I thought of my own fey lass, waiting for me. I didn't think that she would welcome a severed head as a gift, but then she wasn't truly fey any more than I was. The true fey were altogether more strange.
Not for the first time I shook my head at the turn my life had taken in the last nine months. My first encounter with the Feyre had been only the previous September when, having had a heart attack on the underground, I had been rescued by an old lady who had woken the fey magic within me to heal my failing heart.
I shook my head and smiled. The old lady had turned out to be a lot older than she looked, though she had changed now so that she appeared to be in her midtwenties. She had become my guide, my mentor and eventually my lover and I had gambled my life in a trial by ordeal for her safety and that of my daughter.
My daughter, Alex, had taken to Blackbird. I had hoped that they would get on well enough to bear each other's company, but I had found myself prodded into jealousy by the way they bonded. They would sit on the sofa, heads together, whispering to each other, and when challenged would tell me that it was nothing to concern me.
When I'd asked Blackbird what they were talking about, I'd been told to mind my own business.
"She's my daughter," I had protested.
"All the more reason that you shouldn't ask."
"Have you told her about me being fey?" I asked her.
"No. You're her father. When the time is right, you should tell her."
Blackbird left me with that thought. I'd held off telling Alex about the gifts I'd inherited from our unknown fey ancestor and the possibility that she would also inherit them. I reasoned that it was partly because I didn't really know whether it would happen or not, and partly because I dreaded what it might mean if it did.
My own gifts came from my affinity with the void, an element that the Feyre believed separated one thing from another, preventing matter from collapsing in on itself. If Alex had inherited that from me then she would inherit the female form of the gift, an ability to become incorporeal, a ghostly shadow of herself, invulnerable to physical harm. She would also inherit darkspore, a corruption that she would be able to spread at will on any surface, allowing her to consume other beings and feed on their flesh.
It wasn't the best news a father could give his daughter. I imagined her reaction, the curling of her lip in that peculiar way as she elongated ' eww ' into a whine. I smiled at the thought, but it had kept me from telling her.
It wasn't certain, though. I had also been told that humanity had introduced a random factor into the inheritance. The Feyre had long had problems with fertility. When they did have children they bred true, each to their element, their forms reflecting their differing affinities. When they discovered that the union between fey and human was fertile it caused a rift between those who believed that the union would save the Feyre from extinction and those who saw human-fey hybrids as an abomination, a corruption of their bloodlines. What neither the pure-bred Untainted nor the remaining factions of the Seven Courts had realised was that the human DNA somehow altered the mechanism of inheritance, meaning that there was no way to be sure what fey traits would be inherited. My hope was that maybe Alex would inherit some other gift, possibly fire and air like Blackbird rather than the grisly gifts of the void.
In any case there was no way to tell. She would either find herself one day gifted with uncanny power, or she wouldn't. If she did, she would live an unnaturally long life. If she didn't, she would live a human lifespan and age and die long before I did, assuming that no one broke my neck with a wooden sword first.
I dried myself and pulled on my jeans and T-shirt. I was not allowed the charcoal uniform of the Warders. Garvin would decide when I could wear grey and he would make sure that I would not disgrace the reputation of the Warders before he would allow that. His decision was final.
I looked forward to that day with a degree of trepidation. It would mean that he thought I was worthy of it, which was a huge compliment, but it would also mean that I was available for duty. Being a Warder meant being ready twenty-four hours a day, seven days a week. The Lords and Ladies could request our assistance or assign duties whenever they felt like it. That was the job.
In practice, it wasn't an onerous schedule. Mostly the courts kept to themselves, dealing with their own internal issues. It was only when something affected all of them that the Warders were involved. Then the Warders would be called upon to carry out the will of the Seven Courts of the Feyre, which could be anything from delivering a message to carrying out an execution. The will of the courts was absolute, and the Warders were there to ensure it was enacted. I had heard that a job rarely took more than three of them.
There were six of them and me, one from each of the seven courts. I had bargained for my life by threatening to expose the High Court's weakness. Their solution had been to make me a Warder, ensuring my loyalty and my silence, sworn under an oath bound by magic far more powerful than my own. But I wasn't an active Warder until Garvin said I was. It was his call.
I clipped my phone to my belt. Amber called it my boy-toy and had told me to drop it down a well. She spurned all the trappings of technology and connected with no one outside the Warders as far as I knew. Even then it was a cold relationship. My phone was my connection with my human life and the means by which other people, human people, could contact me. In truth it had its limitations. If I used power with it near me then the battery would drain, sometimes beyond recharging. It had been through five batteries in its short life, even through I carried it only when I needed it. It wasn't allowed in the practice hall where it could distract me from my training but it meant I could check for messages when lessons were done for the day.
It beeped twice when I turned it on. That would be Blackbird wanting to know what time I would be home. She had only partially settled into domestic life and felt vulnerable without the magic that her pregnancy denied her. I was assured it was quite natural and that it was to protect the baby from the raw power of fey magic. She accepted it, but she wasn't happy about it. It was the first time she had been without magic for hundreds of years and she felt the loss keenly.
I grabbed my bag. The phone beeped again. What was the matter now? She knew I couldn't be contacted until the session ended, so what was the point of sending me multiple messages? Or was it simply that she wanted me to get some milk on the way home?
I unclipped my phone from my belt and pressed the button to read the messages. The phone beeped again as I held it. What was the matter with it?
The first message was from voice-mail saying that there was a voice message for me. The second message was from Blackbird. It said, "Call me, URGENTLY." The third message was from voicemail again. Another message beeped as I dialled Blackbird. What was going on?
The number rang twice, then picked up.
"Hello?"
"It's me. You wanted me to call."
"Thanks goodness, Niall, I've been trying to reach you all afternoon. Katherine rang. There's been an accident."
"What kind of accident?"
"It's Alex. She's in hospital."
My stomach clenched at her words. "What happened? Is she OK?"
"I don't know. There was some sort of incident at school. They called Katherine. She called me when she couldn't reach you. She said they were going to the hospital."
"Is Alex all right?"
"I don't know, Niall. She said to meet her there."
"Give me the name of the hospital."
Blackbird read out the address of a London hospital and gave me directions.