"I see. Pushing you up to the sharp end again, is he?"
"If Alex comes back, could you ask her to wait," I asked her.
"I'm not your secretary, Niall."
"Look, I have to go out, OK? If I don't go… who knows what Amber will do. I'm only asking that if Alex comes back while I'm out, you'd ask her to wait until I get back so I can talk to her."
"She's used to waiting."
"What does that mean?"
"Only that your daughter, like many other things, doesn't seem to take priority."
"She's not even here," I said. "I can't talk to her if she's not here, can I? What am I supposed to do? Sit around on the offchance that she appears?"
"I'm sure you could find something to do," she said quietly.
I sighed. "I have work to do, and I really don't have time for this now."
"Off you go then. Have a good day at the office, darling." She smiled but there was no joy in it.
"You're in a strange mood. Is something wrong?"
"No. I'm fine. Go and save the world, or whatever it is you have to do," she said, turning back to the laundry.
I shrugged and left, unable to untangle whatever it was that Blackbird was not telling me. It was as if she was sending me a message I couldn't decode. She'd always wanted a baby, that much was obvious, and now she had one. She'd got what she wanted, so what was the matter? Didn't she like being a mother?
Heading down to the room where the Waypoint was, I found Amber leaning against the wall, showing no sign of impatience, or indeed any emotion whatsoever. The contrast between them struck me. I couldn't imagine having the conversation I'd just had with Blackbird, with her. Amber watched everyone, but no one watched Amber.
I made a point of assessing her. She had one black leather boot forward, where she leaned against the wall, the other boot was back against the wall, ready to propel her into action. I noticed for the first time that her boots had heels, not high, but enough to give a small lift. Her favourite weapon, a straight blade with a cord-bound hilt long enough to be wielded two handed, was slung from her hip in a black lacquered scabbard, over dark grey trousers. She wore a grey top loose enough to allow movement, tight enough not to snag or catch.
"Like what you see?" she asked, candidly.
"You're not used to being noticed, are you Amber?" It was more a statement of fact than a criticism. I wondered if merging into the background was part of her glamour.
She watched me with dark eyes under the black tousled fringe while I took in her hard chin and sharp cheekbones; she was angular. Her shoulders were sharp and bony, she was lean without Fionh's curves or Blackbird's softness and that gave her a wiriness that none of the other Warders had. The only time I'd seen Amber show any emotion was at the memorial service held for Alex and the dead girls. After the speech, she had embraced me with tears in her eyes and told me to be strong. It was so uncharacteristic that it stuck in my memory like a thorn. There was no sign of that emotion here. It was another Amber, carved from something hard and uncompromising.
"I'm ready," I told her.
She smiled faintly, then stepped forward onto the Waypoint. There was a twisting vortex and she vanished. I stepped forward after her and felt beneath me for the rising wave of the Way. I could feel her track through the Way, not warm like Blackbird, but cold and precise.
I followed it.
Having nearly been caught stealing clothes, Alex was a lot more careful about what she took after that. She made sure that none of it had security tags, or if they did, it was a moment's thought to remove them. They were tamper proof, but that was against people, not fey. It was just an opening, after all, and with a little practice she could look at a security tag and it would fall off.
She was wearing the kilt and top. The high-heeled shoes she had stolen were ditched — they were party shoes; she could barely walk in the damned things, let alone run. It had taken more ingenuity to acquire the white calfskin baseball boots she now wore. She'd had to persuade the girl in the shop to let her try them on, then follow her quietly into the stockroom when she put them back. She had swapped the silly heels for the boots and walked out. When the next person wanted to try that size they would find the heels, but by that time she would be long forgotten.
She sat on the tube train in her new clothes looking at her distorted reflection in the curved window opposite. She had make-up in her new handbag, along with a comb and a rather nice purple silk hair clip. She'd tried the clip in three times before abandoning and stuffing it back into the bag. Her hair had a mind of its own, and rejected the clip no matter how firmly she pushed it in.
She'd stolen a sandwich too, and wolfed that down. She'd wanted a burger and fries but you had to order and pay for those, and she still didn't have any money. She'd considered stealing a purse, but taking from shops was one thing, stealing from people was another. Shop stuff didn't belong to anyone until it was bought, but people's stuff was personal. She wasn't a thief.
The train was emptying slowly as it got further out. Getting on board was child's play, and there were no ticket inspectors on the underground. All she had to do was wait and it would carry her home. She thought briefly about what her mum would say about her new clothes, but other than today, Mum hadn't seen her for weeks. With any luck her mum would assume Dad bought them, and vice versa. Besides, she couldn't wear clothes that didn't fit, could she? No amount of glamour would fix a zip that wouldn't close.
The woman opposite, three seats down kept glancing at her. Alex fussed with her hair, wondering if it was being unruly again. It had a habit of curling and uncurling on its own if she didn't pay attention. She met her gaze and the woman looked away. She had a nice tattoo on her arm, though. It was a butterfly with long tails on its wings.
Alex had wanted a tattoo for ages, but she knew her mum would go mental, and there was the added deterrent that girls like Tracy Welham had them. Of course, hers were gross and anyway, she was dead. Alex shifted uncomfortably on the seat.
She didn't care that the Welham girl was dead. She was evil. The reason Alex had the panic attacks was because of what they'd done to her — they'd made her lose control. She didn't feel guilty, no matter what the psychologists said. They should have left her alone. She'd told them, hadn't she? She'd warned them. Anyway, it was like Fionh said. They had challenged her, three against one, and they'd lost. Tough.
Her mind wandered back to the tattoo and she found herself staring at the woman. She was about thirty or something, what was she doing with a tattoo? She looked at her own arm. Slowly colours started to emerge, faintly at first, then stronger. The problem was that it looked more like one of the drawings on her school exercise book than the woman's tattoo. She scowled and it vanished. She couldn't turn up at Mum's with a tattoo anyway.
By the time the tube neared her station it was overground and she could look into the backs of people's gardens as she rolled past. They were little dramas, each of them, or little soap operas, except no one got murdered. She wondered if that was where the Welhams lived.
She hopped off the train at her stop and exited beneath the notice of the station attendant. No one challenged her, no one even noticed. She walked along the avenues, noting familiar landmarks, passing the shop where she'd bought sweets, the road which led to her school. On impulse she walked towards the school, wanting to see what had become of the chaos she had visited upon them. When she reached the gate to the school field it was locked. She left it open behind her. She walked across the open field cloaked in glamour, noting the new window-frames in the changing block and the emergency door newly set in the wall of the girl's changing rooms.