'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.'
