"Teoth asked for her to await the court's decision. That's normal, and hardly cause for this kind of hysteria."
"I would remind you that her life is at stake. That's hardly hysteria."
"We put our lives at stake every time we act. Life is risk. It's no different from what we do every week," said Garvin.
"No, there is a difference. We choose what we do. We don't have to sit there and wait for the axe to fall."
"You're overreacting."
"Am I? Or have you got so blase about killing that the taking of a life no longer seems important to you," I challenged.
"I'm not going to be provoked, Niall. You're wasting your time and mine."
"And I'm not going to be the person who brings these people in for execution. You said Teoth isn't a barbarian, well neither am I."
"You can't resign, Niall. This isn't that kind of job. Being a Warder is about making hard choices. It's about doing what no one else will do. You know that."
"Surely, being a Warder is not about killing innocent people? Isn't it about justice? You told me it's about doing what needs to be done, not executing people for the sake of… what? Convenience? That's not justice, that's just protecting vested interests."
Garvin stood, and for a moment I thought he would draw a weapon, but he simply placed his hands on the table.
"You have an overblown sense of your own importance," he said, but there was something in the statement that didn't quite sound true. It made me look at him afresh.
"What is this about, Garvin?" I was sure he knew more about this than he was letting on.
"It's about your ability to carry out the tasks assigned to you. We've had this discussion. These people are dangerous."
"When Angela granted me her vision, she said that this all started long ago. She said it was about me. What did she mean?"
"If I knew the answer to that question, I'd be a lot happier," he said.
"You know something," I accused him.
"I know lots of things," he said, "I know that if you won't bring these people in to the courts then I'll have to get someone else to do it. "
"You can't coerce me into imprisoning people so you can have them killed."
"Once again you wilfully misunderstand me. Your role as a Warder depends on your ability to do the job. If you won't do it then I'll give it to someone who will. Until then, stay away from Angela."
"What about Teoth's decision."
"She will be informed in due course."
"With the sharp end of a blade?"
"Don't push it, Niall. My patience isn't infinite."
I turned and left.
"He knows more than he's saying," I told Blackbird. I was pacing up and down our room while Blackbird sat near the window with her book.
"Garvin, devious? That should hardly come as a surprise," she said.
"Angela told me that Teoth asked her about that phrase, 'The sun will rise'."
"'And they shall fall,'" said Blackbird. "Prophesy is notoriously bad at predicting the future, Niall. Half the time it's better not to know. By the time you've figured out whether the prophesy is causing the future or the future is causing the prophesy, you may as well not bother."
"You took me to see Kareesh. That was for a prophesy."
"I was desperate. Extreme circumstances call for extreme measures. It worked, didn't it?"
"I'm not sure," I said. "Maybe the jury is still out on that one."
"You survived. Sometimes that's all that counts," she said.
"I couldn't have been there before, could I?"
"Been where?" She closed the book and set in on her lap.
"To see Kareesh. I couldn't have been there without you, could I? Before we met?"
"You didn't even know about the Feyre, Niall. How could you have been there without me?"
"I'm… in Angela's vision, I saw myself with Kareesh. You weren't there but Gramawl was."
"That's not how it happened," she said.
"I know, but in the vision it was real. She said things, she referred to things that happened later. I was there."
"I don't use the words 'notoriously unreliable' by accident," said Blackbird. "Prophesy at best is a view of what might be, the nodes and points of the future that are most likely to happen."
"But this already happened. This was the past, not the future."
"How do you know? How do you know that next week you're not going to have that conversation with Kareesh?"
"Teoth said — Angela's power is corrupted. She doesn't see the future, she sees the past."
"I would take issue with your use of the word corrupted. Different, perhaps?"
"I'm only repeating what Angela said. But if Angela sees the past then it is certain, because it's already happened."
"But you also said there was a burning man on the Underground platform. Was he burning when you saw him that day?"
"No. He was normal, like anyone else."
"There you are, then. Yes, she showed you the past — your past — but your brain interprets that in its own way. It inserts imagery and assigns meaning, even where meaning doesn't exist. Some things just are, Niall. They don't mean anything."
"She couldn't make me forget, could she?"
"Angela?"
"Kareesh. She couldn't bring me there and then make me forget?"
"Why? Why would she do that?" Blackbird spread her hands in frustration. "She didn't even know who you were until I introduced you."
I tried to sift through the tangle of images and things I knew. If Angela's vision was true then who was the burning man? No, it was like looking into a distorted mirror. But what if I had met Kareesh and Gramawl before Blackbird had taken me to her?
"You didn't answer my question," I said.
"Which question?"
"Could Kareesh make me forget meeting her and Gramawl so that I didn't even know it had happened?"
Blackbird stared at me for a long moment. "You know quite well that your perception of the world is governed by your senses and your senses can be manipulated, by glamour and other magic. You have to trust what's true, though. You have to find the truth and hold on to it. Otherwise you will mire yourself in a tangle of speculation and you will never get free."
"But she could have done it?"
"Yes," she confirmed. "Even I could have done it."
"Did you?"
"Niall." She was exasperated. "That is exactly what I just asked you not to do."
"Sorry. It's just… There's something going on. All this stuff about 'the sun will rise' means something. Garvin won't reveal what he knows and Teoth was probing Angela about it. Something important is going to happen and I'm involved."
"That may be true," she said, "but you can't rely on prophesy. 'The sun will rise' — a literal sun? A particular day? Another sun? Not a sun as in sunshine but a son as in a child? That's clearly what Deefnir thought."
"Maybe he knows something too."
"'And they shall fall'? Who will fall, Niall, and why? How far will they fall? Will that be a literal fall or a metaphorical fall… it's all useless until it happens, and you're only messing with your own head thinking about it."
"So you don't think we should try and find the book?"
"What book?"
"The one with the pages open to show the six symbols."
"There may not even be a book," she said.
"I'd bet money on it."
"You want to look for a book — one among how many? Millions? You don't know what it's called, or who it's by, or where it's kept."
"It was in a library."
"Well that narrows it down." She shook her head.
"It was old, and the person reading it was using lamps. That means it'll be even older now."
"There are a lot of old books, Niall. Some are in private collections. Some are in museums, galleries, libraries, private houses… you need somewhere to start looking."
"There was a design in the middle with four shields in a circle. Three symbols to each side of it."