'I thought you might be asleep.'
'It's the middle of the day, Dad.'
'People do sleep in the day, especially when it's hot.' I went in and sat in the armchair near the window out of the sun. She rolled over, resting her head on her hands.
'Not me. I can't sleep unless it's dark. Not even then, sometimes.'
'Still having nightmares?'
'No.' The lie was blatant and obvious.
I'd asked Blackbird how she could lie so openly, given that fey magic rankled against a lie. Blackbird had shrugged and told me that teenagers had a different relationship with the truth. 'Maybe to her, it's not lying,' she had suggested, but the tone in Alex's voice told me that it was, even though she showed no sign of being tongue- tied or having any difficulty with her words.
'What's up?' Alex asked me.
'I just came to see how you were — how you're getting on with Fionh.'
'She's busy. She said she'd come and see me later.'
'I know. I thought I'd come and see how you were getting on with your practice.'
'It's boring.'
'It's necessary.'
'She says I'm doing better than you are.'
'She said that? You must be doing well, then.'
'Not really. She was talking to Garvin about you.' The implied criticism hung in the heavy air.
'So have you done some practice this morning?'
'Sure.' Again the lie.
'Why don't you practice for a bit with me — you can show me how much progress you've made.'
'S'boring.'
'You can show me how many fish you can bring to the surface.'
Alex sighed and rolled over again to stare at the ceiling. 'When are we going home, Dad?'
'We are home.' Now I heard the lie in my own voice.
'Not this place. I mean real home. When are you going to take me to see Mum?'
'That's a bit difficult sweetheart.'
'She thinks I'm dead.'
'That's part of the difficulty, yes,' I nodded.
'I feel like I'm dead. I'm so bored!' The pipes rumbled in the bathroom. Alex glared at the bathroom door and they subsided.
'Why don't you do something, then? You could play tennis?'
'All the bats are broken.'
'They're called racquets.'
'They're all broken.'
'I thought you played with Fellstamp last week?'
She sighed. 'They were old. They twisted when we played with them. They're all broken now.'
'OK, we could find some more?'
'Fellstamp cheats.'
'He cheats? In what way?'
'Doesn't matter. They're broken anyway.' Her arm flopped out sideways and hung over the edge of the bed. 'I've got bats at home. Kayleigh and me used to play.'
'Kayleigh and I,' I corrected.
'We used to play on the courts after school. Even if we didn't have a net it was better then playing with Fellstamp. Kayleigh doesn't cheat.'
'I'll talk to Fellstamp.'
'Don't bother. He won't play with me, and I don't play with cheats.'
'All right, I'll ask Slimgrin if he'll play with you.'
'He's on assignment. Garvin told Fionh. He won't be back until next week.'
'Fionh, then.'
'Fionh's too stuck up. Besides, I don't like tennis anyway.'
It was my turn to sigh. 'Well, what would you like to do?'
'I want to see Mum.'
'Alex… it isn't that easy.'
'Why? What could be simpler? How hard could it be? We go and see Mum… that's it,' she shrugged.
'You can't go back to living with your mother.'
'Why not? You just don't want to admit that you lied to her. Again.'
'I didn't lie to her.'
'You told her I was dead!'
'You were dead… or at least we thought you were. That's what we were told.'
Alex straightened her legs and lay with her arms crossed over her chest, eyes closed in a parody of death.
'You're not dead, Alex. I can see you breathing.'
She twisted over suddenly. 'No! I'm not dead! So why do I have to live in this morgue? Nothing happens here. It's like a home for the elderly. There's nothing to do and no one to do it with. I might as well be dead.'
'Don't say that. It's not true.'
'I want to see Mum. I want to see Kayleigh and I want my room back.' She was shouting and as her voice rose the rumbling in the pipes rose with it. 'I want my music, and my things. I want to be in my own room, in my own house, doing my own thing. What's so hard about that?'
I kept my voice quiet, trying to soothe her. 'I do understand, but it's more complicated than that. Your mum… It's going to be a huge shock. She needs to be prepared.'
'So prepare her! Write her a letter. Get on the phone. Do something! Anything!' The pipes rattled and banged.
'It's not just your mum, Alex. Everyone thinks you're dead. Your teachers, neighbours, friends… you can't just walk into school and say, 'Hi — I'm back'.'
'Why not? What do they care? They'll get over it.'
'You killed three girls, Alex. You drowned them, remember?'
'They don't know that. They think it was an accident.'
'It wasn't an accident, though was it?'
'Is that what you think? You think I killed them on purpose? You think I filled that place up with drain-water and shit just to get even with that slag and her council-flat coven?'
'I didn't mean it like that.'
'Well how did you mean it? Huh?'
'I meant that it wasn't an accident. The drains didn't explode, did they Alex? There was no build up of gas. It was you.'
She rolled over again, staring at the ceiling. 'They should've left me alone. I tried to warn them. Kayleigh did too. Fionh says they got what they deserve.'
'I find it hard to believe that Fionh said that.'
'She said that if you are challenged and you win, then that's fair. It's blood price. You don't challenge someone if you're not prepared to fight — to the death if necessary.'
'She means among the Feyre, Alex. She's not talking about human people.'
'I'm fey now, though, aren't I? Them rules don't apply to me.'
'Those rules, and they apply to you if you want to be part of human society. I don't think you can go back, sweetheart, not once you've broken them.'
'You broke them,' she accused.
'Yes, I suppose I did. But I can't go back either.'
'Mum's got Barry now.'
