprised when she spoke.
'When I was little, we lived in a house in a forest.'
Her voice lost its edge and softened with memory. I had no idea where this conversation was going but I left her space to think about what she wanted to say and it was a while before she spoke again.
'The house was deep into the trees. At night, sometimes, I went to sleep with the wind roaring in the canopies around the house. It was elemental, and I loved it.'
