"And what was that?" asked Garvin.
"This isn't about me, is it? It's about him." She gestured to where I was sitting half-upright on the floor. "This started long ago and I am only the latest link in the chain of events. I'm not the first to speak of a rising sun, am I?"
"Nor the last, probably. How about you Dogstar, what did you see?"
I looked up at Garvin and wondered what he wasn't telling me. "To me it seemed to be more about the past than the future. Maybe whatever it is has already happened and we're just not seeing it?"
"Seeing what?" asked Garvin.
"Perhaps if you told me what you were looking for, I could help you find it," I said.
"If we knew what we were looking for, I'd be able to find it myself," said Garvin. "Fellstamp, give Dogstar a hand, will you? He'll need to sleep it off. I'll ask Mullbrook to find room for Angela."
"I'm not staying," she said.
"On the contrary," Garvin said. "I insist."
"You did what?" Blackbird was incredulous.
"It was a calculated risk."
My head was thumping and my vision had acquired a strange heat-haze effect. Maybe that was causing the nausea.
"After our conversation this morning, when I specifically mentioned the dangers of letting her touch you, you let her do it again? What were you thinking of Niall?"
"We need to know what this is about."
"Who is this 'we', that needs to know?" she demanded. "Why don't you let Garvin dirty his own hands?"
"It wasn't Garvin's idea, it was mine."
"Then why, Niall? For goodness sake why?"
I sighed. "You didn't see her room. It's covered in images and clippings and scraps of paper, and as far as I can tell they all link back to me. It's like she's been following my progress without even knowing who I am. How can she do that?"
"She's fey, and a seer to boot. Who knows what her motives are?"
"You took me to see Kareesh. She's a seer."
"Yes, and I had doubts about that. Kareesh has cared for me since I was a girl but I don't just let her lay her hands on me any time she likes!"
"I had Garvin there to help. He could have stopped it if it was needed."
"What's he going to do, chop her head off? You had no idea what she was capable of — she was imprisoned the same as Alex. Do you think they were treating her any more gently than they did your daughter? She could be insane for all you know."
"She didn't seem insane."
"Your daughter didn't seem insane until she… no, sorry Niall, I didn't mean that. Alex isn't insane, she's just…"
"What?" My expression had darkened at the mention of my daughter's mental state.
There was a sound like a mewling cat from the next room which quickly changed to a more persistent cry.
"Now you've woken the baby," said Blackbird, an edge of irritation creeping into her tone.
"Me? I wasn't the one making all the noise."
Blackbird bustled into the nursery, and in a moment the curtains were drawn back and she reappeared carrying a flushed and rather cross baby.
"Don't you worry, Daddy's going to stop yelling at you now." She rocked him in her arms, though he continued screaming.
"I wasn't yelling…" but it was useless to argue since he didn't understand the discussion anyway and Blackbird was just making a point.
"Here," she said, handing me the screaming bundle. It never failed to amaze me how someone so small could make so much noise.
"There, there," I said, trying to make my voice soothing and still be heard over the din, "there's no need for all that, now, is there?"
I held him, being careful to support his neck which had a tendency to flop over to one side, and transferred him onto my shoulder, putting his mouth next to my ear, but making it easier to stroke his back and comfort him. I rocked from side to side and gradually the yelling subsided to a low-level grizzle.
Blackbird opened drawers and pulled towels from the rack, settling onto the bed. She held her hands out. "Pass him over."
"I've just calmed him down. Give him a moment.
"He's hungry, that's all. Pass him to me."
I gave in and lowered him into Blackbird's arms, whereupon he started crying again, just as I had predicted. Blackbird ignored the yelling and lifted her top, exposing a pale breast before lifting the baby's open mouth to a brown nipple. The crying was muffled for a moment and then subsided into a noisy suckling.
"See," she said. "Hungry."
I humphed and looked away. For some reason the sight of my son locked onto his mother's breast made me uncomfortable. Alex had been bottle fed as Katherine had problems with breastfeeding, not the least of which were several bouts of painful mastitis. Consequently I'd got used to seeing babies bottle fed, taking my turn as it came, but while the sight of my son gulping from Blackbird's swollen breasts was perfectly natural, I didn't feel that it was a spectator sport. Perhaps it was too many years of looking at women's breasts for entirely different reasons.
"Why don't you get some sleep," Blackbird suggested. "You look done in. I won't be long. As soon as he's finished his feed I'll put him back down — he should sleep for a couple of hours at least.
I took her advice, taking a brief shower while she fed the baby and then climbing into bed as she settled him back down. After a few minutes she climbed into bed beside me, sighing with exhaustion as her head hit the pillow.
"Hard work?" I asked.
"No, he's fine. Just a long day."
I rolled over onto my side, watching her stare at the ceiling. "I've been thinking about names," I told her.
"Not again, Niall. Not now," she protested, squeezing her eyes shut.
"A family name might be nice, do you think?"
"The Feyre don't name their babies until after the first halfyear. We've been over this a hundred times. He won't get his name for ages yet."
"It doesn't stop us choosing a name for him," I said.
"It's bad luck to name him early, and if you choose a name you'll start to use it, you know you will."
"I thought the Feyre didn't believe in luck."
"Tradition, then."
"Traditions can change? Neither of us is fully fey. Maybe he should have a name after three months, as a compromise."
"It's just not the way it's done Niall, you must try and understand."
"It seems a strange sort of tradition that won't give a child a name. Katherine had chosen Alex's name almost before she was born and it didn't do her any harm."
"Your son isn't Alex and I'm not Katherine, now turn the light off and go to sleep. He'll be awake in four hours and he'll want feeding again whether he has a name or not."
"It doesn't stop me thinking about it," I said.
"As long as you don't say it out loud." She deliberately made her voice sound more sleepy to discourage further conversation. I rolled onto my back and clicked the light off, staring up into the dark.
James was nice, and it could be shortened to Jim, though I didn't like Jimmy. Perhaps Paul — you couldn't really shorten Paul to anything.
With that thought, sleep claimed me.
The moonlight bled all the colour from the night. The grass looked grey as Alex hurried across the open space. When she reached the shelter of the oak tree she stopped, breathless, looking back where she'd come.
There were no lights on behind her, no alarms rang. She let the glamour concealing her fall away. Then she noticed the outlines of her footsteps were printed across the lawn where the dew had been disturbed. She stared at the prints, and one by one they smudged and vanished, leaving the grass pristine. She turned her back on the house.
Beyond the row of trees it was no longer lawn, but meadow. The grass would be longer but she'd leave less of a trail. Some cows had been allowed to graze the far field. She looked at her trainers and the bottoms of her sweat-pants which were already wet with dew. She frowned again and they were dry.