to her lips. She blew into them and a glow formed within, escaping between her fingers. She threw her hands wide and hundreds of pale butterflies erupted from her hands, circling like a flickering cloud around her. They rose and circled, fluttering out over the surface of the warding as they scattered. From the pattern of their flight we could see that the warding extended up and over forming a sphere around the orb.
'Even if we could climb it,' said Blackbird, ' there's no way to get inside.'
'I wasn't thinking of getting inside,' said Garvin.
'Then what were you thinking?' I asked. It took me a moment to catch on. He was suggesting that I use my power to create a weapon and drop it inside the circle.
'It won't work,' I said. 'As soon as I try and draw power the clouds open up and drop thunderbolts on me.' I glanced over to the group on the hill, my daughter sprawled on the ground. 'Even if I was prepared to do it.'
'It won't matter what you do to her shortly,' said Garvin. 'Either to you, or to her.'
'How did you know we were here?' asked Blackbird.
'You jest,' said Garvin. When Blackbird's expression didn't change he explained. 'Half the power grid for the country is out, the Ways are erratic and dangerously unstable and there are landslips, floods and local tornados everywhere, all centred here. I thought's that how you'd found it.'
'No,' said Blackbird, 'We used our brains.'
'For all the good it did you,' said Garvin.
'Just stop it!' I told them. 'I'm going to work my way round, see if I can attract someone's attention.' I walked away, hoping that my exit would persuade them to stop bickering and put their heads together.
Away from the path, the land sloped away more steeply. Here the land was formed into shallow terraces that followed the hill almost like visible contours. I stepped down as the edge of the warding forced me to drop another level. From this position I could see less rather than more. Wondering what was going on at the top of the hill, I worked my way around until I was climbing again. I came up between the dark outline of the tower against the sky and the edge of the warding. Ahead of me were two figures, twenty feet apart. They faced each other. One was my daughter, and the other was Tate. I ran forward to speak with her, but as I did she turned her back and headed back into the circle.
I reached Tate, finding him absorbed in watching her walk back towards the orb.
'What happened?' I asked.
'She tried to leave, but she can't. They can't get out any more than we can get in.'
'What did she say? Why didn't she stay?'
Tate turned to me.
'She said, whatever happens, no matter how things turn out, however long we have left, she wanted you to know that she loves you.'
I pressed myself against the warding, watching her retreating back. 'Alex!' I shouted after her. 'Alex!'
She kept walking, never looking back.
As Chipper watched Eve, Alex scooted backwards, got to her feet and ran across the frost covered grass.
'There's no point in running,' Eve shouted after her. 'Very shortly there won't be anywhere to run to.'
She kept running towards the tower until she encountered the barrier. It threw her back and she bounced back onto the grass. She got up, brushing the grass from her skirt, her dignity more hurt than the rest of her, and then realised that there was someone watching her from beyond the barrier.
'Good evening, Miss,' said Tate.
He stood in the half light under the clouds. He might have been a stone, or the trunk from some ancient blasted oak. Except there were no stones up here, and no trees, only a broken windowless tower that looked like no one had ever used it.
'Are you going to pretend we're out for a walk again?' she called across the grass that separated them.
'Why,' he asked. 'Is there somewhere you'd rather be?'
She laughed, 'Yeah, I guess you could say that.'
'Glastonbury Tor is a beautiful spot, Miss' he said. 'The Isle of Avalon. You should have seen it before it was drained.'
'Yeah,' she said, gazing round at the fields below the Tor where they faded into grey in the half-light under the clouds. 'I think I'd have liked that.'
'You could leave?' he suggested.
'Can't, can I? Little Miss Mayhem over there has got the whole hill locked up tighter than a duck's arse.'
He smiled.
'What are you smiling at?' she asked.
'I was thinking that even ducks have to go sometime.'
'Yeah,' she said again. 'Except when it all goes down the toilet first.'
'Except then,' he agreed.
They watched each other across ten paces of grass. She thought she would have liked to accompany him in a walk around the hill, but that probably wasn't going to happen.
'Are you scared, Tate?'
'Of what, Miss?'
She laughed again, 'Of that,' she said, pointing up at the sky. 'That's what's happening. She's going to end the world and herself and me and everyone else with it. She's barking mad is what she is.'
Tate looked up at the black hole in the sky, then back at Alex. 'People don't do things without a reason, Miss. She'll have her reasons, even if they seem strange to you.'
'You know, I've played this game before, though not for real — never for real.' She looked up at the hole.
'What game, Miss?'
'If you had one hour before the end of the world, what would you do with it? Have you ever played that, Tate?'
'No, Miss. I don't think I have.'
'Yeah, well. It turns out that what I'd do in the last hour before the end of the world is freeze my arse off. I wish I'd brought something warmer. Aren't you cold?'
'I don't feel the cold, Miss. At least not yet.'
No, she thought, you probably don't. But you will.
'What's it for, Tate?'
'What's what for, Miss?'
'All of it? Life? What's it all for?'
'Does it need a reason, Miss? Does it have to justify itself? And if so, to whom?'
'Maybe we're about to find out,' said Alex, staring upwards at the wonders of the universe above her.
'Maybe we are,' he agreed.
'It doesn't seem fair,' she said. 'I was just getting the hang of it and now it's all going down the tubes.'
'There is no fair, or unfair,' said Tate. 'There is only doing, and not doing.'
'You forgot,' she said.
'Forgot what?' asked Tate.
'You forgot to call me Miss,' she reminded him.
He shook his head. 'No, Alex. I didn't forget.'
She watched him for a long time, but he neither moved nor changed expression. He met her gaze calmly, levelly, while she thought about everything she'd done, and everything she'd not done.
'I've fucked it up, haven't I?' She wrapped her hands tighter around her, shivering against the bone numbing chill.
'Have you, Miss?' he said.
'There you go again,' she said, throwing her hands up and walking around in circles. 'I just don't get it.'
'Yes you do,' said Tate.
She stopped suddenly. 'Are you winding me up?'
He simply inclined his head, which might have been a yes, and might have been a no.
'You've got a nerve, haven't you? I mean, the world is about to end and you're… what are you doing,
