Blackbird introduced me to you and Kareesh, before I even knew the Feyre existed, I was here, with you and Kareesh, wasn’t I?”
The eyes blinked again, but this time they did not re-open. I went back, shining the torch down the corridor. He had vanished silently into the dark. There were only the cold tiles and the empty stairway leading upwards.
Amber was waiting in the dark at the head of the stairway. We went through the door into the access tunnels below Covent Garden station and she looked me up and down.
“I’m OK,” I said. “A little bruised, but…”
She shrugged, and led the way out of station and back to the Way-node in silence. It gave me time to think about Gramawl, Kareesh and what they were doing. This was Kareesh’s doing, I knew that now, but what was it she had planned? In order to discover that, I needed to find her, but if Gramawl couldn’t find her, then what chance did I have? She’d vanished, after all those years sequestered in the tunnels below the Underground Station. I was not looking forward to telling Blackbird that Kareesh had disappeared.
Arriving back at the courts, I left Amber to her duties and went up into the house. With Kareesh unavailable, there was one other person who could help me figure out what this was all about. I went to see if Angela was back.
THIRTEEN
“Altair?”
“I have warned you not to use that name,” said the whisperer.
“It has to be now. He’s fading. If we don’t reach him soon, it will be too late.”
“After the solstice.”
“Now. He needs you now. You promised. After all I’ve done for you.”
“Done? Anything you’ve done has been for your own reasons.”
“Help him, or I’ll tell them everything.” Her voice was a low threat.
“By all means, tell them. Your part in it will be obvious. You’ll be executed on the spot. It won’t help him.”
“You have to help him. You promised me.”
“I said I would help Fellstamp, and I am helping him. He’s about to embrace the void that claimed him.”
“You said you would bring him back.”
“No, I said I would help him return. We all come from the void, and we all return to it. It’s inevitable,” said Altair.
“That’s not true – only the wraithkin return to the void,” she said.
“Ultimately we all come from the void, and we will all return to it,” he said. “Everything else is transitory illusion. It’s simply a matter of time.”
“You lying wraithkin bastard! You lied to me! You’ve betrayed me and Fellstamp!”
“You’re the one who’s been doing the betraying, Fionh, and if I were you I’d keep very quiet about it. Fellstamp must find his own peace with the void. I can’t bring him back, but I can give you revenge on the ones that placed him there. In a few days they will be at your mercy.”
“I don’t need you to deliver revenge,” she said. “I can do that for myself.” She walked away, no longer caring whether anyone saw her.
“Shall I follow her?” said a low voice.
“Only as far as the edge of the wardings,” said the whisperer.
“What if she tells Garvin?”
“She won’t. She’s too proud.”
“You’re sure?”
“I’m sure.”
When I reached Angela’s door it was closed and I wondered if she was still out with Blackbird, but when I tapped lightly on the door there was a noise from within, and Angela opened the door.
“Blackbird’s downstairs somewhere,” she said. “She went to speak to Mullbrook.”
“I wasn’t looking for Blackbird. I came to see you,” I told her.
She opened the door a little wider as if she were wondering who was with me, and seeing I was alone, opened the door further. “You’d better come in then.”
I couldn’t recall being in Angela’s room before, but I could see that she’d made it her own. She must have been being bringing items from her house, since there were trinkets that were nothing to do with the courts, and she had an ancient mechanical typewriter set up on the bureau. The rest of the space was covered in typewritten drafts and documents that she’d been working on. I looked around for somewhere to sit.
“There isn’t much room,” she said, clearing a space on the bed. “I don’t get many visitors.” I sat in the space she cleared, and she sat on the chair at the bureau. She waited until I got the hint.
“I came to see you because I dreamed again,” I said.
“That’s hardly a surprise.”
“I have a lot of the