But when she slept, her dreams were full of trees flashing past in the dark.
Amber near enough dragged me through the Ways without pause for thought. I was already dreadfully tired and instead of the usual elation, I felt drained and slightly sick. I wondered what happened if you threw up on the Ways. Did it spew vomit out over you when you were finally ejected? That thought held my stomach together until we were back at the courts.
She supported me as far as the door to the rooms that Blackbird and I shared. I leaned against the wall, hatching an ambitious plan to sneak in, grab a shower and change out of my blood-soaked clothes before Blackbird discovered I’d been shot. That plan was rather undermined when I discovered Blackbird and the baby with Angela and Lesley in our rooms.
“You can do the explaining,” said Amber, as she helped me inside.
Blackbird almost did a double take. “What on earth happened?” she asked, passing the baby to Lesley and taking in the dark stains spread into my shirt and trousers, almost black against the Warder grey.
“It’s not as bad as it looks,” I said, the words tripped on my tongue as I tried to play down the situation.
Blackbird pulled open my jacket for a better look. “This is blood! For goodness sakes, Niall, you’re covered in it. What happened?”
Now that I was safe, my reserves were suddenly spent. I put an arm out to the door to steady myself and missed my handhold, dropping my sword and stumbling so that Amber half caught me. Instead I slid slowly to the floor, half supported by her. My eyes felt suddenly heavy. “It’s OK,” I said. “Amber was there.”
“You’re wounded,” said Blackbird. “Angela, get me a towel soaked in cold water. Amber, help me get him out of this jacket.” Between them they eased me out of the jacket, and Blackbird inspected the holes where the bullets had entered.
“Amber helped me…” I mumbled.
Blackbird collected some scissors from the desk, addressing Amber. “I suppose you have some explanation for this?” she asked her.
“It’s not my doing,” she told Blackbird. “This is all his own work.”
I roused myself in Amber’s defence. “If it hadn’t been for Amber, I wouldn’t be here.”
“What happened to looking out for each other,” asked Blackbird, cutting me out of the shirt. “Dump those on the bath, Angela. They’re ruined anyway. I need to clean some of this blood off.”
“We are looking out for each other,” said Amber. “He’s here isn’t he?”
“This isn’t Amber’s fault,” I said. My words sounded slurred, even to me. “I underestimated Sam. He picked his moment.”
“Can you stand?” she asked me, “Walk as far as the bathroom?”
I nodded, though I was far from sure.
Between Blackbird and Amber they manoeuvred me into the bathroom. I had a moment of modesty, but Blackbird overruled me, stripping out of my blood-soaked trousers.
“She’s seen it all before,” she claimed, but Amber made her excuses and retired gracefully and left Blackbird to clean me up. She inspected the newly pink skin over the wounds in my side where Sam had shot me, probing them gently with her fingers. Taking a wet flannel, she cleaned off the dried blood while I told her about the missing horseshoes, the flat, the message left on the fridge and the rendezvous with Sam.
“I guess Sam knew one side of the story,” I said, recovered a little now I was sat down. “I was going to try and explain the rest.”
“It sounds like he’s already had an explanation, reached a conclusion and acted upon it,” she said. “Hold onto the edge of the edge of the sink.”
“What for?”
“Just do as you’re asked for once.”
I did as I was bid and she placed her hands over my heart and the wound in my side. The air in the bathroom chilled, the lights dimming as a gentle warmth spread out under her palms.
“Should you be doing that?” I asked. “You’ll upset Garvin again.”
Blackbird explained what Garvin could do with his objections while the heat in my side intensified. It became almost painful, and I gripped the side of the sink hard. I could feel her warmth spreading through me, knitting together the damage that had been done.
“There,” she said, “that will help, but you’re going to be taking it gently for a few days. We’re going to have to rethink a few things. If Amber has been shadowing you then Garvin probably knows more than we anticipated. That has implications for whoever he’s sharing that information with.
“Amber knows about the horseshoes, but I think that’s as far as it goes,” I said.
“Unless she’s been spying on us all along,” suggested Blackbird. She helped me sit and then returned to the bedroom. I could hear her thanking Lesley and ushering Angela out, telling them that I needed rest and that she would deal with matters in the morning. When she came back in, she was holding our son, who reached out his hands to me. “He wants you,” she said.
I took him from her gingerly, conscious of the tenderness in my newly healed flank. As I took him from her it sent shooting pains down my side, but it was bearable. Whatever Blackbird had done had definitely helped. He was only in a nappy and vest and as I took him he laid his head on my shoulder. It seemed to me that he’d picked up some of his mother’s anxiety and wanted to see for himself that I was OK. I held him while Blackbird tossed the rest of my ruined clothes into the bath and soaked the flannels she used to clean me up in a sink of cold water. She shook her head as she watched the water change colour.
“This life…” she said, addressing my reflection in the mirror. “It’s not what he needs. He needs stability and love, room to grow.”
“We’re getting there,” I said.
“He needs a father that comes home, preferably not soaked in his own blood,” she said, looking down into the spreading cloud of pink water in the sink.
“I’ll be more careful in future,” I said.
“While you work for Garvin, there will always be risks,” she said.
“Everything is a risk. Crossing the road is a risk, taking a taxi is a risk. I could be struck by lightning.” She frowned. “OK, that was a bad example.”
“Taking a taxi doesn’t get you shot, though,” she pointed out, not unreasonably. “And while crossing the road may be hazardous, the drivers aren’t usually actively trying to kill you.”
“Amber says I’m doing better than some,” I said. “I can only do what I can do.”
“Pity Sam didn’t try and shoot Amber instead,” she said. “Amber would have killed him.”
“He’s not himself. He’s still torn up about whatever was between him and Claire, and now there’s no chance of a getting back together.” I said. “He blames me for Claire’s death, and there’s little I can say to convince him that I didn’t kill her.”
“And so you let him shoot you. That seems very even-handed, I must say.”
“You’re not usually so keen on me killing people,” I pointed out. My son started shifting and grizzling against my chest. “Now he’s upset because you’re upset,” I said. “He’s picking up on your emotions.”
“And I’m upset because you could be dead.” She lifted him from me and cradled our son against her chest until he subsided into a low grizzle. “He’s just tired. I wanted to spend some time with him today, but it feels like it’s just slipped by without pause for breath.” She rocked him against her, shushing him slowly.
“He’s not the only one,” I said.
“You’re cross with yourself for letting Raffmir get the better of you,” she said. “You feel guilty at letting him kill Claire under your nose when you were supposed to be protecting her, but you’re forgetting that there were likely two of them and they had the advantage of surprise.”
“I’m a Warder, Blackbird. They’re not supposed to be able to surprise me.”