'Or what?' he said. 'Will you cut me with your sword? You can kill a few of us, but we are many, many more than you can imagine.'
In answer Amber held out her arm and flames licked up her wrist up onto her hand, rising until heat haze shimmered from it. 'We all have our talents,' she said.
'Enough,' I said. 'Stop it. Amber, please don't. It's not helping. Andy, I'm sorry, it seems like I've been pursuing you but actually I want your help.'
'You have a strange way of asking for it.' The circling of the bees continued.
'I know, and I apologise. Can we talk? I think you may find what I have to say interesting, and it could help you and potentially others like you — like us.'
'Us?'
I glanced at Amber. 'As she said, we all have our talents.'
'What's yours?'
'I could show you, but I'm not sure your bees would like it. Another time, maybe.'
'I don't want you here. Go away,' he said.
'I wish it were that simple. I know where you were taken, what they did to you.'
He shook his head, denying my words. 'How can you know? You weren't there. You don't bear the scars. I should know.' There was anger in his words now, and remembered fear.
'I was there, but at the end. I was the one who broke in, a… colleague and I, we stopped it. We were the ones who finished it and set you all free.' It felt wrong portraying myself as a hero, when what I'd done felt far from heroic, but perhaps Andy needed something to believe in, something to connect with.
'Why? Why should I believe you?'
'Because you can hear it in my voice. Because you know I'm telling the truth. I didn't go there to rescue you, it's true. I went to free my daughter who was there with you. I rescued her, but I set you all free.'
'You brought the darkness?'
To him, as an inmate of Porton Down, where the lights blazed twenty-four hours a day every day, it must have seemed like that. Raffmir and I brought darkness to a place that knew only light.
'I brought the darkness. As she said, we all have our talents.'
He looked thoughtful, glancing across at the hives and then back at us. Then he came to a decision.
'Go away,' he said. 'Leave the hives alone.'
'I need to speak to you.'
'Go back down, and I will come to you. Go back to the market. I will find you.'
'You'll come?'
'If you leave now.'
I glanced at Amber.
'It's not like he can run off somewhere,' she said quietly. 'He'd have to take the hives with him, and it's not easy moving them. The bees know the area. They're creatures of habit.'
'OK,' I called to him. 'I'll wait for you.'
We climbed down and made our way back through the flat, locking the door after us.
'How did you know where he was?' I asked Amber.
'Bees fly horizontally unless you give them a reason not to. There were no bees at ground level, so they had to be up a height somewhere. The rooftop is an obvious place. Plenty of room, and no one to disturb them.'
'He keeps the bees, and they keep him,' I said, remembering him selling the honey.
'He is the bees. What do you want to say to him?' asked Amber as we made our way back to the street.
'I want his help in bringing together the escapees. He tried to organise them in Porton Down, so he knows some of them — more than most, anyway.'
'He tried to organise them,' said Amber. 'Figures.'
'I think he could be helpful,' I said.
'Bear in mind he won't travel far,' she said. 'He's ruled at least partly by his animal shape. By winter he's liable to be mostly dormant.'
'The other inmates may trust him. You've seen how little they trust anyone else.'
'Well, you don't need me for this. Are you OK to find your own way back to the courts?'
'I'll be fine. I'll join you later,' I said.
A smile touched her lips. 'Don't get yourself stung to death.'
When I got back to the courts, Garvin wanted an update.
'So you didn't bring him in?' he challenged.
'I'm not sure anyone could make him go anywhere he didn't want to go,' I said.
'Amber did say it was unusual.'
'He's tied to the hives in ways I probably can't comprehend. He can't move anywhere any more than the bees can. If I brought him here, he couldn't stay for more than a short while. It's not a choice, it's how he is.'
Garvin raised an eyebrow. 'Do you think he can have children?'
'What kind of a question is that?' I asked. 'Can Lord Kane? Or is there a risk of kittens?'
'You need to be careful, saying things like that,' said Garvin.
'Because Kane's fey, or because he's a Lord of the Seven Courts?'
'Both, and because he's liable to tear your heart out and eat it,' said Garvin.
'He's promised not to harm me.'
'Then it's his word that's standing between you and sudden death. How far do you want to test it?'
'Point taken.'
Garvin folded his hands. 'I'd rather you didn't test his level of patience.'
'My point is that it's not an appropriate question in either case. Sure, Kane is one of the Lords and Ladies, but why is it anyone's business whether Andy can be a successful father? That's between him and his partner, if he has one, surely?'
'The courts have an interest in the fertility of the halfbreeds, you must understand that. It's why they exist.'
'No,' I said. 'It's how they came to be, but it's not why they exist. They exist for themselves, not because someone in power called them into existence, and not because they live to serve. They are themselves. We have to stop thinking of them as an experiment, and start thinking of them as people. Otherwise this will all fall apart. Don't you see?'
'I live to serve,' said Garvin, 'and I don't see anything wrong with service.'
'Then that's your choice,' I pointed out, standing, 'but it's not their choice and you can't force it upon them.'
I left him with that thought, and as I left I thought I heard him make some comment behind me, but it was lost in the background noise. It seemed to me that Garvin was more difficult to deal with each day, but perhaps it was simply that I kept bringing him more and more unsolvable problems.
I stretched my back and rotated my shoulders. It had been long day and I needed rest. I resolved to go and find Blackbird and try for an early night, though my son might have other ideas.
SIXTEEN
I was woken by a familiar sound. I lay in bed with Blackbird breathing softly beside me, listening to our son grizzling to himself in the next room. Miraculously we'd managed an early night and collapsed into bed with the zealous vigour that parents of young children have when given the chance to be in bed together — we were both rapidly asleep. Now we were paying the price. My son was awake and hungry, and shortly he would make himself heard whether we were asleep or not.
I slipped from under the covers, tucking the quilt around Blackbird so the chill of the night air wouldn't wake her. If anything, she'd been more exhausted than I was, so I would take the opportunity to feed the baby without waking her, and let her sleep.
Our son was mostly breastfed, but I could make a bottle up if needed and if he was hungry enough, he would
